OP-ED: Democracy:
`It`s DIY or Watch It Die`

Salem-News.com

(SALEM) - Newspapers across the nation have hammered away with Sunshine Week features pointing out one potent fact about our `democratic form of government".

What every story printed presented to all parents planning for their progeny; partners in every business at company and corporate levels; entrepreneurs innovating and activating ANYthing new; and every other citizen now at work and still breathing, is this simple fact:

Democracy is a `do-it-yourself" pattern for productive life and liberties.

YOU make it work by your attention, your involvement, and your vote. The vote means little without understandings and meanings shaping your decision. Without that participation in the potent issues, voting can even be meanly manipulated and massively mis-directed.

That`s why `the free press" and its full powers to report from public records, shaping our deciding attention to paramount issues, is essential for what we we know as `democracy".

You either do what is demanded to make this process work and to preserve it for those who follow you -- or you discard and destroy it by your own failure to feel and recognize its delights.

Those delights disappear if you disregard the demanding responsibilities it carries for all who shelter, grow and live under its overriding provisions. That is why we have a First Amendment guaranteeing both free discussion and a `free press" to properly and promptly inform us.

This renewed human rational we now know as `democracy" came from the Renassaince Era return to Greek and Roman idealization of contributions to community, as a leader in linking civilized men seeking further progress for all. It is the prime pattern paramount wherever ongoing struggle has striven towards that returned-ideal.

Capitalism itself began as part of the pattern: As an effective way of life leading to the very resources demanded for that return to community considerations; shaping what became established world-wide as the root and reason for ongoing struggles for freedom, also world-wide, and continuing unto the present day.

The most potent part of the entire pattern is simply stated and even more simply-lived: You must take upon yourselves the essential responsibilities it demands, if you are to continue to enjoy its possibilities, promises and protections for your own lifetime, and for civilized certitudes for those who follow you.

Revealingly, it took several hundred more years after that Renaissance Era return to re-emerging civilization before woman`s proper, profound place as full partner was clearly recognized.

That irrevocably led to full essential involvement by `the other half of the world" in what has become an ongoing race against overwhelming catastrophic consequence -- if we allow a reversal --or even a partial block-- to the inevitably progressive process.

One can declare the absolute truth of the matter for all concerned: Democracy is surely a `do-it-yourself" system.

It demands constant concentrated attention from participants in its undeniable gains --or it will die, first as a working system and then consequentially as a shaping and enforcing fundamental philosophy.

That is why the free press has focused so sharply across the nation on ways you and all others hoping to enjoy the fruits of our democracy can take action -- at local, county, state and national levels, by that definitive action --the vote-- fully guided by the public record, press-revealed.

But how will you ever know what is truly at stake, and how to act --as demanded for your own survival and protection of your loved ones-- if you fail to pay full responsible attention shaping your own decision and action ?

You MUST `do it for yourself" --and be comforted and encouraged-- when you understand that prime modern necessity: Full and potent information from the public record, presented by our `free press".