This election over, the people lost.

The pure purpose of elections is to translate the will of the people to the government. To function as it should, election by popular vote requires levels of education, experience, intellect and information that simply don't exist.

As crippling as those are, they pale in comparison to the effect of money on the process. Anyone who who honestly believes that elections cannot be bought needs to pay closer attention.

If the next government is to be of the people, by the people and for the people, it will be so for one of only two reasons;

1. the people will have elected representatives who restored control over government to people, or
2. the people will take back control more directly and on their own.

If there is a third possibility to restore real control to the people, if there is some other way to at least shine the light of day on what they're doing with our power and our resources, I cannot imagine it, and to my knowledge, no one else has suggested it.

History suggests that we will not elect our saviors. It has been the goal of elections for more than two centuries to elect representatives to create a transparent and accountable government, and still the government that cannot be compelled to tell us the ethically redacted truth about how our power and resources are being spent.  What shall we do, vote harder and hope for better results?

If the people we elect, cannot or will not restore control over government to the people, we the people will do it themselves; beginning with transparency limited only by the spirit of the law, and the expressed will of the people.  The terms of public service are the prerogative of the people, not of their servants.

The executive branch isn't going to order the restoration of control to the people, the legislative branch is not going to restore it by law, and the judicial branch is not going to restore it by ruling. The people will take it back, or it will remain forever usurped.

The first step in taking back control over our power and resources is to illuminate the spending of the resources, the wielding of the power, and the public service of politicians and public servants.

The foundation upon which democracy stands, is transparency.

If there is not transparency, limited only by law and expressed will of the people, there is not Democracy. There cannot be.

We have lost the election. Those who will be elected cannot
or will not create a government as transparent as the law will allow. It has never happened before, it will not happen this election, and it will not happen the next. It will not happen the next unless you can imagine circumstances in the next election which don't include PACs and profligate spending in deliberate and concerted efforts to dishonestly manipulate the thinking of voters.

While we have lost control of the election process, there is still an opportunity to change government in order to minimize the effect of bought and paid for pols and public servants.

It is humanly possible to create executive and administrative systems that make it nearly impossibly difficult to hide corruption and incompetence.

Banks do it. Casinos do it. Everybody does it;
except government.