- The presence of money in politics causes undue influence -- real or imagined -- over those elected to represent and serve the people.
- Every citizen has a right to free political speech, and the ability of the wealthy to dominate the national conversation through unlimited expenditures infringes on the right of ordinary Americans to make their voices heard, and indeed can alter the speech of the citizenry through the propagation of misinformation.
- While corporations as legal entities do enjoy certain rights, those rights are separate from the people who comprise the corporation, and do not include free political speech.
- Congress has become dysfunctional through polarization, lack of civil discourse, and representation of moneyed special interests, thereby neglecting its duty to represent the American people.
- America no longer has a clear direction or goal, resulting in an insular society where the rich seek to get richer and the poor struggle to survive.
I think that this is where we need to start. Cut to the core of the problem, fix that, and work on the symptoms later. Otherwise, we're just taking aspirin for a brain tumor.
Response on 1:
ReplyDeleteUnderstand that money in and of itself is not real. In whatever shape or form, it is nothing but a belief in the value or worth attached to the symbol i.e. the 'almighty dollar'. It is the belief in this worth that creates the reality, the realness, and the inherent power attached to it's accumulation. Society and its masses accept this for a variety of beneficial reasons, of which I will not delve further here because that would need its own separate forum. Nevertheless, a natural negative side effect is created in the concentration of this wealth/power in fewer and fewer hands. History seems to show the tipping point seems to be when we exceed a population:wealth ratio of 10:90 for a prolonged period of time. That is; where 10% of the population controls 90% of the wealth. I believe we are currently at 5:90, with even more of the wealth concentrated in the 1%, hence the hackneyed 99% moniker so casually tossed about. Ultimately, this kind of continued disproportionate ratio will cause the masses to rise up and revolt.
Response on 2:
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you when it comes to more traditional forms of media, where the ordinary citizen's voice can be drowned out by the huge amounts of media time which can be purchased by those with the resources and an agenda they wish to promote. However, there are still venues available, like this blog, where the 'average joe' may speak his mind and rally others to his cause. Time and again we see people and things go 'viral' in this medium, putting them in the thoughts and minds of the masses. Kony 2012 and its director's recent mental breakdown come to mind as a positive and negative examples.
Response on 3:
ReplyDeleteClearly, there are flaws within the recent Supreme Court ruling on this matter and they need to be addressed through repeal or amendment of the laws as they exist. Either way, if corporations are recognized as entities and treated as people in their ability to promote a political agenda, then it stands to reason they should be subject to the same limitations as people in their ability to donate or contribute to political campaigns. You can't have it both ways.
Response to 4:
ReplyDeleteHerein lies the crux of the matter and where I believe the answer is the easiest to come to, but the hardest to achieve. Fix this and many of the other issues will 'reform' themselves. Change the rules of the game and you will change how it's played. Quite simply, Thomas Jefferson said it best, term limits. Want to remove a lot of the vice and undue influence of PACS, lobbyers(sp), and corporations? Limit the number of years a career politician can hold office. Return the positions to part-time status as they were intended to be and you limit the influence of special interests. Gerrymandering congressional districts would be reduced when a congressman is limted to say 6 or 8 years and districts are redrawn every 10. Make no mistake, these things won't go completely away, but their influence would be diminshed and the voice of the people may be heard above the din made by these special interests.
Response to 5:
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more. A country always does better when it has a cause it can rally around or an enemy it can hate. Gone are the days of a 'manifest destiny' or clear direction. When we don't have that we languish and meander in a morose maze of malcontent. So what should be our goal, our cause? We've already crossed the continent and established our dominance in a world that gets smaller and smaller. Now we are the world's police force. We've already won the war on equality, although there are still skirmishes and battles to be fought. We are seven generations removed from the civil war and the resulting emancipation. We've changed our laws to allow equal rights and fight discrimination against anyone based on gender, handicaps, religion, race, sexual orientation, etc. One thing is clear, we have always done our best and excelled when we have been focussed and driven towards a common goal. Perhaps, with our shrinking world resources and increasing population, we should train our eye outward and look to the stars. A Mission to Mars won't fix our social ills anymore than Kennedy's Mandate to the Moon did for the 60's, but it did galvanize us and provided a goal that once accomplished, riveted this great nation and the world.
1. You are correct. The value of money is based on confidence in the United States. There is actually a discussion going on about how we can pay all of our debts and spur the economy simply by minting more money. I don't agree with the conclusions, but I agree with the theory.
ReplyDelete2. Yes, the internet is the unknown quantity in this case. While it has the potential to allow the average citizen to get his message out, traditional media still accounts for a large portion of people's information stream. I did write a bit about how this has always been a problem, and one that the founding fathers must have considered, since newspapers were mass media. However, I don't know that any newspapers were coast-to-coast, except possibly for the very wealthy. Now, both traditional and new media are carried in our pockets. So yes, eventually the average man will have the power to have his voice heard just as loud as those who have access to traditional media now, but it's going to take a paradigm shift to accomplish that, and we aren't at that point yet.
3. The thing with Citizens United is that it has nothing to do with political donations. It has everything to do with independent expenditures. If I wanted to buy ad space on CNN that claimed that aliens are drilling into people's brains and harvesting serotonin so that they can go back to their resort planets and get stoned, I am more than welcome to do that, assuming that I can front the money for the ad. This is where it gets sticky: corporations have (virtually) unlimited power to get that ad space, and they can say whatever they want in that ad. Personally, I'm not comfortable with that. The Supreme Court is right, in a way, that it's not illegal, but they assume that A) corporations, because they are legal entities, are entitled to the same rights as the members who comprise them, and B) it is not the Court's job to equalize speech. I disagree on both counts. Corporations are legal entities for convenience of law, and though they enjoy some of the rights of their members, they do not necessarily enjoy all of them. The Court has no responsibility to ensure completely equal speech, but it does have a responsibility to prevent completely unequal speech.
4. Term limits are being tossed around, and both sides are pretty adamant about the results. The problem is that the empirical evidence that we have is very short-term, other than the presidency. Even with the presidency, we only have one example of someone serving more than two terms (FDR). So no one really knows how term limits will play out. Both sides have fairly strong arguments, so I think the main issue here is whether or not a constitutional amendment can be passed enforcing term limits. We need to decide whether or not its a battle worth fighting right at this moment. I'm in between.
5. You got me. When I think about a long-term goal, I definitely think about space exploration and colonization. It really could be anything, though. We just need some direction, some obstacle to overcome, to start aligning people in a productive direction. If even 1% of the average citizen's time is spent pursuing some kind of civic duty, that's a step in the right direction.
Thanks for looking this over. In your opinion, have I hit at the heart of the matter?
Hey, thought I would pop in for a second. I am not sure I like the idea of simply minting more money. That sounds like it would
ReplyDeletea) devalue existing funds
b) decrease confidence in the dollar (if we're periodically flooding the economy with more dollars)
c) lead to inflation, directly affecting people with lower incomes, as the prices of goods rise.
If people can point me to some respected economic schools of thought on the topic that come to different conclusions, I'd give it a read, but ... its sounds like the sort of 'low hanging fruit' solutions we keep seeing on the grievance pages from non-experts.
There was one woman proposing to void all debts and stop using money. I really, really, really want the 99D to avoid a rep as a crossroads for disaffected cranks. We're already inviting smear campaigns just for standing up and being reasonable.
I don't have a lot of time to read this blog or the main page, but will try to catch up when I can.
Hey AB, thanks for checking in. The theory that's being talked about is Monetary Sovereignty. Though some believe otherwise, to me it has nothing to do with any kind of practical solutions. It's like saying "Well, laws are just something written on a piece of paper." It's true, and you could probably get away with breaking the law for a while, since the simple act of breaking a law doesn't bring any consequences, but chances are that at some point someone is going to try to hold you accountable.
DeleteSo, yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about the idea of just inventing money to fix the economy. All the talk about the economy is really just a distraction in and of itself. We need to get back to the core of the problem, and stop worrying about all of these other things.
I think you're homing-in on the heart of the matter very well, and would only sharpen the focus a bit by rearranging what I see as the essential elements of your 5 propositions into these 4 propositions:
ReplyDelete1. Lack of a currency controlled by, & benefiting, the people.
2. Lack of a legislative process controlled by, & benefiting, the people.
3. Lack of a population-level controlled by, & benefiting, the people.
4. Lack of a common purpose. I agree people need a purpose to make life interesting, satisfying, & worthwhile, & a common purpose if they're to have a unified nation.
To correct these problems I suggest that we:
1. Renounce the Federal Reserve Note currency, which in it's current state seems little more than a funny-money scheme designed to impoverish & enslave humanity, & replace it with a currency of our own. If the value of our dollar is simply the value of our country divided by the number of dollars we print-up, & if our country is to belong to us, then our dollars must belong to us.
2. Extend the level of "representation" in our popular House of Congress from 1,000,000/1 to 1/1, recognizing that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
3. Get serious about trying to deal with the population-explosion.
This was recognized as problem-number-one during the rise of the ecology movement back in the '70's, but is now completely off the radar-screen, a result, I suspect, as well as a demonstration of the danger, of the near limitless power we've bestowed on the Usurers (who find the population-explosion helpful in pursuit their evil-schemes: driving down wages & forcing ever more people over to the dark-side) by allowing them to gain control of our money-supply. The Usurer is no longer simply serving as the Beast's 4th Horseman, he's now mounted the Beast, & is urging & guiding it down the road to our destruction.
4. I think Mr. Deerborne is mistaken in taking 'manifest destiny' as having been our original purpose. I think 'manifest destiny' was a fabrication of the Usurers after they won their war against the states (as a 1st step towards subjugating the people) aimed at making us forget the original Promise of America to create a new world better than the old world, ruled by the Medici money-lenders, we had escaped from. The plan for achieving that purpose was to establish government by & for the people (i.e. Democracy, so far as it was possible in those days), to keep the money-power in the hands of the people, & finally (& not too pressingly in those days) to avoid overpopulating the place & breeding ourselves into oblivion, in the recognition that freedom requires elbow-room. So the problem here is not that we have no purpose, but rather that we've forgotten that our purpose is to try to create a Heaven on Earth; a project that should keep us occupied for quite awhile.
Hey Jack, thanks for your thoughts.
DeleteWhen you say "a currency controlled by ... the people" what exactly do you mean? You propose eliminating the federal reserve... what replaces it? How do the people own the money?
I completely agree that we need to regain control of the legislature. That should be our primary focus here.
You've kind of lost me when it comes to the population control stuff. What exactly are you proposing here? When you say, "Extend the level of "representation" in our popular House of Congress from 1,000,000/1 to 1/1," how would that work?
Periodically the people decide themselves, in the light of how much economic growth has occurred during that period, how much new currency needs to be printed-up in order to maintain a constant value for the dollar. I don't think I said anything about eliminating the federal reserve, I just said we should renounce its currency, or at least the notion that they own the currency they're printing up; if the Federal Reserve actually plays any useful role for us beyond that, let them continue to do so. The people own the money in that the money we print up is distributed to them equally, to be used in the conduct of their transactions, whether it be buying bread, investing in some useful enterprise, or starting an enterprise of their own. For instance, if we decide to print-up a trillion new dollars, we distribute $5000 to each household in the land.
DeleteI agree w you that gaining control of the legislative process needs to be done 1st, as the other 2 problems (1&3) can't be dealt with successfully until then.
Re the population-explosion I'm not proposing anything EXACTLY, except that its a problem that we need to deal with. I do think it requires modifying all our social institutions, unwrapping them from the old "prime-imperative" of increasing our quantity (be fruitful & multiply) & re-wrapping them around a new prime-imperative of increasing our QUALITY. I could tell you exactly what I think heaven on earth wd be like, but have little confidence that everybody else wd agree. To get it done right, EVERYBODY has to get involved, & that requires setting-up a Democracy. I WILL tell you how I think going from "1,000,000/1 to 1/1" would work, later.
Here it is! (along w some other stuff)
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday, Occupation Movement?:
http://occupiedstories.com/gimme-that-picnic-table.html#comment-10647