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Having seen 40 House seats fall due to the Tea Party, the Congress is now more attentive to reasonably organized movements. That is to Occupy Movement's advantage, provided it can agree on its top one, two or three platform demands by Summer 2012.
The demands must have support of citizens of all political stripes to force Congressmen to either support the platform or lose their elections in November. Later, as issues get more detailed, they will have more trouble gaining broad support, so only the biggest, most broadly embraced demands should be attempted for our first platform prior to the 2013 elections. The Movement should avoid alignment with any group active in political lobbying in order to be able to win the support of the broad American public for its platform.
To do this we must:
1) begin a national dialog of local movement participants for the purpose of identifying and agreeing upon the highest priority platform solutions.
2) have highly knowledgeable and experienced individuals explain the advantages asd disadvantages of our solutions (on video and audio for review by all).
3) have the platform solutions agreed to by local movements. where speakers will need to sell them at Rotary Clubs, the League of Women Voters, the local Republican and Democratic organizations, the Masons, the BFOE, etc.
4) keep the press informed, which will also sell the platform and scare Congressmen into supporting it.
All of the marches, all the occupations, all the rallies will have little effect if we do not change the laws of the land. Steve
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I think you're approaching this from a two-party perspective, where you are on the Democrats' side. I think we should switch the date from 2013 to ASAP (Now-January 1, 2012) and pressure the entire federal government/global political-economy to adopt #ows platform immediately, or else we vow total non-compliance with the degenerative system (through general strikes, BDS movements, direct action...).
The United States government was an experiment in communication for an entire nation to represent itself in a unified political system. The internet could conceivably take over that function of self-organization/mechanism to maintain freedom, justice, and peace, bringing us into communion with one another to trade in a common social system that acknowledges its effect on the ecology it is based in.
Many people realize that the 1% fear their politicians losing their seats MUCH LESS than losing the power of the mechanisms they have constructed in the first place, because new politicians are constantly replaced--bought and sold faster than you can say "planned obsolescence."
Here are my thoughts on how/what your points will need to look (something) like for OWS to have any impact whatsoever (besides having changed the scope of the debate and costing tax-payers millions):
1) Highest Priority Platform Solutions: Decriminalize cannabis/hemp; Abolish the wage-system; BDS all nations that fail to meet human rights standards; Construct and implement a strategic plan to deal with climate change, the 6th extinction, and general social collapse.
2) Explanations of Solutions: Read "Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis," "Sacred Economics," and "Environment, Subsistence and Systems." OWS can function as a gift economy that operates through ecological economics attuned to natural systems--thus starving industrial capitalism and its discontents from any self-propagating energies.
3) General Adoption and Implementation: Consensus building through integral collaboration, discussion, and the general sharing (and application) of techniques will let people Do-It-Yourself. Be the change you wish to see. Construct the reality you want to be a part of. Do you want to camp out in a cement park or do you want to __________ instead? Transformation is the effect of conversation and creation.
4) Media and Communications: Restorative justice = good PR. Enact culture through well-intentioned praxis and let people know about it. If everyone is participating, there is no need for media and communication, because everyone is in the process of expressing what would be communicated (to "others") through media.
Again, no one needs to "be allowed" to do anything before they do it. Whatever people do will exist because we have chosen to do it. Code is law. Utopia may be ideal, but it is still real. It only needs to be actualized through the work we each do.
Scarcity is a lie. Love is all you need.
MS, I like your ideas, but for it to gain support, it must call out to the vast majority of Americans, and the rift between OWS and the TP (Tea Party) is quite vast. The principles are not vast, but if people think that they are, then for all practical purposes, the schism is real. Education is necessary, but those who need it most want it least. Still, if a platform were developed, it might be sold by being modeled by those who care. It is a sad commentary on our society that those we need to reach can only be reached through fear and we do not stand for fear-based manipulation.
My vision, though usually exceeding the expanse of others was limited in this regard – so I thank you for articulating it so clearly. I hadn't see the movement as eventually becoming the socio/economic alternative to the current system. I had been working on a way to codify law in such a way that the goal post can't keep moving every time someone buys a politician. Now I’m redesigning my little part-time business’ web site and bringing it to the “really REALLY free market” cyber world.
Part of me thinks this is absolutely stupid, but then another part of me says that I have to learn how to trust the process that I dream of making real. So I will trust and am working on a new web site.
Steve, you can have a Constitutional Amendment, but it won't mean anything. You are unaware that Congress, using the Supreme Court, threw out OUR Constitution in an organized (bloodless) coup d’etat that is the best kept secret in all of government. It released congress from being required to honor the Constitution, calling it a guideline that congress should strive to meet whenever possible, but not requiring it. In this way, you have the Supreme Court maintaining that the only way to get money out of politics is to have a Constitutional Amendment – BUT AT THE SAME TIME – still maintains that government is not required to honor the Constitution. If you are aware of the most recent (27th) Amendment, you will see that Congress has given itself the right to decide if a people’s amendment is valid or not. This is obviously a no-win situation. Your solution attacks a symptom while encouraging the illness.
I would like to suggest another type of Amendment – one that attacks the illness that has created ALL of the symptoms that are causing such grief in our society. Permit me to give you a brief outline of how this happened. I think that it will help the cause.
When the Constitution was offered to the states for ratification, it required 9 states to approve it. But six states were making that impossible. (VA, NY, MA, CT, NH, & RI)
That’s when Madison went north to New York to join Hamilton in lobbying for ratification. As part of this process, they wrote almost all of “The Federalist Papers”, which were really a series of letters to the editor defending the proposed Constitution. As hard as they tried, their efforts failed. The people who had just lost family, friends, and property in support of the Revolutionary War were not willing to give to government the same powers that King George still retained in England. They were not willing to support a government with unlimited powers – as the Constitution proposed. The counter arguments offered by the Anti-Federalists (and most have never heard of the Anti-Federalist Papers) warned of the dangers of the proposed Constitution – and most if not all of their concerns have come to fruition. The Anti-Federalist Papers had spoken for the people. The Federalist Papers were a FAILED argument.
Madison was OK with this, believing that ultimately, the people (meaning white, property-owning males) should decide on the type of government that they have. He suggested a compromise (that Hamilton did not agree with).
Madison said that if the states would ratify the proposed Constitution as written, then he would personally introduce a Bill of Rights in the first session of congress. That Bill of Rights would set up specific limits and address the uniform complaints by the six dissenting states.
The six states agreed, and if you go to the Avalon project to read the articles of ratification of those six states, you will see that the ratifications were all conditional. All six states rejected the idea of a government with unlimited power.
It took three years for the Bill of Rights to be ratified by all of the States, so for those three years, government retained unlimited powers. It was during those three years that George Washington, (a Federalist), signed into law the right for government to assume “implied powers”. (It had to do with who gets the right to fire a presidential appointee because the Constitution did not specify. There were two sides on the issue. One side, the Anti-Federalists, wanted to correct the problem with an Amendment offered along with the Bill of Rights. The other side (Federalists) said that government should assume implied powers to resolve problems like these. George Washington agreed, and “implied powers” was codified for the first time.)
On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified. This turned the previous unlimited central government on its head. Implied powers should have died with the unlimited government because the Constitution didn't grant them. States retained their sovereignty and the union was transformed into a treaty organization that dealt with trade between the states and among the nations, as well as self-defense. There would be NO central government with power over anything else. If you think about it, it was quite an amazing day.
Obviously, the Federalists, who were all wealthy white males, were furious. They wanted to retain their positions as kings among kings. It didn’t take that long for them to conjure up a way to restore their precious constitution minus those pesky amendments. They would use the courts to protect them from the voters.
This part of the story begins with a case called Marbury v Madison. That’s when the Supreme Court dipped into a gray area and assumed the unconstitutional power of being the decider of what is Constitutional and what is not (Judicial Review). That was never meant to be a power vested in the Supreme Court, which would mean that a handful of people could decide the fate of all people (such as that which happened in Citizens United). That power was to remain vested in the people, who (before gerrymandering and money was speech, etc.) had the power to dethrone a representative – if not through the ballot box, then through the Article V amendment process. Jefferson said that if the Supreme Court were allowed to retain this usurped and unconstitutional power, the American people would end up being oppressed by the tyranny of an oligarchy. He was so right.
There was outrage, but the Federalists were in power and no states seceded. (Remember that Federalists were wealthy and poor people could not vote or hold office, so the deck was stacked from the beginning.)
The time came for the finishing blow.
Madison, who had been against the establishment of a national bank, and who knew that the idea of national charters had been solidly rejected at the Constitutional Convention, was president. Because of the war of 1812, and the need for a bank to lend government money it didn’t have to finance it, he was suddenly in support of a national bank. One was established in Maryland.
Maryland objected, basing its position on the 10th Amendment. It ended up at the Supreme Court – which had no constitutional authority to hear it.
The 10th Amendment says that government shall have only those powers granted it by the Constitution. The Federalist Supreme Court said that it should be understood to mean that government shall have EVERY power unless specifically denied it by the Constitution, and even then it can assume specifically denied powers through "implied" powers and "necessary" powers clause. With this sweeping statement, the court restored the government of unlimited powers and “These United States” (as the union was once called because the states were still sovereign) became “The United States”.
I liken these two decisions to a break in a water main. Marbury v. Madison was where the main cracked but Mc Culloch v. Maryland was a full-blown break. When a water main breaks, we do not ration water in unequal measure. We do not say – “Oh, the water main is broken, we must ration water. Congress needs the most water because legislating makes one thirsty, and without enough water, there will be bad laws. Banks need more water because financing wars makes people sweat more and our GDP depends upon bankers being healthy. Corporations that build war machines need more water because we can’t fight wars without them and they keep the banks profitable and the banks keep the government running. On and on and on until it goes until there is little or no water left for the people. No, we FIX the break. That’s the rational thing to do.
But the court wasn’t using rational thinking. It also didn’t stop with throwing out the Constitution. It drove its point home.
It said that the people should never be involved (through the Amendment process) on matters as unimportant as this small matter of throwing out their Constitutional Republic and replacing it with the “System of checks and balances” that the Federalists appealed for but the Anti-Federalists soundly rejected. This is where power was rationed with no constitutional constraints. To mix metaphors, the goal post was removed from its fixed position and it now moves to wherever the powerful want it to be to avoid the peoples’ efforts to reclaim any of their power.
But even here the court did not stop. It said that the Bill of Rights is not law, but they are suggestions. Congress is under no compulsion to honor them. States and people have no absolute rights or powers.
And it didn’t stop there. It said that the states did not have the right to conditionally ratify the constitution. Therefore, it said, states do not have sovereignty, as the big six demanded. We were not a treaty organization, as was intended. We are a single nation with a strong central government.
But it didn’t stop there. Having thrown out the Constitution as the Law of the Land, it established a government based upon “British Common Law”. England and Canada do not have written Constitutions but they often refer to one. What they are actually referring to when they speak of their Constitution is a body of laws and judicial precedents. So when you hear your representatives (most of whom learned this history in law school) speaking of the Constitution, they are speaking of the body of laws and judicial precedents. When you hear them speak of the Constitution of the United States of America, they are speaking of the written constitution was intended to be the protection that the people demanded in order for the Constitution to be ratified.
It is at this precise break point that power was rationed – and it immediately began flowing away from the people and to the Robber Barons. The newest incarnation of a Robber Baron is Goldman Sachs.
To fix what is wrong in America today, we must FIX the water main. We must restore water to every spigot in equal measure. We do that by restating and reaffirming the 10th amendment, requiring that any interpretation thereof should reflect the intents of the ratifiers. (The Anti-Federalists and those who ratified successive Amendments.) This would set the goal post firmly in its place so that the people are not pitted against one another fighting wars that neither side can win.
If the constitution again sets out what government may or may not do, and it is returned to its role as “The Law of the Land”, as the text of the constitution declares, the people will not be crying for one part of the constitution to be honored while the rest is ignored, as both sides do today.
Because the Supreme Court maintains that government doesn’t have to honor the constitution, and that the people cannot get money out of government without a constitutional amendment that government doesn’t have to honor, the people are basically akin to hamsters on a hamster wheel (yet another metaphor). There is no winning.
This is why we have arguments about who is or is not a citizen. Citizenship was clearly described in the 14th Amendment. The Congressional Record and newspapers of the day make it clear that according to the intent of the ratifiers, one cannot claim citizenship based on being born in the United States and it also makes it clear that a citizen is a person – meaning human being. Because of the ever-moving goal post, you now have one side (conservatives) demanding that corporations retain unconstitutional “citizenship” – even if the corporation was “born” in another country, and the other side (liberals) demanding that being born in the USA establishes citizenship in spite of the intent of the ratifiers that this may never be the case. Once the intents of the ratifiers is again acknowledged, the people can argue, but the law doesn’t change until they agree in large enough numbers (3/4 of the states) to change the Constitution.
The people have been demanding change, but Congress isn’t listening. The Constitution says that when two thirds of the states ask Congress for a Constitutional Convention, it shall be held. Because there are more than 500 known applications for such, and Congress is not acting, the matter went to the Supreme Court, which said that the people didn’t have direct standing because the matter of constitutional conventions was a political matter – not a legal one. Congress is now saying that it has no database of these requests and it says that because the wording sometimes varies from state to state, it has no way of knowing whether the requisite number of states have qualified.
To wrap this up (and I do apologize for the length):
We do need some changes in OUR “Constitution of the United States of America”. We need to restate and reaffirm the 9th and 10th Amendments. (The court now says that the 9th amendment is a joke whose meaning has been lost in time – even though you and I can read it and see that it protects those human rights that are so basic that any infringement of them devalues and degrades a human being unfairly. You and I might agree that those who are born “gay” are not second class citizens and a woman’s body is as much hers to own as a man’s body is his to own. I hope that you would agree that my pacifist philosophy should be protected from government infringement – even though it is not part of any establishment of religion. Now it is illegal because of limits at every front.)
We need to fix the part where “implied powers” first came to light. We must state that the President has the power to fire appointees (with or without Senate approval – as the people think best).
We need to ban political parties. Most people think that parties are part of government, and in fact, the leaders of these parties are paid to be leaders – with your tax dollars. Political parties are not supposed to be part of government - they are Political Action Committees - just like the gun lobby or the christian lobby.
We need to ban all “chartered entities” from participating in the election process and further ban donations in excess of $10 (or some reasonable sum) to support any political campaign. This would deny billionaires from financing their own campaigns against people like me who stand for people like you.
It is important that we object loudly to any amendment that mentions corporations because just as the name “credit default swaps” was invented in order to bypass insurance regulations, a new word or phrase will be invented to bypass the people’s right to have their government protected from monied interests”
We need to end gerrymandering and any other attempts to disrupt the people’s power of the vote.
We need term limits.
We need to end lobbying by chartered entities or those representing any organization, be it of people or chartered entities.
We need to establish that any person who undermines the intent of the constitution can be held liable for treason. We need to state that a campaign donation over $10.00 is bribery and favors, gifts, and other benefits offered to any government employee or candidate for office is a bribe.
We need to give Congress XX years to reform government and bring it back into compliance with the intents of the ratifiers of the Constitution and its amendments. We need to restate that the constitution is the law of the land in the Treaty Organization whose bylaws are outlined in “The Constitution of the United States of America”.
Once this is done, we need to reaffirm the social contract – but that is another letter. There is an evidence-based worldview, which if brought to light, would end most human suffering now caused by a corrupt system that we call an “economic system”. It will take us through the economic collapse that is coming and provide a strong social base that will sustain us and bring us closer together – bringing me back IN PART to the original post by MS. But I will save the rest for an indication of interest in hearing it.
Gail, yours was an excellent summary of the many steps that broke down the intenta of the founding fathers and many of the steps needed to reverse the falsely assigned or assumed powers of government today. The dilemma is that we live in a dumbed down nation with a population that suffers from apathy and acquiescence on, perhaps, a 8:3 ratio.
How long would it take to gain the focus of such a public and how much longer, still, would it take to educate them on the complex steps you summarized? I fear too long. The nation would collapse in a revolution rooted in inequity before such an education process was complete, all the while with a population under attack by a public relations blitz, by big business and by a continuous assault by the Legislative, Judicial and Executive Branches.
Though most would say I am not a simple man, I do realize that, in this day, with the population of America, a single, brief, amendment is achievable, whereas a series of complex rule changes, amendments and retried cases is probably not.
The argument I make at http://www.occupycafe.org/group/solutions/forum/topics/why-focus-on... is aimed at achieving success in a short period, while this perfect storm exists and while the people are so angry and mistrustful of Congress. If the Congress is forced to obtain money only from the people, it will be responsive to the people. The long journey to achieve the many steps you have laid out can then be pursued afterward, each being evaluated on the basis of what is best for the people and not for monied interests.
Is there a way to achieve the many steps you have presented within 10 months? Would we be able to sell it to a skeptical public being lambasted by a barrage of false ads and warnings of imminent collapse into the Dark Ages? I feel it is unlikely. Simplicity with maximum impact is key. Steve
is there a place where the actual text of the amendment can be seen? i feel like with 100 million-1 billion likes, it might be able to get passed. keep in mind there is no reason for the government to need to OKAY whatever proposal is drafted. as long as the 99% act in whatever way we figure out is the best way to live (taking into consideration all of our perspectives, it really doesn't matter what congress votes on.
i'm pretty sure the U.S.A. was a kind of technology that allowed people from everywhere to communicate with each other in the fastest, most democratic way possible. occupy cafe is even better. we need to figure out the money supply in relation to the natural world and structure an economy based on right living and sustainable practices.
I agree with the one amendment, but it also takes a series of complex rule changes as well, which means local elections representing local communities. another generation with its own understanding of how live should be lived needs to take power and that means private and public sector leadership that brings people into a new consciousness. make businesses and jobs that aim to help people and we can all BDS unsustainable practices and institutions.
Green Bans and Strikes prevent any sort of resources to flow to operations that promote inequality and suffering. If all of us--in our jobs, in our families, in our community institutions--only live in ways that promote individual and community wellbeing (of human and non0human llife) then we can all live in ways that sustain those actions.
Power is the rate at which energy is transferred, used, or transformed. If large groups of people say "we are going to live THIS way" and not contribute to a corrupt process, helping other communities that they support and trading goods and services with them, they will be able to live without having to deal with the influence of a corrupt bureaucracy. Everyone hates the governments that supposedly "represent" them, because only we can represent ourselves. Representational democracy is obsolete--we think and act for ourselves!!
10 months:
1. legalize marijuana-- this creates a net gain of 77 billion dollars http://www.weedandbombs.com/2011/12/03/obama-77-billion-a-year-from... This would create a TRULY SUSTAINABLE, GREEN INDUSTRY, limiting the pharmaceutical company, legal system, military/prison system and boosting money for public services.
2. use taxes from oil to contribute to green energy program
3. and #BDS any nation that doesn't conform to a standard of human rights.
bam, make all of that money go to education, small green businesses, and the general prosperity of the communities that support their citizens. Marijuana smokers are a minority targeted for their beliefs that marijuana is a positive force http://www.amazon.com/Marijuana-Cures-Cancer-Joan-Bello/dp/14663304...
IT KILLS CANCER!! do you know how many people get cancer? a lot. and guess what, its because we are poisoning our environments!! Drugs are a GLOBAL TRILLION DOLLAR MARKET.
Legalize cannabis and help and make sure all of the money go to a POSITIVE SOCIAL FORCE. (can you imagine if pot was the new currency, haha)The 99% surely represent the 50% right? http://www.gallup.com/poll/150149/record-high-americans-favor-legal... Get it done and people will believe that #OWS is a force for change. Cannabis is a symbol of western militarization's assault on the natural world. Stop the criminalization of living in harmony with the earth and the rest crumbles away.
After stepping away from the occupy movement in order to gather my thoughts, I'm back up and running.
I have decided to run for president of the USA. (don't laugh. I'm qualified though I am not known). I want to run in a really REALLY free election. That means that I will spend no money and accept no campaign donations (bribes). I will use free social media platforms to get the word out.
I believe that if someone can be elected president without having spent or received a single penny, that person will arrive in office with a clean record. That person cannot be blackmailed into refusing to prosecute the bribery, extortion, embezzlement, and insider trading that is so commonplace and simply overlooked today. The first thing that I will do as president is to hire forensic accountants to find the criminals. I will work to clean out the bribers (Wall Street and K Street) and the bibees (beginning with the leadership - including the presidents not excluded by statue of limitations.).
A president who has never asked for or spent a penny on an election campaign will be proof positive that it doesn't cost a billion dollars to run for president. There is another way.
I am presently putting together a series of cartoon videos to explain not only what went wrong, but how to make things right. The solution, I think, is really quite simple. when the videos are done, I will open a free web site and publish the videos on you tube and other places.
The worst that can happen is that I will have offered real history in a way that people may be able to tolerate. The best is that we can succeed in our mission to restore people to full personhood, get money out of politics, and restore a voice to the people who have been silenced for so long.
You are right that people have been "dumbed down". But if we allow that to stop us, we can accomplish nothing. The problem is systemic. If we keep using the methods that have built the systemic problem, we will only recreate it. This is not a problem that can be fixed with another band aid. It is an idea whose time has come.
I look forward to your engagements and exchanges with Jill Stein (Green Party), who has run for Governor of Massachusetts twice.
MS, I love your passion, but the more the Movement tries to accomplish - the more platform issues, the more divisive those issues are - the more difficulty it will have selling the platform in any reasonable timeframe. My concern is the Movement may get bogged down in too many issues and too much detail to bring about effective change in 2012.
I am absolutely oppose to aligning with any poliitcal party or lobbying entity. My interest is to stop the bleeding by getting the most important issue resolved, from which solutions to most other issues will arise.
If we were to propose and achieve ONE platform issue - cutting off funding to legislators from all entities whatsoever by Constitutional Amendment - it would solve many other major issues and problems because the Congress would be responsive to the people and not the monied interests that have caused such destructive national policy over the past quarter century.
A brief thread on such an amendment is at http://discussion.occupyreno.org//index.php/topic,123.msg459.html#m...
Another amendment once the Constitution is again legal: No provision of any treaty authorized by this Constitution shall be permitted if any part of it infringes on limits imposed on government by this Constitution.
This will prevent presidents from lobbying the UN or NATO or any other country for war, thus bypassing the Congress' sole authority to declare it.
Gail, the other side (those who prefer the status quo) are hoping the jobs picture will improve and weaken the Occupy Movement before it is able to coalesce around specific policy change.
What is your proposed path to change - one that is achievable with dumbed down citizens? I chose cutting funding because much of the work is already done. Polls indicate 76% of Americans already agree that money in politics is a major problems and Congress only gets a 9-13% favorable rating.
That wouldn't be the last legislative change, but it would be the most easily achievable; significantly moreso than the education challenge we would need to overcome to return to a strict interpretation of the Constitution. Whether poor or rich, people would get balled up wondering what bennies they would lose with strict interpretation.
George Orwell said, "In the face of universal deceit, truth is a revolutionary act". I believe that the only way to convince a dumbed-down citizenry of the alternative to the status quo, is to introduce them to knowledge that is being intentionally withheld from them. This comes in three parts.
1. Most important - the world does not work the way that we have been told that it works. Humans are not the powerless, vulnerable, limited beings that we have been told that we are, and here is the proof. I would then have experts talk about (in 5th grade language) the implications of the "Twin Slit Experiments", "Schroedinger's Cat", and "Bell's Inequality Theorem". I would show them how these proof suggest that the god of CW is patently false, but that does not mean that people are alone, powerless, and vulnerable. Quite the opposite. I would then show the studies conducted by major research institutions and many governments around the world (including ours) that explain the power that humans have when they emplow the powers inherent within the unified field of consciousness. In fact, group meditation has the ability to increase prosperity, health, and well-being. Consistent group meditation is more effective and providing for the national defense than war is. The studies do sound bizarre, but they are legitimate and of almost 1,000 studies, not a single one has disagreed. There is now more evidence in favor of the benefits of meditation as a means of self-defense and a means of increasing prosperity, than there is evidence that aspirin eliminates headache pain. If the square root of one percent of a city's population were to join in meditation, crime, violence, accidents, house fires, hospital admissions - including psychiatric would decrease significantly. In fact 16% reduction in crime is the minimum benefit found at that number of meditators.
2. I would teach the people the truth about American history, and how a goverment that protects their interests work, because what we have now is not a government that is capable of protecting my interests. I would explain why and how that can be.
3. I would teach a basic course about economics because our dumbed-down population clearly doesn't understand basic math. Increasing benefits while decreasing taxes is a mathematical impossibility. This will lead back to #1 because there is a way to personally provide for self without asking others to do without so that you can get ahead. Furthermore, I hear a lot of anger over the fact that Exxon Mobil, GE, and other corporate giants pay zero or near zero taxes. If these companies were to suddenly pay 35% in taxes, the price of gas would go up by 35%. that's because businesses are pass-through entities. They don't pay taxes. We, the people pay them in a hidden consumption tax.
Take GM for example. When it buys steel to make cars, it buys it from foundries. Those foundries build their taxes into the price of the steel that GE buys. The truckers who take the ore from the mines to the foundries, and the cars to the dealerships, also build their taxes into the price of their services, as do the mines that ore the iron. Layer after layer after layer of taxes are built into the price of goods and services that we buy. If corporate taxes were to be eliminated, and the income of chief execs capped, the cost of goods and services would come down considerably.
Take this even further. When you earn a pay check, you have 6.5 percent withheld for FICA (Social security and medicare). But most people do not know that built into the price of all goods and services is the additional 6.5% in payroll taxes that employers pay on employee's behalf. Doing it this way hides truth from the people who actually pay those taxes. If corporations were not responsible for this expense, and it were returned in full to the people at the same time that the price of goods and services were reduced by removing corporate taxes, there should be more than adequate offset.
4. Voiding trade treaties that harm the U. S. worker would be a good start for someone interested in working for the American people. If a company wants to sell goods and services to Americans, it should be based in the USA, hiring US workers. Right now, there are 86,000 companies who all live in the same post office box in the Cayman Islands, hiring workers who are willing to work for 86 cents and hour, and too many of these are regular receivers of government contracts. No more. No foreign company should sell goods or services for less than our own companies are able to while operating on US soil.
5. All of this flows in a circle back to #1, where the people are empowered through an awareness of just how powerful human beings are, and how we have been misled by those who benefit from our ignorance.
As far as education is concerned, I would require the Dept. of Education to change its mission and its mission statement. It now operates as a subsidy for corporate interests, meaning that it trains and indoctrinates people rather than educating them. By using the talents of the American people, we can establish a formula for a proper education. Right now, our educational systems prepare us for competence in specialities, but none of them prepare us to see the whole picture. How can a blind man put together a puzzle? How can a functionally uneducated and diseducated people solve their own problems. they can't. Self-education can be fun. It is certainly the most joy-filled and satisfying task I have ever undertaken. But a narrow-based education is a dangerous thing in a government that is supposed to be of, by, and for the people. I believe that the shock of the truth and its comparison to reality should inspire people to take their own educations more seriously. Knowledge is power. Ignorance is the handmaiden to slavery, and slaves are never secure.
As I said a couple of posts above, we do need to get money out of politics, but we can't do that until we re-establish the constitution as our lawful form of government. As it stands now, the supreme court says that we can't get money out of politics without a constitutional amendment, but it also maintains that congress does not have to honor any amendment. The constitution - it maintains - is a guideline, and it is a political matter when it comes to whether or not it honors it.
As president, I would offer a series of constitutional amendments that should inspire dialogue. When I introduce an amendment that says that congress may not immunize itself from the laws that it imposes on others, it is a chance to talk about the extortion, blackmail, bribery, embezzlement, insider-trading, and worse, that are so common and so protected in the halls of congress (and in the white house).
When I require the DE to change its mission, it is a chance to talk about all of the lies (of both commission and ommission) that have been built into our formal educations as a way to control us through our intentionally instilled ignorance. This will again bring up the truth that science has been discovering about how to fix the economy and provide for national defense without spending any money. and because group meditation requires people to come together, it will help Americans reconnect with one another, because right now, they are intentionally being worked against one another.
In short, it is the dumbed-down ignorance that is the cause of our problems. If the American people want to remain ignorant, they deserve what happens to them. But the American people do not have a clue as to the exciting things that science has discovered in the last 30 years - and even the last 7 years. That information is transformative. But it can't transform until it is talked about. It doesn't serve your government to have you know this. Why?
Peace is free. War is profitable.
Wellness is free. Illness is profitable.
Crimelessness is free. Crime is profitable. (jails, courts, police, bondsmen, etc.)
Education can be free. Indoctrination is profitable.
Knowledge is free for all. Ignorance is profitable for the few.
Regular Calls are no longer being held. Below is the schedule that was maintained from the Fall of 2011 through Jan 10, 2013.
Mondays
"Vital Conversations"
8-10a PDT | 11a-1p EDT | 3-5p GMT
Tuesdays (except 10/16)
"Connect 2012"
1-3p PDT | 4-6p EDT | 8-10p GMT
Posted by Burl Hall on September 18, 2015 at 11:55am 0 Comments 1 Like
Posted by Richard Kreidler on September 15, 2015 at 10:09pm 1 Comment 0 Likes
Posted by Aria Littlhous on October 2, 2013 at 5:49am 0 Comments 0 Likes
Posted by Aria Littlhous on September 12, 2013 at 7:29pm 0 Comments 0 Likes
Posted by Kevin Parcell on September 11, 2013 at 12:56pm 0 Comments 0 Likes
by Brian E Shumsky Added November 27, 2012 at 11:36pm
by Ben Roberts Added July 10, 2012 at 5:54pm
by Cheryl Honey Added July 3, 2012 at 12:03pm 4 Comments
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