The Power of Our Vote

The Tyranny of the Minority

How is it working for you? 

This trend is not about what political party you call your own, it is about the ability of a small percentage of Americans to impose their will on all of US, regardless of political affiliation. Gerrymandering, phony filibusters, a steadfast commitment to “the plan”, and a seemingly endless war chest keep the champions of the minority in control. 

Despite popular opinion as measured by many credible polling groups, efforts like tax cuts, the sequester, budget cuts, corporate subsidies, and gutting the social safety net endure. Add self serving super-strategies like the WAR ON THE VOTE and it feels like the ship of state is adrift. Add lobbying, controlling the media, and bankrolling the faithful, and the majority of US are less and less significant players in this republic’s democracy. 

Again, how is this working for you? 

We can agree. We can act.

No Choice is Just a Beginning

The march to end a woman’s right to decide when and if she will give birth is just the tip of the iceberg. It is just one more example of the divide and conquer strategy in the march to total plutocracy (the new fascism). Ironically, some seem willing to tolerate this trend to get what they want, not admitting that in so doing they are signing on for “the full meal deal”.

Current events are dominated by smarty pants political gamers that seem to find every backhanded way to obtain their objectives. They are despicable but predictable. Money-in-Politics is winning the day, and both major parties play the game.

Just so you have some idea of what the “full meal deal looks like, here is a Cliff Notes-esq version of what is in store for us if we do not put a stick in the spokes of campaign finance system that is inherently corrupt.

• No abortion. No birth control. No sex education. No women’s rights from the moment of conception until birth (assuming she does not die). After that everyone is on their own.
• Only the economically deserving will vote. Voting won’t matter much because gerrymandering will have rendered the chosen politicians invincible.
• Our air, water, energy sources, and food supply will become nothing more than vectors for cash. Everything will be industrialized until it collapses. 
• No public school. No public prisons. No public anything, especially no public employees. (I am really not looking forward to privatized police departments.)
• No unions. No collective bargaining. No employee rights. No minimum wage.
• Guns everywhere. Everywhere.
• No social safety net. No Social Security (The predator market will have consumed the privatized version to the point of meaninglessness.) The poor, disabled, etc will be dead or in some other privatized institution at taxpayer expense.
•  Darwinian economics will prevail. Only the monied will thrive. The laws of the land will support the rich getting richer because the rich will control the political process and, besides, they believe their wealth indicates a divine right to rule.
• The Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, will be stripped of anything that resembles a socio-economic evolution toward the framers’ vision of what America could be. Instead we will live in a state of economic stewardship controlled by the few, and at the peril of the many. Our gratitude will be expected.

I am not Nostradamus, I am just someone who keeps up with the Congress and State Legislatures across the land. We must put an end to money-in-politics now, before it is too late for America. #FreeTheElected from the domination of campaign funders.

 

 

 

Dancing Airport Style

The folks in DC are DANCING FOR DOLLARS again. I tire of this reality show. Must. Change. Channel.

Today’s sub plot: the furlough cycle for air traffic controllers! Q: Why furloughs? A: The Sequester! Q: Why a sequester? A: The DANCERS in DC were too busy posturing for their past, current, and future campaign funders to do the PEOPLE’s work.

The main plot continues, of course. The DANCERS blame everything on the someone else so they can continue to DANCE FOR DOLLARS, at the PEOPLE’s expense.

This painfully predictable show is brought to you by the 1/3 of 1% – the funders for whom the DANCERS dance. The funders know that campaign contributions have long since trumped citizens and votes. They know unsolved problems bring in cash (pro or con, right or left), so the DANCE (to do nothing and blame others) is renewed season after season.

Change the channel. Demand citizen funded political campaigns NOW. Save the DANCERS from the funders; save the PEOPLE from the DANCERS.

It is time for the people to dance.

______

Image: Mr. Monopoly Dancing on the American Flag by Occupy MCR

Done with bipartisan.

BIPARTISAN is a code word.

It has two prerequisites: partisanship-gone-wild, and exclusion of all third parties.

A TRANSPARTISAN approach abandons blind loyalty and lesser-of-evils thinking in favor of issue-based problem solving by results-oriented participants from the many diverse perspectives that America has to offer.

Which strategy will save the day for this republic’s democracy?

E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One)

(Flag art by the e pluribus blog)

Our elected are not free to represent us.

Washington DC is addicted to campaign contributions. It is time for an intervention. We must return to publicly funded campaigns if we want our votes to matter more than their cash. This is not a partisan statement: it is an indictment of the system.

Free the elected! Change the world. NOW!

Pork: poison pill or political payoff? Bad, either way.

The camera-talkers in DC often squawk-out for “an up-or-down vote”, but we (the people) seldom get the whole story.

“Pork”, the unrelated actions attached to pending legislation, is deadly to any notion of integrity or transparency in government. If some cabal doesn’t want a bill to pass, they attach contrary, expensive, or politically charged pork: the poison pill approach. If it is clear legislation will pass, many will attach opportunistic pork (that often benefits big campaign contributors): the political pay off approach.

I’m fed up with this barnyard mischief. I want up-or-down votes alright, for one thing at a time: the bill. Smarty pants law making must end if our current (creepy) Congress wants this citizen’s respect. Or, to be re-elected, for that matter.

END PORK POLITICS NOW. We might actually see something get done in DC.

Managing the Debt Ceiling Is Like Getting Dressed

Some mornings my son, now a father, woke up in such a tizzy that he wanted to bicker about everything. I fondly recall the morning he wanted to argue about whether or not he should zip up his jeans.

Watching the House vote this morning, it occurred to me that managing the debt ceiling is a lot like zipping: they both amount to finishing the job.

My son decided zipping his jeans was a good idea when I showed him how his pants would fall down if he didn’t. Just like the time to work through the “to-zip-or-not-to zip” question was before my kindergartner left the bedroom, it seems to me the time to discuss the debt ceiling is EVERY TIME we approve a budget.

What we do now is metaphorically wait until we find our jeans around our ankles, and then try to put the blame for our public embarrassment on someone else.

[Photo credit unavailable, I am sorry to say.]

Bogarumba: frantic dancing to imaginary music

I have used the term Bogarumba for 30 years to describe the private-interest mischief used to confuse, manipulate, and distance real people from meaningful participation in the American political process. So much more than “wag the dog”, it includes every known strategy to control the narrative so that we (the people) spin off in ungrounded debate – planting flags, taking positions, never to find common ground – while the narrative creators have their way with the law of the land.

Funded by a crescendo of tax cuts leaving mountains of money in the hands of the few and their pet lobbies, they have launched fake science, blocked research, and created an infusion of “common knowledge” that is based upon private objectives, creating a barrier to our solving old problems in new ways: the very definition of American ingenuity.

Before any reader decides this is an attack on one party or another, let me be clear that this is an attack on the influence of cash on this republic’s democracy, regardless who plays the game. This is a cry for first, Campaign Finance Reform, as a tool to get our elected out of the financial death grip of monied interests (allowing the elected to represent voters rather than dollars), and second, Tax Code Reform that properly channels American wealth into a legitimate form of participation in the American political process.

Anticipating our recognition of these barriers, well paid spin doctors have prepared a plethora of alienating talking points and logic pathways to keep us apart. Our only defense is for each of us to ask ourselves the simple question, “is there life after kool-aid?”, can we each describe to ourselves the America we seek, and then come together to address the multitude of issues we face as a nation?

I say we can. This is what the Coffee Party is all about.