Welcome login | signup
Language en es fr
OccupyForum

Forum Post: Change the process then change the policies

Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 28, 2011, 10:21 p.m. EST by aherna (0)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

If you look at the majority of movements these days (be it OWS or the tea party) and complaints about the government all seems to boil down to one thing; our leaders do not listen. So we protest, we shout at them, we express our opinions, but are we actually accomplishing anything? I don’t raise this question to be inflammatory or insulting to whatever changes have been pushed through, but to say there might be a better way.

The problem with this country lies not in its politics, but in its process. However, most of the protesting I see revolves around the idea of either attacking or supporting a certain policy/ideology. What little efforts I do see to change the process (such as Get The Money Out) all try to work within the existing playing field. The point of this ramble being why don’t we aim to change the playing field? The vote is still a very powerful tool if properly harnessed.

How we do this is simple; we create our own party, but not one based off of any ideology, not one that tries and advance a particular set of view points, and not one that advocates any particular change in policy. Instead this party will be focused on changing the political process.

Money in politics, special interest groups, and the constant battling of the two parties can all be changed if a large enough part of the population agreed to do it. The party would act as an organizer for its own meetings, support any candidate who wanted to run under the flag, host its own debates, and most importantly implement a system of accountability between the voters and the elected official.

The costs of this could be minimal, the only requirement would be that people would have to choose to pay attention, educate themselves, and vote. In so long as this party merely advocated a process rather than a policy it could change the political playing field to one more responsive to the people.

Billions of dollars are spent trying to get us to notice one candidate above the other. The need for candidates to raise this money makes them more accountable to those with the cash than those with the votes. What if we stopped listing? What if we started having our own conversation?

Once we change the process we would then be much more efficient in changing the policies. We've played by their rules, what if enough of us decided to make them play by ours?

1 Comments

1 Comments


Read the Rules
[-] 1 points by AFarewellToKings (1486) 12 years ago

Welcome!

There is a plan underway to have 876 elected delegates sit down in Philadelphia on July 4th to have this conversation in public. It is called the National General Assembly (NGA) aka Third Continental Congress aka parallel congress. It has an historical precedent:

"The Congress was not a constitutional body; many of its members had been chosen irregularly. Its authority was limited to the willingness of the people to respect and obey its suggestions and mandates. The very fact of its existence had a meaning of great significance, but it was too profound for the comprehension of George III. It was less a congress than a national committee, an advisory council of continental magnitude. It attempted no national legislation."

You are absolutely correct when you say it works if enough people back it. The NGA will ratify a List Of Grievances to be served on all three branches of government and allow sufficient time for redress. Should the government fail, the NGA will reconvene and proceed with the formation of an independent third party.

Why not just start a third party? There are already many third parties and you may or may not remember Ross Perot in 1992. The sophistication in this plan is that the simple fact that the NGA exists will terrify all Republicans and Democrats unless they suffer from the same stupidity George did, everyone will start watching more closely to see their members of congress acting to deal with the 99%'s grievances, and the more congress disappoints, the more angry the population will become. The 99% will become an unstoppable force:

" BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that IF the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES approved by the 876 Delegates of the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY in consultation with the NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE, is not redressed and acted upon within a reasonable time and to the satisfaction of the Delegates of the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY, said Delegates shall reconvene to organize a new grassroots campaign to elect independent candidates to Congress who will publicly PLEDGE to redress each and every grievance contained in the ratified PETITION FOR REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES. These independent candidates for the United States House and Senate will seek election in every available Congressional seat in the mid-term election of 2014 and again in 2016 and again in 2018 until all vestiges of the existing corrupt corporate state have been eradicated through the power of the ballot box and the empowerment of the 99%.

Time is short, please share

http://www.the99declaration.org/