Forum Post: Do Not Read This! Stay disempowered as long as possible!
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 15, 2011, 12:40 p.m. EST by LobbyDemocracy
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This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Clearly I do not believe in either of those statements. I want you to read this and I want you to be empowered. I am actually here because I think that I have a method that will help you become empowered.
I am establishing a lobbing organization for the explicit purpose of representing the majority. There have been many statements posted here and elsewhere slandering the lobbying industry and its effects. These statements are true and justified. Last year over $3.5 billion dollars was spent lobbying. This money represented big business and special interests, and I can assure you very little of it was spent representing the 99%.
Many efforts have been made to get the money out of politics. The theory is that if the money is gone that the voices of average Americans can once again be heard. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made it clear that it associates the money spent lobbying the government and supporting campaigns is covered under our constitutional right to the freedom of speech.
What I am saying is that we don't need to muzzle these voices to be heard. As has been made clear on Wall Street over the last several weeks, we are the majority and we will be heard. We have the ultimate power in a democracy. We are the majority and we can vote you out of office.
The question is between elections how do we make sure that we are being properly represented. I propose that we take the weapon of big business and special interests and turn it against them. We are forming lobby democracy to make sure that the majority's voice is heard every day. The same power that we have at election time we can express day after day after day. We may not have the money that the big lobbyist have, but we have the numbers.
We will be polling our members to determine the platform that we represent. We are not starting with any perspectives or political leanings. We are simply here to represent your interests year round. Any issue that reaches 65% support (or opposition) we will take up. We will then look at the results district by district and find every district that is aligned with our national results. We will contact the elected leaders of all of those districts to let them know where you stand. The data will not only guide our mission, but also provide us the ammunition that we need. We will have solid data from their constituents letting the representatives know where they stand. We will bring the voice of the majority to Capitol Hill and let them know that if our needs are not respected they can rest assured that they will not be in office after the next election.
If you are interested, please visit our site at www.lobbydemocracy.com. We will open up for membership on November 6th, one year out from the presidential election. There is a great deal of information up currently though about what we will provide.
If you like the idea or have questions please let us know here so that we can rise back to the top of the list and others can find out about us.
DEAR INDIVIDUAL READING THIS, What must we as people do to fight this grave injustice inflicted upon us, by the ones who lust for power? How can we end the reign of the wicked and immoral and mete JUSTICE upon the oppressors as we have suffered from their hands-their blood stained hands... An idea of REVOLUTION-no, the act of revolution enacted by the proletarians! Must we as individuals ,as is always done, remain pawns to these people, these monoliths that we alone as individuals cannot surmounted...I surmise that we are not ignorant to the woes inflicted upon us by their enormities? We must UNIFY! Unity will be the way in which we assert ourselves!...While I realize all are not are not without income or funds and many cannot unify with this growing movement do to reasons of possible opposition and they being the people I'm question who we oppose (Wall Street), and many have responsibility they must tend to that take precedence. We must rise and vanquish this behemothto restore the equilibrium, for when disturbed it causes much chaos and strife in the hearts of man( man being neutral to represent all genders) in his mind and when mans mind and soul are in chaos as many are they rise to vanquish the pestiferous wealthy. However we should not just target these individuals, each of us individually must confront the corruption in our hearts, how can we judge the corrupt and deem them so when we cannot be amenable for ourselves we will surely be deemed hypocrites as we will be.....I am not meaning to say that this protest is in any way unjust, for far too long have we suffered, I mean that we are expected to expiate our sins -assume our parts in the problems we face and how we may have caused it. Yes, the Bankers on Wall Street are corrupt in ways we don't have evidence of without an investigation. But as we suffer soshall they, for we will make it so. But what of our government I say, my fellow citizens do not neglect to Confront the complicit in this affair for the roots of corruption are deeply seated, we have silent enemies amongst us-be warned that although succession in our goals will happen we may face a greater threat to our rights granted unto us from birth be prudent and circumspect. Another issue I wish to address is the idea of mans continual corruption as all things will be permeated with this darkness Inside our hearts.......when a system is created it always deviates from the righteous path, for nations we have learnt of in our education are littered with tales of nations that became corrupt and faded Into the ruin of collapse, we know that a society without corruption is utterly inconceivable, impossible in ways each and everyone of us know...for as long as men exist so shall our inner evil....but I digress from my original Intent of this passage and I ask forgiveness as we must forgive all in all eventual....the rising potentiality of this movement is quite an astonishment, I thought we were not capable of such things and thus I admit I had less faith in my fellow man. I see that we have all come to the realization of the need to bring the greedy to justice, although the reasons for your protesting may be unique to you, you share many goal, I had prognostications, inklings seems more appropriate of a term, that one day man would wake to realize the greater truth outside of his/her reality, and break the cycles of obsession with superficial base needs and trite motives, a dull and predictable lot we were but we've surpassed that I hope....for if not we will founder and fall Into the patterns we had grown so accustomed to, living such prosaic pedestrian lives stultified by the elite and of our own ignorance we always have the means to educate ourselves in this age, we have no limits to what we may learn based on our status in society, the powerful can no longer succeed in keeping us stupefied we have freewill to reason and learn and form our own ideas, ideas that would otherwise have died by the hands of the bigots! Our endeavours shall be crowned with fruition of our goals for our will allows it, we have broken free from the will of the oppressors......as Desmond Tutu stated "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." YOURS TRULY-Aaron Thomas Bridge
Three weeks until the big launch. Check out what we are up to.
Thank you to everyone who has come check the site out. We have had activity from 39 states now.
Also, does anyone have recommendations for what issues we should poll about as we launch. This decision will eventually be made by our members, but as we are just launching we are open to some suggestions.
Thanks for posting, and all your hard work. It is obvious you are passionate people. Support the occupation movement and its artists, and keep up the good work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reazEr_AIBk
I appreciate your support, and hope that as our organization grows, we will be able to support all sorts of professions in relation to our mission. I look forward to being able to support photographers, writers, and all of the other amazing skill sets that make us who we are.
Well add http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/94223 to the list of amazing works to support. I look forward to all your success! Cheers.
sorry i missed out. if you want to retain visitors, you should lighten the theme. best wishes.
Could you expand on that Richard? You also have not necessarily missed out. We are in the midst of a temporary build that will support the member login and sign up. We hope to be able to afford a full fledged custom web-design in the next couple of months, and I will happily remain in contact with you as we move forward. Your desire to be involved is appreciated, and we will find a time to talk.
http://www.colormatters.com http://www.useit.com/eyetracking
understanding the users natural interaction with the page and site will have a big impact on it's effectiveness and user retention. i gave the links because it's more than a posts worth of info. i know you are talking about paying for all of a huge web design but the fact is, the big companies with huge teams and big prices only seem convincing. in fact they have the least consideration for design or your interest. they typically leave you with an unwieldy interface ect.. not to say all freelance work is king, you have to filter. a qualified freelancer will give you better results and better understand effective design. third party products are no longer a bad word on the net. SaaS is the professional term for cloud computing. third party products will help because you are tapping into resources a lot lot larger than what is just offered by any one web host and produces less strain on your server. i know a sales pitch isn't supposed to be negative but this isn't a sales pitch. i am offering free advice because i would like to see you succeed. if you do get up with me thats cool to, but just in case....
We are looking at all possibilities moving forward. I have two primary concerns with working with a freelancer. The first is that if he or she decided to take another project and leaves you high and dry you have no one to explain what they have been doing to whoever takes over. The new person has to sift through the structures that the old free lancer used. The same is true even if you just hire a one person web design team to work full time for you. If you lose them it might be difficult for someone else to take over. The other one is security and liability. If you go with one of the big guys, they are audited and insured against loss of information. We are going to be holding a lot of data and it is very important that we keep it secure. As someone who has very little web design experience, I am afraid that I would not even be great at providing oversight of the process.
i can understand that. with a large company, once the site is up, they pretty much drop you just the same.if you read the materials on any of the big companies website, look for info about how to add and edit pages. they usually point you to a product related forum, hard to uses tools, or high prices for small changes. freelancers that host their clients are increasingly playing a managing roll for a nominal fee because they have better retention and they make money from the hosting but don't suffer the overhead of a firm. not to mention, you get the same person on the phone very time. beats repeating the same story 12 times before you get the right person on the phone :)
When it comes to the eye tracking, that is a perfect example of why we are going to need someone to help with web-design and aesthetics. I am a political junkie, and have done some work on the hill. I think that I have a lot to contribute to the concepts of the organization, but I am not the person who should be handling the web needs or PR and advertising. They are not things I am well versed in. When you are working your way up from nothing trying to make an impact though, you do the best that you can with the skill set you have to work with.
but isn't there still the issue of a politician collecting huge sums of money from a corporate interest and then turning around and saying to us "I agree with you, but..." and spin it so the interest gets what they need. Its still money dictating policy. Or the 240 million planned on being spent by Rove's marketing machine that will conjure images to convince people through lies and misrepresentation to vote for the candidates that represent corporate interest, thinking they are voting for their own interests? Its not just about buying politicians, its about buying them and then spending hordes of money to convince the voters (94% of the time) that they are the candidate to vote for. Stop the buying is the only first step I see.
I am not saying I am against the attempts to clean up the political process. I am completely for the attempts to clean up the process. The majority should not have to form a lobbying group to make their opinions heard in a democracy; however, given the circumstances as they are I think that the structure I am creating will help the voice of the majority rise up.
very true and I applaud the effort. I am interested to see what will happen when the majority splits on two different big issues. It will be a hard road to travel, but worth exploring, I admit. I wish you the best of luck and hope it does help the majority demand more genuine service from our public servants.
There will be many splits on issues. That is why we set the bar at 65%. Part of what we hope to do is find commonality and bring it to the attention of our elected leaders. I understand people's fears about being part of an organization that supports things they do not believe in. I of course have very strong political beliefs and had to cope with the idea that I might be running an organization that lobbies for issues that I am against. Although it is a hard pill to swallow, I would rather have my voice overridden by the majority than by big oil and the pharmaceutical companies. That is part of the nature of a democracy, and although not enjoyable it is a valuable part of the system.
This sounds great! I'm behind this, if lobbyists without money can ACTUALLY influence politics.
The AARP is one of the most powerful lobbying organizations on Capitol Hill, and they do not donate directly to any campaigns. They represent 38 million members. Now, I think there are many flaws in how AARP is run. Their side businesses are becoming there primary businesses. There site is covered with ads for there medical plans and other pharmaceutical advertisements. They have fallen out of touch with there members. I am talking about an organization that runs no adds, and does nothing besides supporting its members on Capitol Hill.