Forum Post: Here are our two key issues
Posted 11 years ago on Dec. 3, 2012, 7:58 p.m. EST by bensdad
(8977)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Now that we have cut back the power of th Rs, especially in Washington,
we have two key goals:
1>
A constitutional amendment to end corporate personhood & citizens united
http://corporationsarenotpeople.webuda.com
2>
A major effort to curtail the R states totally controlled by the tax-the-poor anti-immigrant anti-social security tea-potty anti-voting privatizing party
And what of Wall Street?
The constitutional amendment [with supporting laws] will make it impossible for Wall St [etc] to buy our democracy. Right now, with corporations as people, there is little we can do
At this point, one of the biggest problems with Wall Street is that it effectively has 1.5 out of 2 major political parties beholden to it in some form or another. The Republicans are basically a pack of corporate lobbyists, with all the baggage that entails, and the Democrats haven't yet developed the spine, the base, or the traction to break away from Wall Street and thus wind up giving major concessions to big finance and other big industries whenever important legislation rolls around.
If you want to force change and/or reform of big finance on a national level, you need to have political clout within an order of magnitude of theirs; while it's true that certain issues can be fought through protests and petitions, taking that approach alone means that you can't really take anything back from them and you're only going to be able to stop so many of the concessions big finance will demand from ordinary Americans.
If you put an end to the designation of money as speech and repudiate Citizens United, you've effectively paved the way for serious discussions of campaign finance reform. Assuming you can actually implement meaningful limits on how much election money comes from private coffers, you can make it much, much harder for Wall Street to buy politicians on the state and federal levels. Once you've done that you make it much more possible for public opinion to drive political discourse, and if you convince the public that re-regulation and controlled breakups of Wall Street are the way to go then it might actually happen.
Absolutely!
We have no time to waste, the RepubliCons are frantically busy as I type!
Corporate personhood and CU are abominations, and have no place in a serious democracy. The Grover (poopyhead) Norquist pledge is equally scandalous. We should hang them around the necks of the Cons who imposed them on us, and set them on fire like tires!!!
Here are a few more: http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-gops-surrender-document/
They are attacking and sabotaging everything now, because they have the CU money, and now no one expects them to be decent American politicians and put aside party and 1% allegiances, and start working for the People and the Country! So they are snuffing out what little Progressive Radio we still have left. Coast to liberal coast with nothing to counter the constant drum beat of 24/7/365/every city RW Hate & Lies!!! Another URGENT problem!
We have a lot do, People!!! Let's join forces and get 'er done!
what do you mean curtail the R states? Sounds a little like a partition; a split in the union?
Sorry - poorly worded.
What I meant was to curtail the R efforts in those states so controlled by Rs to privatize everything, to restrict abortions, to suppress voting, etc
What he's implying is a nationalist socialism.
Could you elaborate on that, please? I'll admit that "curtailing Republican states" sounds fairly sketchy, but where's the rest of that coming from?
It comes from history and what I generally label simply as "correlations." There is much in this forum that falls under the ancient label of "Democratic Socialists of America" as an essentially New Deal coalition. And of course, the later "New American Movement" which focused energies on the new movements of feminism, gay and lesbian liberation, community organizing, etc. If we label all as "liberal" philosophy it is worth noting here that following the Nixon bust, the Left was sorely disappointed in that the country did not move in the direction they had anticipated to further empower them, but rather slipped even further right with the election of Reagan, where it remained for at least two decades.
They have not forgotten, as this forum serves to inform, and at the present time, there is opportunity - they will take advantage of the economic downturn which of course they will conflate to no end for self purpose.
When it comes to the sociopolitical all is fiction; these are but the fictions we create for ourselves as the economic unit of man marches on. If, for example, we gave each and every one of our poor a million dollars tomorrow would it make any difference? Of course not because these are not economically contributing members of society. If we were to move right and refuse them any aid at all would it make a difference? Again, of course not, for the very same reason. But... we will say "I believe this is right" while many others are drawn to say "I wholeheartedly believe that the other is right." These are all just fictions; they serve to empower one over the other - it really makes no difference what any of us "believe" - all is but a power struggle.
So... and... well, you know, in reference to the "Right," if we roll it back a little further... contrary to popular belief Hitler was NOT born of the right wing conservative as democratically elected; in fact, Hitler was NEVER elected at all - he was appointed by the party because the party believed they could control him; they could not.
But take a look at the party - take a look at the talking points of his National Socialist party - they fit here to a 'T'. Remember, too, from where this party drew its strength - it was youth and the working class, what was deemed the downtrodden. Again I would say that Hitler's party was NOT "Right"... it was "Left" - take a look at its talking points - and when one seeks to stamp out forever, as in, eliminate, all those who disagree, this is highly prejudicial, it is racism, it is nationalism - certainly Hitler unified various peoples and interests to redefine Germany's nationalism.
The desire to stamp out the Right completes the circle; it moves us from a democratic socialism, which I view as rather vague, to a national socialism.
I'm not a big fan of autocratic solutions to problems because they have a nasty tendency to come back and bite everyone in the ass; giving people power is easy but reclaiming it is hard as hell. My personal belief is that the current manifestation of the Republican Party is nothing more than a bunch of authoritarian corporate lobbyists, and that this is profoundly unhealthy for our nation; that dynamic needs to be broken up and broken up now. The question then becomes how to go about doing it.
If you decide, as you believe BensDad is suggesting, that the proper way to do that is to somehow use the authority of the federal government to systematically disenfranchise and/or silence the rank-and-file Republican voter, or to resort to tampering with the electoral process the way Republicans tried to in November, then you've basically made things a hundred or a thousand times worse. You may have shut down the Republican Party, but you've tossed the democratic process in the gutter along the way. Once you do that once, even for the "right" reasons, it gets very easy to justify doing it again and again because you feel like it (especially since the people who'd normally call you out on it are now unable to) and you've effectively transitioned from democracy to single-party oligarchy.
There is, however, another way to break up the dynamic between the Republican Party and large corporations (especially financial institutions), and in the process substantially clean up Washington in general. That's called campaign finance reform, and the first major step toward making campaign finance reform happen is to overturn Citizens United. If we can force ridiculous quantities of money out of the political process, then elected officials won't have to worry about pissing off their backers anymore, and since they won't have the funding to blanket the airwaves with ads they will have to answer to their constituents.
Will this effectively put a huge roadblock in the way of the more extreme factions of the Republican Party? Probably; without the funds to spam the airwaves with ads they'll have to run based on actual policy platforms that we may even be able to force actual fact-checked debates and defenses of; that means things like Mitt Romney's magical tax plan won't fly anymore. Furthermore, taking huge donations out of the question makes all lawmakers, Republican, Democrat, and independent, less vulnerable to bullying by outside interests.
The only other "curtailment of Republican power" that I can think of offhand would be to finally do something about gerrymandering of districts. As it stands now, Republican House candidates overall got something like 48.47% of the popular vote compared to 48.8% going to the Democrats, but 54% of House seats are Republican. Again, if we were to replace gerrymandering with a nationally-agreed-upon impartial algorithm for drawing districts and use those districts for the 2014 House the Republicans would probably take a decent-sized hit while the value of each American's House vote would become decidedly more equal.
In sum, in no way am I proposing abuse of state power to curtail the right wing; what I (and probably BensDad as well) am proposing is to remove the current mechanisms being used by the Republican Party to game the system.
Hmm... well, you have redirected the conversation from the sociopolitical to political mechanics. Which lends support to my theory, above, of sociopolitical as mere fiction.
The reason we see a majority Dem vote here is because of Federal redistricting law that requires the creation of majority-minority districts - if the district has a high concentration of blacks or hispanics, then in an effort to ensure that minority a voice, the district cannot be gerried to water it down. As a result though there are often two Dems running against each other in these districts and so quite obviously there will be a higher proportion of Dem votes (because either way they vote, the vote is Dem). If these districts were impartially redrawn, many would then include a Rep candidate destined to draw votes from that majority. What I'm saying is that this Dem majority is not a true majority because given a true choice, a greater percentage of these would be Rep and Conservative votes.
These Dems, incidentally, will never permit the impartial algorithm; it is primarily the gerrymander that has permitted them to remain in power in some states for decades - Maryland, for example. And the gerrymander continues despite all challenges because the courts are owned, created, by that ruling polity.
What people are doing is voting with their feet. Two or three decades of ever increasing taxes, permeated with corruption and theft, may get one through his or her career, or the family years, but eventually these wage earners and businessmen will take their money and their families and relocate. We are polarizing... and these parties that command a super Dem majority will eventually be left to confront the tax burden they have created alone because those who object to high taxes have all left the state. And you know what those more fiscally minded do, right? They scour the Net in search of better places to live; those places that do not tax their income. And generally they are looking at demographics precisely for this reason; they are headed for regions where non-minority demographics favor them with at least a 98.9% majority.
It's very simple - we are in search of equality. Those who work hard to be self-sufficient forfeit their earnings in taxes; those who do nothing forfeit nothing - we should reverse this formula because it's not fair; it's not equal, it's not equality.
As you mention the Rep party, traditionally, was the party of big business. And what big business creates is bigger business, and if the region is heavily dominated by big business, as the metro area is, this imports that wealth destined to impart a higher concentration and a more universal prosperity. It's a good place to seek employment and a good place to raise a family because there is more economic stability. I only mention this because you state that Republicans have nothing to offer. Well, for decades they have offered us employment, prosperity, and lower taxes. They have made it possible for poor people to live with some level of dignity as some semblance of a human being.
What I find most interesting in all of this, too., is that even those who most fervently proclaim liberal sociopolitical status, are doing precisely the same thing... they're relocating (and economically destroying the South; take NC, for instance).
I'm not being critical, that is not my intent. You are right about the impartial algorithm; I agree. I'm just suggesting that you should perhaps take a closer look at this respecting Democrats.
What?
Well you know what they say, if you can't kill 'em, eat 'em alive.
Republicans and Democrats will very soon become a thing of the past.
Demint slappin Beohner around.! Aaaaaaah ha ha ha ha ha!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/04/jim-demint-john-boehner-fiscal-cliff_n_2237786.html?ref=topbar
This is better than a "Real housewives of...." show.
And look a tea party founder has quit his astro turf groups freedomworks and demanded they remove his name from all stationary. (maybe freedom ain't workin for him no more)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/04/dick-armey-quits-tea-part_n_2237609.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Repubs are eating themselves alive today!
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/04/15675781-republicans-stripped-of-committee-slots-lash-out-at-gop-leaders?lite
The split of therepub party may be happening as we speak.
Couldn't happen to a nicer party! LOL
Thx - was anyone really in doubt - that Boner is working solely for the GREEDY CorpoRations and the GREEDY 1 - 4% of the wealthiest in the USA ( and by trade deals - around the world? ) ?
People please share - http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/04/15675781-republicans-stripped-of-committee-slots-lash-out-at-gop-leaders?lite Boner will punish those who would work for the betterment of the country - it is his way or the highway - and his way is not in supporting the people.
I think (hope?) it has only just begun. The failure at the polls, the coming defeat on the fiscal cliff negotiations, the failure of their attempts to cut medicare/SS can be the spark that truly splits the tea party extremists from the repub party.
In the end we can wind up with a moderate repub party again. And a wacky party of extremists (who will quickly become an inconsequential fringe group)
What fun!
Next election ( if they survive that long ) 2014(?) we can say goodby to more roadblocks of the peoples growth/recovery.
I think that may be true. DeMint/Tea party has promised Primary challenges if repubs ain't extreme enough. That has created dem opportunities in the past 2 cycles.
I just heard that Herman Cain is polling 50% to Saxby Chambliss 36% (who upset the Norquist last week) in the 2014 Senate race.
If Cain beats Chambliss in a primary a dem CAN beat Cain.
LOL
As the republican party continues to self destruct at the hands of Boner and other RINO/Elitist/CorpoRATists.
I can't believe the fun this is.
Woo Hooo!
I will have fun when we start making progress for the poor/homeless the failing middle class the environment the economy etc etc - but yes it is good to see the actions taking shape to get us there as well.
Your right. I'm not celebrating early, just enjoying their pain.