Forum Post: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize Folks - THE main goal of these protests needs to be CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM!!!!
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 14, 2011, 8:12 p.m. EST by LSN45
(535)
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For decades now the corporations and special interests have had our "representatives" bought and paid for. We need to get the money out of our politics. Until we end the current system of legalized bribery (campaign donations) and paid lobbying our politicians will continue to be the lap dogs of the corporations and special interests. What we need first and foremost is real, loop-hole free CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM!!!! If the corruption is not dealt with first, the chance of any other meaningful reforms becoming a reality is almost zero - the special interests will just use their money to buy votes and put forward bills that create loop-holes or otherwise twist the law in their favor. If we want our children to live in a country where there vote matters, we need to get the money out of our politics, otherwise they will increasingly become the 21st century version of the "landless peasant." Spread the word - CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM needs to be THE main goal of the protests.
Making demands recognizes authority. Recognizing corrupt authority legitimizes tyranny.
I agree. The demand should be to the true authority - the American people. I hear more and more people talking about it. These protests are only getting started and it is not just young people.
A red herring... and impossible for as long as conservative justices reign in SCOTUS. Citizens United should have taught you that.
Citizens United has become/will become a chink in their armor. It was incredibly stupid of the Roberts court. Corporations already had the power, this ruling brings it out into the open. It is no longer conspiracy mongering but now published fact that no one can deny. Just wait, CU will be considered a pyrrhic victory and sooner than you think.
The smug and powerful always seem to overreach. The 99% is just beginning to wake up.
Nah man they are awake now. Their eyes are wide open. Tonight was a game changer.
Don't give up yet! If the protests shouted this loud and clear the pressure would be so immense they would have to act. "Citizen's United" is a miscarriage of justice and I see a lot of opposition building against it. Let's all hope America wakes up and realizes that her children have been disenfranchised by the corporations and special interests.
corporations control our government and our economy. the reform would never get done.
Well at least one of the top three (Glass-Steagall, paper ballots, etc.). However, my main point is that to grab the population at large, we need to phrase this request at the most emotional, gut level possible.
Stress your phrase, 'legalized bribery'. We have a system of legalized criminality. Crimes are crimes, because they contravene justice. Bribery is a crime, whether legal on the books or not. Slavery is the clearest case of this. Legal or not, it is/was a crime.
Further what kind of 'leaders' does this system give us? Individuals who are comfortable begging and becoming whatever their sponsor wishes.
Too many people now say 'campaign reform?', 'you mean you want more taxes from me.' We need to figure out a way to defeat this shortsightedness.
i don't think its your place or anyones to tell us all what THE main thing is. Campaign finance reform is an important issue, but compared to any of a dozen other issues it is quite peripheral. An article 5 convention, a new political party, having open source think tanks form and work the problems... ending the wars... ETC. there are a LOT of things significantly MORE important, don't be telling everyone what to do. Moderation and vibe check. You are gung ho about campaign finance reform. Great. Get back to the wiki and write us up some articles about it. Don't bully the crowd to go to your issue make believing you have the special insight to see whats truly most important. You don't.
Agreed. so. now what. The least useful aspect of the whole thing is that its non violent. this does not help the agenda at all.
Its also orders of magnitude larger and bigger than it was supposed to be and growing at an exponential rate.
What perhaps you may fail to understand at first is that there has been a dam. Holding back. The waters of the light of truth. Crack. Snapple. Pop. 200 years of lies. 200 years of propaganda. 200 years of science creeping on while the elites tried to freeze the knowledge of the proles in 1800. 200 years of sociology knowledge. 200 years of education reform science. 200 years of oil and coal while all the whole while we could have had geothermal.
Crack. snapple. Crack. Crickkettyy pop. snapple Crack.
How long could the lies hold up? how long could they keep the proles ignorant and wholly self destructive?
How long could they prevent a genuine consensus process?
Corporate Oligarchy is a Dead Horse walking. It looks alive, but it actually died in 2000 with the Election of Bush. Assorted fatal systemic errors are killing it, and without a vital solution for a new and dynamic evolutionary revolution, all of humanity, including the elites, would die.
they need this revolution just as much as the rest of us.
And there is nothing they can do now to stop it, their only power is to try to censor it, control it, co-opt it, and fail, until we elect them out of office and then take back our government.
"Beasts of burden"? lol. Yes, the Collosophant. Carrying civilization forward on our shoulders while they the mere parasites lives off and on us.
It was a handy arrangement for them, but we could have crushed them at any time at our whim, and they have failed to realize this. The police in Oakland are realizing this. 50 mounted horses are just riot targets. Beat enough people up in front of a crowd of ten thousand, and it could just get a lot uglier than any fight they want to pick. WE THE PEOPLE are WAKING UP. And we are mad as hell, and we are not going to take it any more.
Snap. crack. krick. pop. 200 years of evil control. 200 years of dumble down. stretching. Creaking. splintering. When it breaks there will be no safe place for any oligarch to hide. their trillions of dollars will not buy them the elections any more and their lies will be known to the public and they will live in shame, and most of them will end up in federal prison.
When the bough breaks, the cradle will rock...
humpty dumpty...
a thousand metaphors and narratives. I'm glib today, actually, and reminded of this song, in 1776.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1213z9KHNs
http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/Issues_%2B_Political_Platform_Items
Gawdoftruth - I don't mean to come across heavy-handed, just trying to keep the concept in front of people. A hard thing to do when the majority of the posts only talk about the symptoms or are obvious troll postings. I seen several polls showing American's want less corporate influence and getting the money out of politics would give other reforms a chance (including your new political party). That said, I think we want the same thing and I'm all for listening - please share dozen or so issues that are of equal importance.
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I don't believe we can afford to stop there - but it is a perfectly sensible place to begin.
In order to do that though, we have to remove somehow those in power who oppose us. I suggest we make them afraid. We make them afraid by using language and truth.
How?
Take a look:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/targeted-interdiction-what-is-it/
You have a good point - I share the need for campaign finance reform at every opportunity I get. By the end of our conversation in almost every case they agree that we need it badly. The only exceptions I've come across are people who have "given up" and resigned the country to doom already - and easy thing to do but not an option when you have children you love.
I agree this is the main goal. (Very nice early draft submitted by TrevorMnemonic). If this is to actually move forward, Then let's get to it. CITY BY CITY PETITION. This isn't going to come about by a march. This has to be a national referendum.
This is a bill that has been drafted based on thoughts of the OWS movement.
http://images.tinyuploads.com/tuploads3/2011-11-04/66865.jpg
Thanks! It makes a lot of sense - the public financing trust fund sounds great. I would be willing to pay a lot more than $10 a year if it meant a level playing field for all candidates. Just think about it - how nice would it be to actually have some real statesmen (and women) running for office - people who want to actually serve the country rather than enrich themselves and their family/friends.
Exactly. Definitely what we need is to get the system back to where people will run for office to help the country, not to become filthy rich.
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