Forum Post: The System: Can it be Fixed or Must it be Replaced?
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 12, 2011, 4:24 p.m. EST by blesnick
(5)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Three cheers for OccupyWallStreet and all of the OccupyXX actions around the country and around the world!
These actions correctly draw attention to the fact that the system is broken on so many levels. The question remains, can all of the ills that have been highlighted--inequitable distribution of wealth; endless wasteful wars of aggression; lack of health care, housing, jobs and educational opportunities; lack of accountability of the banks, Wall St. and large corporations--be fixed by just tweaking things, or will it take something more?
For a contribution to that discussion, please see these two essays:
1) http://open.salon.com/blog/brucie/2011/01/12/the_problem_is_capitalism
2) http://open.salon.com/blog/brucie/2011/09/26/the_dorothy_syndrome
A mass voter registration drive followed by a block vote to remove all standing incumbents. Our system can be easily fixed.
This!
The system is great, the people we have left there have polluted it.
Actually your statement is very accurate. But it is an infiltration that empowers the pollution.---
Article 5 is the only answer.
I disagree... a simple flush of the political toilet will take care of a good portion of it. Opening the constitution is a terrible idea and will further divide the country along party lines. The one thing everyone (left, right, middle, etc) agrees on is that the politicians are corrupt and are at the root of the problem. If we all rally around that simple fact, we can clean house and send the message that the people run the government. If we replaced 80% of all elected officials things would change very quickly.
Article 5 empowers a flush and DOES NOT open the constitution. When states are ratifying, congress has nothing to do with it. The principles of the constitution are non partisan issues and they are being violated. Any party that cannot defend the constitution does not have a rational basis in this nation.-
Comprehensive strategy.--- http://algoxy.com/ows/strategyofamerica.html http://algoxy.com/ows/statestrategies.html
actually it does. a constitutional convention (as I think is being proposed) allows any points to be brought to the convention, it is non-selective. Even if it were selective, who selects? do we go through a representative process again with the same representatives?
I think replacing as many elected officials as possible, county, state, and national, sends the message we need to send and am opposed to the idea of new amendments.
Correct, but proposing amendments is a LONG way from ratification and that is what amends. In fact, ratification of anything at all will be difficult. However, as American principles defined in the constitution are eroded and our nation hijacked, Americans are far more willing to consider ratification of proposals for amendment that are fully within the INTENT of the constitution.---
Better to take any small risk than lose the constitution, and I've tested it, it's almost gone. Basically, to restore constitutional government it will come down to our ability as Americans to know what natural law is and how the intent of the constitution is filled with it.
Correct, all that is needed is info to decide vote with, a reformation of election systems, then the authority to do it:)
We need an Article V convention NOW!
Learn about Article V, http://algoxy.com/poly/article_v_convention.html
With my proposed revision of the First Amendment, a voter drive is ultimately complimented by INFORMATION to the voters needed to make decisions. Election reform is only 1/2 of it. People must have the truth to make good decisions. Currently they do not. Just know that, . . . is going to cause HUGE unity.
Here is infor on Article V, http://algoxy.com/poly/article_v_convention.html
Here is my draft proposal of the First Amendment revision proposal.
http://algoxy.com/poly/meaning_of_free_speech.html
All it means is that speech vital to survival is shared and understood by the public. Free speech is not enough, it needs to have its inherent meanings or those who need to know it may not survive, basically us.
Let's not forget that the same men who wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, were reconciled to owning slaves. That they belonged to a class society where it was a foregone conclusion that power and wealth were the property of an established aristocracy, and that the Jeffersonian vision of democracy was an agrarian based measure designed more as a consolidation of power than an egalitarian reform. The Constitution is a cleverly crafted instrument of control created to insure that power remained in the hands of a certain segment of society. What appears on the surface as safeguards for our liberty are manacles shackling our freedom more securely than any totalitarian regime. We act as if our founding fathers were infallible when they were acting with the same self-interest at heart as today's investment bankers and insurance companies.
tympan55 wrote: Let's not forget that the same men who wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, were reconciled to owning slaves.END---
Article V can only be interpreted as for the common mass of people to exercise democratic control over the constitution. The aristocracy must abide, or loose power and become a target, as we see now with wall street. Unfortunately the point of offense should be upon government, but collusion between gov and wall street + infiltration of subcultures of activism by nwo preclude accurate targeting. That is the design of what we participate in here with our opposition to elite control of the public thinking via misinformation/education, misleadership and infiltration.--
True about slavery. The point you make without knowing it is that social fears controlled then, as they do now. Different fears, for different reasons. The illogical fears that have the movement focusing on wall street is equateable to the lack of fear of being known as a human being that owns the lives of other human beings.----
I know of meth dealers that do that, and the nwo loves it.
All of that within an Article 5 that also secures the voting systems and reforms the election system WILL fix it.------
Learn about the article 5 convention to propose amendments.
Analysis of applications. http://www.foa5c.org/mod/resource/view.php?id=2
A lawsuit against all members of congress for not calling an Article 5. http://algoxy.com/poly/article_v_convention.html
Article V conference, Mark Meckler Lawrence Lessig at harvard 9/25/11-video comments http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-7ikbvu0Y8
Lessig power point on article V http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gpbfY-atMk
A effort each evening to create a web conference to discuss Article 5 is beginning.-- http://www.articlevmeeting.info/
Comprehensive strategy.--- http://algoxy.com/ows/strategyofamerica.html
The corrupt corporate-financial-political complex cannot be fixed because it already is.
See my post on "Socializing Pensions" for the solution.
The question is more complex.
If we would like to achieve all add of which you list and add things, the system needs to be radically changed. It does not take too much of investigation and education to understand how our current system breeds much of the corruption we see today.
The "bad apple excuse" is often just and example of the Slothful induction fallacy.
However, to radically change the system might be more then we can handle. That is one of the great tragedies of our time, that we as a people are so fractured and dispersed - almost only united in our state of separation and competition - that we can not muster the focus and organisation needed to get out of the problem. In short: we might not have what it takes to solve our shared problem, even though we want to.
[Removed]
http://open.salon.com/blog/brucie/2011/01/12/the_problem_is_capitalism "The problem is capitalism.
Capitalism: the economic system that puts profits above human need."--------
Definition of CAPITALISM : an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
The dumbed down redefinition of the link automatically attempts to assert with the reverse implication in inference that the state is automatically going to be more intelligent, reasonable, efficient and responsive to the peoples needs where the people are when they need it.
Uhhhh, think again about a nation of people that can agree upon. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness while considering the greed that enabled the dumbed down redefinition of capitalism within the mentality of media corporations infiltrated (semiotics = main tool) for the sole purpose of corrupting the people ability to know and use those principles..
I think we need a complete overhaul. This idea of the "free market" has been preached as gospel for so long that our leaders don't even use common sense anymore. I think our economy needs to be run based on sound theories, not what "ism" you believe in. I mean think about it. If the free-market worked so well on it's own throughout history, why the hell would governments have ever developed? The free-market works well for price discovery and that is where it's function ends. I won't go into everything I believe is broken because we have a lot of great ideas in this forum. The one thing I advocate is a Land Value Tax. If you notice the top 1% who own most ofthe wealth also own most of the land. This has been true in every culture throughout history. The people who own that land contributed nothing to it's creation. They also contributed nothing to the value of the land, only the improvements of the land. People should be entitled to the improvements; after all it was their labor and capital that produced them. But the land value is created by the community and should be taxed accordingly.
The free trade ageements are ruiniing this country.
Correct. All agreements under "World Trade Organization" premise are subject to being rescinded at an Article V convention. They empower multinational corporations, usurp US law in US territory and are only accoutable to governments. INDIVIDUALS HAVE NO STANDING.------
Therefore the focus should not be on wall street it should be government. Post in these threads because these Americans making these threads are smart enough to point at the basic problem. Targeting.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/corporate-influence-in-government-and-its-effect-o/ http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-system-can-it-be-fixed-or-must-it-be-replaced/ http://occupywallst.org/forum/we-need-to-fight-the-source-not-the-symptom/ http://occupywallst.org/forum/fix-congress-not-wall-street/ http://occupywallst.org/forum/please-consider-this-everyone-focused-on-1-thing/ http://occupywallst.org/forum/poll-more-people-blame-washington-than-wall-st/
The free trade ageements are ruiniing this country.
Replaced! =)
The global capitalist economy cannot expand any further, and so it will collapse.
Our resources are finite. The world is becoming unlivable through our own actions.
The only voices that will be listened to are those of reason and compassion.
The old habits and fears spawned out of decades of political propaganda will evaporate in the coming crisis. The mentality of selfishness will decline.
Our abilities, our needs, our interests will be met. Nothing less is acceptable.
Complacency, apathy, and callousness is not acceptable.
No longer will creativity and imagination be exploited and thrown aside. No longer will the nerves, bones and muscles of people be made a commodity. No longer will we sit idly by, helpless to the suffering of billions around this planet.
Humanity will always triumph in this struggle. It always has, and it always will.
The system is broken, but whenever a complex machine, organism or organization is "broken," the danger is that prescribed "fixes" wrought from raw anger, ignorance and invalid premises render the situation worse. As a "middle of the roader," I see plenty wrong with our social, political and economic systems. However much I empathize with OWS participants, I find many of their signs, at least, projecting misguided notions of present reality and dangerously naive prescriptions for improvement. For starters, I think everyone in this society--students, elders, and yes, Wall Street bankers too--need to touch base periodically with certain economic realities, such as the interplay between supply and demand, the historical efficiency of markets vs. the historic inefficiency of incentral planning, the source of financial bubbles, the effect of demographics on economic performance, the law of unintended consequences, and the overwhelming human (certainly American) trait to favor short-term consumption over long-term prosperity. May the OWS movement stir people to think, to educate themselves better about the issues of the day and to unite--not 99% vs. 1%, but 100% of us in shaping a more promising democracy in which all of us come to see that everyone is better off when . . . everyone is better off. But how to do that--it won't be simple, it won't be easy. Our answers will need to be as smart and sophisticated as our problems are complex and daunting. Our present circumstances did not develop overnight. The way out will take time as well.
The system is broken, but whenever a complex machine, organism or organization is "broken," the danger is that prescribed "fixes" wrought from raw anger, ignorance and invalid premises render the situation worse. As a "middle of the roader," I see plenty wrong with our social, political and economic systems. However much I empathize with OWS participants, I find many of their signs, at least, projecting misguided notions of present reality and dangerously naive prescriptions for improvement. For starters, I think everyone in this society--students, elders, and yes, Wall Street bankers too--need to touch base periodically with certain economic realities, such as the interplay between supply and demand, the historical efficiency of markets vs. the historic inefficiency of incentral planning, the source of financial bubbles, the effect of demographics on economic performance, the law of unintended consequences, and the overwhelming human (certainly American) trait to favor short-term consumption over long-term prosperity. May the OWS movement stir people to think, to educate themselves better about the issues of the day and to unite--not 99% vs. 1%, but 100% of us in shaping a more promising democracy in which all of us come to see that everyone is better off when . . . everyone is better off. But how to do that--it won't be simple, it won't be easy. Our answers will need to be as smart and sophisticated as our problems are complex and daunting. Our present circumstances did not develop overnight. The way out will take time as well.
sevski wrote: "However much I empathize with OWS participants, I find many of their signs, at least, projecting misguided notions of present reality and dangerously naive prescriptions for improvement."END-----
An agenda of bringing up issues and problems, things of outrage, solves nothing. No entity present on the ground or the web that can recognize solution, let alone talk about it, = no change.
There is a bit of vaguery here. Is system, "government system" or "economic system" or collusion between the two? Aside from that, the Constitution is a different thing and I assume it is regarded as the "law of the land". That said, once the government is made constitutional, their constitutional duty is to make the economic system constitutional respecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To make the government constitutional we will have to use Article V of the constitution to enable our education and information with vital truths needed for support and defense of the constitution. Next, in the same convention, election reform. The sequence is logical, the truth gets out first, then decisions, no matter what they are, can be logically be made. Information vital to survival must be shared and understood for survival. That is what this is about and it is not a new concept. http://algoxy.com/poly/meaning_of_free_speech.html
Link 1 above (The Problem is Capitalism) demonstrates that, regardless of people's personalities, sentiments or intentions, capitalism has certain built-in contradictions which lead inevitably to the problems we are seeing.
In one limited framework that is true. The largest framework is that all the porblems are created by behaviors. Capitalism exercised as hedonism, is the activity compelled by the behavior.--
The real underlying problem is that the science of understanding of behavior is immensly negligent. That neglect in a communist nation turns into far worse behavior than we see in this nation.
Well if you believe that there is no way to have a political solution, you are talking about revolution, and I doubt many would support you there.
But as far as a political solution, why not generate your own list of candidates for every congressional district. Just because you choose a political resolution, does not mean that you have to support either of the current political parties.
again, essentially, has little to do with the system...but depends mostly on people's mind....
the society is sick----not the system, but people's morality....
Human beings are not inherently greedy.
Human beings are a product of their environment.
Human beings reflect their environment.
The human race is suffering from a value system disorder.
We, as a society cannot seem to denote wrong from right.
This must change.
The world must evolve.
The government must evolve.
The economic system must evolve.
Peace, Love, and Unity.
True, the system is broken and we need a comprehensive strategy to replace it, and although I'm all in favor of taking down today's ineffective and inefficient Top 10% Management Group of Business & Government, there's only one way to do it – by fighting bankers as bankers ourselves. Consequently, I have posted a 1-page Summary of the Strategic Legal Policies, Organizational Operating Structures, and Tactical Investment Procedures necessary to do this at:
http://getsatisfaction.com/americanselect/topics/on_strategic_legal_policy_organizational_operational_structures_tactical_investment_procedures
Join
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/StrategicInternationalSystems/
if you want to be 1 of 100,000 people needed to support a Presidential Candidate – myself – at AmericansElect.org in support of the above bank-focused platform.
Fair enough. What next? What are your thoughts on the two links?
The system is not broken. It was built this way.
No. It was Hi-jacked in 1913. Since then the banksters have controlled our money and politicians.
Institute term limits. 8 years maximum for any and all nationally elected servants. If two 4 year terms are enough for any one man to hold the highest elected public servant office of President, that should also hold true for other public servants in lesser offices.
Eliminate ALL company and non-profit contributions to political candidates. Only private U.S. citizens should be allowed to donate to any U.S. political candidate, and donations should have an individual donor cap.
Eliminate ALL PAID corporate and non-profit lobbyists. Our elected officials are there to serve us, We The People, not anything or anybody else.
Eliminate the need for candidates to have to buy advertising to campaign. During election times, media should have the choice to participate. If they wish to participate, then they should provide free equal air time to all political candidates. Local media providing for local elections, and national media providing for national elections.
By no means is this complete, and each point as always needs refining. I feel these simple steps would go a long way in starting to solve some of the issues we have created.
That is a good basic proposed amendment list for an Article V convention. Each state should consider reviewing it.
Bravo! the 4 steps you pointed out are absolutely essential.
Very new facebook page focused on that one goal. No parties, no other issues.
Help it grow, develop and contribute. There is another one, run by a member of the controlled elite media. Personally, I am suspect of those in the media. This one was started by one person a few days ago. Hoping Americans can make it a ground swell issue.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Get-Money-Out-of-Politics/170454236375392
Touche.
This is closer to our founder's vision then what we live under now,
http://sanityscribe.wordpress.com/
Marry me? haha ;)
My wife is sitting next to me. I am flattered though.
You should be! Haha tell her she is lucky to have a rational thinker for a husband! :)
No, there were those that broke it. The supreme court.
http://www.foa5c.org/file.php/1/Articles/Coleman.htm
It's better to fix it, because its not all broke. The people are broke, that the hardest part. Congress is absolutely broke and cannot be fixed, replace that part. Amend the constitution so media cannot conceal treason any longer. The budget, term limits, reform campaigns and elections. Hey, it'll be okay. Figure out the finances as we go.
Article 5 convention NOW!
A system adjustment on a massive level while still operating is required. America must conduct an article 5 convention and amend in proper sequence absolutely reasonably.
Article 5 convention NOW!