Forum Post: Time to Punish the congressmen/Senators That voted for the Bailout.
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 17, 2011, 6:17 p.m. EST by Davonmawgood
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First off, I am pumped that Occupy Wall Street has made it one month strong, and now has global support! But I feel that in order to see that we get the money out of our political system, we need to get rid of the men and woman who failed us first, and that would be Our Congress. We voted them into office to be our voices and to vote in ways that would help our country and our people. However that has not happened. And I ask: "Why should congressmen and Senators keep their jobs, when they have not only failed the people the are suppose to serve, they have also risk the future of our country by ignoring the 99% over and over again"
So I purpose that we ask our Congressmen and Senators that voted for the "Bush Bail Outs" To step down. All of them! Or we should have them all Impeached! To really punish Wall Street, we need to first punish the people in DC that bailed them out. In any other work place, if did a poor job you would be fired. I don't see why Congress is any different! Some would say that you can fire them on election day. And I would like to remind you that if that was true then Occupy Wall Street wouldn't be here. But with Big Business also making a business out of our Government, It's hard to run for office if you don't have major money backing you. But if we all with our voices call for congressmen/senator to either step down or risk being impeached. Then maybe we can shape how our elections are held in the future.
In our history only one senator has been impeached,but that doesn't mean we can't change that.
Repeal Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Write your representatives + senators today. This is what started the whole mess. I've already written to Schumer. He was partially responsible for passing it, and I'm demanding that he offer a repeal now. If everybody asks their elected officials to repeal this nightmare of a bill, maybe we can start to finally put this economy right again.
To really punish Wall Street, you need to empower people in DC to stand up to them and hold them accountable. That means strong regulation of lobbying and campaign finance. It doesn't matter who's in office when these get passed, freshmen or incumbents. All that matters is that we keep the pressure up to ensure that these regulations get passed, that government start representing us again, and that Wall St. be held accountable.
In theory they were empowered when they took the oath: "I, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God
I refuse to believe that our Congress is powerless to Wall Street. I believe that most of Congress is corrupt and is owned by Wall Street. So removing these "sell outs" would be smart then to let them lie to us and just find better ways to hide and fool the American people.
Congress has authority over Wall St, but it is systematically disempowered by its dependency upon Wall St money in order to run successful campaigns. The key word is "systematically": this isn't a problem with one or two congresspeople; it's a problem with the way the electoral system is set up. Under the current rules, there is no feasible way to get a majority in either house of Congress -- let alone both simultaneously -- of representatives who have not accepted a single dime from Wall St. The consequence I draw from this is that it doesn't make sense to unleash your wrath on incumbents, because their challengers -- at least the ones that stand a chance of winning -- are going to have to accept Wall St. cash as well.
The anti-corruption movement must not insist on waiting until enough representatives are able to pull themselves up into office by their own bootstraps. We must act now to pressure everyone in office, regardless of how they got there, to enact the changes we need now.
Why don't we just vote against them when they run for re-election? We need to change the corporate culture of greed on Wall St. That's what this is all about.
I understand that. But the election system we have currently is flawed. Most of the people running have millions in backing.
I think if we first remove people in congress that are part of a flawed system. We will send a message to people who plan to run in the future.