Madame:
I can certainly
empathize greatly with the desire! What a fresh campaign that would be! While
I’m not as sure as you that agreement could be obtained on the “big 3 or 4
things,” there is overlap, no doubt. AFTER
the election (assuming success without excessive positive thinking, lol) would
be a bit difficult: since Reagan rejected Ford’s “co-presidency” proposal, such
a thing has been considered cold stone dead (although Cheney upended this in
Bush’s first term), and the vice-pres really doesn’t have any more power than
the president allows or gives. But maybe it could work for extraordinary
individuals of vision and character who would realize what the American people
elected them for!
Yes, if we could get
Americans to stop accepting sound bites and misrepresentations, this would go
far. However, the average American is so put upon by the crushing demands of
living and our society (and that everything is on the individual or nuclear
family instead of spread a bit more via community), let alone those overworked
poor or those without jobs or with only part-time jobs, I’m wondering if there
is enough human reserves. But perhaps there can be awakened, in all the corners
of this land, those who could help, but have become distracted or focused on
only themselves, or even the retired or elderly who feel tossed aside or youth
wasting their energy in directionless activity. So, good idea too! And would love two cranky old men who can’t
be bought. If we ever needed the
incorruptibles, it’s now.
Well, we’ve largely almost
had a moratorium on new laws, given a deadlocked Congress, but I agree it might
be great, if you could get legislators and executives to resist the urge to tamper
or make their mark. Ego and feeling one has POWER are hard to resist, let
alone the extreme pressure that constituents and lobbyists put on to do
something about their particular issues. Freezing spending at current levels is
a good idea, although it is less efficient than targeted cuts of misallocation
of resources. As the super-nothing committee demonstrated last year on that
however, getting to specifics is hard (even aside from ideological divides).
I’m all for this idea. Maybe we could get the legislators to all sign a pledge?
Worked for Grover Norquist! :)
As for the debates, if
America becomes astute enough to see beyond the corporate media spin and
channeling, this would be great! And of course, as your video demonstrates, the
parties, through a private corporation, control the debates completely, and
people would have to demand changes to that as well.
Yes, the two men would
disagree on much, but you’re right: the country is in such poor shape that we
need emergency/crisis focus on some key things, or little else will
matter. And your suggestions about
volunteerism, and they way to go about it? PLATINUM. “What if someone said
‘Look at what needs to be done in your neighborhood and find a way to do it.’
People are desperate for a vision of possibility.” Okay, that’s it; I’m moving
to your state and voting for you! :)
A great number of Americans
do want this, are ready for this, want to change things for the better. But
they want it to really matter, and they want everyone to sacrifice and
contribute, and they don’t want the powerful or corrupt (either as corporations
or as individuals) to evade justice, let alone responsibility. There is, I
believe, a great latent desire to make our lives meaningful in restoration, and
in building a new and better future, not just shoring up this corporatized
dessicated thing we’ve become. Many
people know or at least feel at some level that their lives need a whole lot
more meaning, and they have energy for that if there was something they truly
believed in. As
Napoleon Hill would say, we’re needing to channel all that energy in a
different direction! :)
Kennedy gave us that
call you mentioned, and also reminded us of Proverbs (and Roman oration) that,
without vision, the people perish. There is still a logjam on this one, because
enough of the country is still in 1) denial, or 2) because the dessicated world
hasn’t affected THEM yet they don’t see a problem, or 3) they are willingly
believers in the propaganda of the manipulators, or 4) they still believe that
MERE hard work and dedication is all that is needed to succeed in this country,
plus a number of other reasons for the groundswell not reaching critical mass
levels. But maybe, just maybe, the first faint signs of some movement in the
logjam? Too early to tell!
And now for the Party
Rain (Reign?)/Raining on the party:
The iron-grip of the two
parties means not only mountainous hurdles to get the realistic chance to be in
the running, but that a team from outside those parties miraculously elected to
the office of the president would find governing difficult if a slew of
like-minded people are not elected to Congress (and statehouses, probably, as
well) at the same time. The power of the
corporatists and plutocrats is great, and they control so much behind the
scenes.
Getting elected from the
outside is something beyond daunting. It
is nearly impossible to get on the ballot in all 50 states, so much have the two
parties and their allies set up roadblocks and blatant obstructions to prevent
the rise of competitors. Even if a team
could somehow surmount those high cliffs, there are the nearly equally high
challenges of getting coverage from a corporate media, a corporate debate
process, or securing adequate financing
to both fend off the endless money thrown at you in TV and other ads and state
your message.
This is why the
candidates I want are neither of what is usually served. I would, possibly even more than a Paul and
Nader, otherwise vote for a Buddy Roemer (for a link to his platform message,
see here: http://www.buddyroemer.com/splash), a Stein/Honkala
ticket of the Green Party, or possibly Gary Johnson or Jon Huntsman. People like Honkala, for example, imperfect
as they are, are the true (and largely unsung) heroes of our age.
Until
there is a groundswell of demand from the average American for real third
parties, real and realistic choices, or even changing our voting and
representation to be something other than single-member, winner takes all, we
are left with either rear-guard actions or attempting to fill one of the
parties with people who believe like you.
That is, those of us disgusted with the two plutocrat controlled parties
can either: 1) attempt to take over every precinct committee in all the states with
people who are focused on “the big 3 or 4” things, or 2) voting against
whichever of the 2 candidates presented to us in various elections (all the way
up to the President) will, in our opinion, do the least damage or the slowest
damage.
People
mostly only see number 2 as an option. It
is this sickening/disgusting second option that keeps too many away from voting,
which only plays further into the plutocrats’ hands.
We
need to keep talking about alternatives, planting seeds of ideas, ideas about
change. Ideas, if they progress, go
through the ignoring stage, then the ridicule stage, then the fighting stage,
then the acceptance stage, then the enthusiasm stage. At the latter two stages they become a
movement, and movements are what bring change.
Our
short-term culture will need uncharacteristically long focus to pull that one
off, but what non-catastrophic alternative is there?
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