How do we "defund" the reich wing?

[wli]

This struck me as a possibility after John Roberts' comments about "defunding the left" appeared in the NYT.

Is defunding the right even possible? Does buyblue.org suffice? Is there any way besides buyblue.org? Can we collectively pool money together to buy television networks and align them to the left? Can we do anything at all?

[FloridaPat]

1. Solari has some ideas. I read them but I don't understand most of

what they write. One thing the say a lot is to buy locally. Start with banks. Stay away from the big ones and put your money with local banks that aren't involved in all the crap in the world. Kind of hard to buy local with gas, cars, and electricity. Solari suggests putting the money back in the community. That would stop the big nationals. Problem with doing that with Wal-mart is there go the jobs. But then, Wal-mart puts a lot of small businesses out of business.

When I first started going to Cracker Barrell, they had local arts and crafts people supplying their stores. It was really neat to get such diverse and intersting things in the different stores. Now everything almost comes from China and they all look the same.

www.solari.com

[xchrom]

2. for one thing -- if a lot of money

comes to the democratic party from ''the people'' -- and you can get the democratic party back in power -- you can begin to pass laws to force lobbyists and corporate types away from the politicians.

make it clear that you want publicly funded campaigns.

buy locally is a good program -- but very long term.
what's good about that -- is changing the american mind about what and where it consumes -- that would be huge.
but very slow.

[wli]

3. well, "buy locally" is just a variant of the boycott/buycott strategy

If laws that "defund the right" need to get passed to do it, then we can't do it, because the reich wing is entrenched. So what else can we do?

... by the way, I think one of the biggest ways to "defund the right" in a legislative fashion would be tearing down the prison-industrial complex. This includes getting those unable to vote off the census and ending felon disenfranchisement. It also means getting prisons geographically moved to Democratic voting districts or carrying out Democratic takeovers (no idea how that would happen) of prison-hosting communities.

[stevietheman]

4. Divest from Fortune 500 companies as consumer and shareholder

In other words, don't throw any money to big corporations wherever possible. Of course, this is difficult to transition to in some cases, but I think, if organized well, we could take back our government from corporatism.

One example: Instead of buying groceries at Walmart, go to a local/regional chain not on the Fortune 500. If that's not feasible, go to a supermarket chain that's as low on the 500 as possible, or at least lower than than the one you were going to.

What I'm talking about is a shifting away from centralized industrial power to a more decentralized version.

Potential Slogan: Downshift corporate power!

[wli]

6. interesting, I'd not heard of "investment boycotts" before

Thanks, this is a unique one.

[Fire Walk With Me]

5. 1. Hydrogen power vehicle/cheap electricity. 2. Separate church and state.

I can wish, can't I?

[wli]

8. hydrogen has density and "fuel cell" issues

Thermal depolymerization and hybrid and/or full electric personal vehicles, more and more effective mass transportation (esp. trains), and so on are probably better bets. Also c.f. quasiturbine engines.

[wli]

10. well, we don't have the leverage to do 2., and 1. has other issues

Basically, if we build vehicles (e.g. guy in a garage with a lathe) that run on alternative fuels, and start running them around, there are legal impediments. IIRC getting such beasts designated as roadworthy is difficult, lawsuits can take small vendors out very easily, and alternative fuel distribution is very rough due to economies of scale. Even worse, alternative fuel distribution and vehicles powered by them are huge patent minefields because the oil companies have been trying to patent the things out of existence for decades.

[JHB]

7. Effective progressive taxation

[wli]

9. okay, but how do we do that without a foothold in the govt.? n/t