Restoring Democracy and Taking Control of Our Nation Away From Corporations

[theFrankFactor]

I Want Your Input Please

I have written a piece that you can find here: http://bit.ly/7X2HsO

The Collusion of Government & Big Business Spells the Death of Democracy

It may be helpful to you or your friends that have been disillusioned by what we are witnessing in our Federal government. Please feel free to share and forward the article. Please bear in mind, the thrust of this article is not an action plan but and admission and examination of the problems.

I am requesting your help to draft some ideas that we can push that will actually help initiate the change that must take pace. So let's brain storm and set our sights on the job ahead.

Here is my quickly drafted outline:

Restoring Democracy and Taking Control of Our Nation Away From Corporations

Thesis

* Elected officials from the present two party system represent the interests
of corporations over and above the Constitution and the electorate. America
has been lead into a dangerous and unstable condition due to the
exploitation of the People’s government by corporate influence. There must
be an accountability system that punishes public servant behavior that
subverts electorate representation for corporate favoritism. The separation
of corporation, as well as church and state, must be initiated and
enforced.

Objectives

1. Make elected representatives answer to the electorate.
2. Remove corporate influence from all levels of public governance

Suggested Goals to Accomplish These Objectives

1. Publicly fund elections
2. Eliminate corporate person-hood
3. Initiate instant runoff voting
4. Eliminate electoral college
5. Ban exiting public officials from accepting lobbyist positions
6. Oversight of the Federal Reserve
7. Tax reformation
8. Budget reformation

Citizen Actions to Accomplish These Objectives

1. Strengthen and expand alternate media
2. Infiltrate existing party systems to affect changes
3. Exploit current means to pressure representatives
4. Prepare, support, and run Liberal/Progressive candidates


Thank you for your support!
http://thefrankfactor.podomatic.com/

[Burma Jones]

1. The more Teabaggers I see

The more Fox News Viewers I see
The more I realize that people will believe anything they're told
The more I see people going right straight to fear and hate as their first reaction to distress


The less I believe in Democracy


If wealthy media moguls have so much power to sway people, then there can't be Democracy, just a Plutocracy with the veneer of Democracy. But then, it's pretty much always been thus.

[T Wolf]

2. Institutions (like govt. and corps) cannot be changed WITHOUT changing the PEOPLE

who are in charge of those institutions.

Therefore, it makes sense that it is those PEOPLE who must be targeted for any effort to bring about change. Until we, the people, are ready and willing to do that, not a damn thing (of significance) will change.

[Sanity Seeker]

9. For the love of stuff, stuff, stuff

I agree T Wolf. In reality, an economy depends on the consumption of products and services by people who are willing to spend their money. Many consumers, if they can't afford to pay cash will willingly debt themselves to consume beyond their means. Twenty years ago, a bank wouldn't extend a home loan without 20% down, and ratios of no more than 25% of income delegated to a house payment. Today, we write 40 year loans, no down payments, 38% income allowance, and sketchy credit. Houses have tripled in size since the 1950's. Higher education is un-affordable for the average American and we go into debt for 30 years just to pay off our student loans in the hopes we can land jobs in a waning industry base in our country. Medical premiums now constitute a 1960 comparative cost of a house payment, car payment, and medical insurance combined.

In many respects, we created the vampires who now wish to eat us for lunch. Vote with your dollars, your conscience, your time and energy.

[protest_dude]

11. It's not so bad... its typical for this time period.

It's always like that in a non-crisis situation.

There were MILLIONS of KKK members in the 1920s.

The John Birch Society was big in the early 1960s.

But the KKK couldn't feed starving people during the depression.

The JBS couldn't stop body bags from coming back from Vietnam.

When people get pushed up against a wall, they start listening to alternative voices, but usually only then.

Now we have potential.

Why isn't a job considered a basic human right?

Ask you're typical non-political or conservative person this.

Remind them that they can't have life, liberty, or property without a job. Not welfare, a job.

They are at that point, a socialist.

We have great potential right now. The Bail Out The People Movement http://www.bailoutpeople.org is rallying people around popular demands like full employment, education, etc.

Get involved! This is the hope!

[sharesunited]

3. You're just nibbling around the edges.

If you want corporations to act in ways other than their own self interest, they need to be owned by people who are willing to place secondary importance on profit in favor of more socially responsible values such as:

1. Full employment
2. Fair dealing
3. Providing wholesome goods and services at consumer friendly prices
4. Minimizing the imposition of burdens upon society and nature
5. Commencing new enterprise rather than growing through mergers and acquisitions, and
6. Forebearance from using any corporate resources whatsoever to exercise political influence.

Citizen actions:

1. Own shares of publicly traded corporations.
2. Vote those shares to put management in place who will promote your values.
3. Continually push Congress and the SEC for stronger shareholder control.

Not all corporations are publicly held, but those which are can be made to advance these purposes.

[fasttense]

4. The Supreme Court has severely limited the control

Share holders may exert on a corporation.

Owning a share or 2 will have no impact on a corporations because your vote is so diluted.

The only real way to impact corporations is to own huge portions of their stock so that your vote does count or you could short them and distribute counterfeit shares. And that my friend can only be done with lots and lots of money.

So buying stocks in order to change corporations is like giving money to the mafia to stop running drugs.

[Yurovsky]

5. There's one exception...

retirement funds for teachers, government workers, police/firefighters, and other unionized employees can accumulate enough shares to have a voice. Unfortunately, these funds are typically run by the same types of vermin that run the corporations themselves, and nobody wants to upset their perfect world by actually holding anyone accountable for their crimes against the working class.

The only way to change it is for unions to demand that their pension funds be run by individuals who share their belief system and will bring pressure to bear on the corporations to behave in an ethical and fair manner to employees, customers, and yes, even the small share holders. No more enormous salaries/bonuses until all employees are paid a living wage and provided with health care, 4 weeks paid vacation, maternity/paternity leave, and fair and equitable severance pay if a company does have to reduce its workforce (and no more golden parachutes for the fat cats in the corner offices).

Maybe the administration will encourage such behavior, but in the meantime, it'd be great to see Americans stand up to the corporate thugs who have made life in America so difficult.

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. Get stuck into Chevron:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/chevron_toxic_legacy_1/?cl=467693753&v=5329

[20Jan1961]

7. Great video to get us started!

I wholeheartedly support theFrankFactor's call! Check this video out ItsOurDemocracy.com Corporations are not people!

[Sanity Seeker]

8. Corporate Vampires Sucking Off our Juglars

Hi Frank,

My rant for the day.

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." Henry Ford

Why do we buy the lies? We are not a "free market" economy. We are an economy of collusion, conspiracy, complicity, avarice, hubris, and repulsive ethical bankruptcy. When the Supreme Court, the Executive and Legislative branches of our government choose the interests of corporations, many who flagrantly lie, cheat, and steal from their shareholders and the taxpayers, we are not even close to a just or viable economic society. We rationalize regulation as an impediment to free market economics. Why are we surprised by the recent Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations unlimited lobbying access to the balance of government safeguard against undue influence in the favor of the corporations? Corporate welfare accounts for billions of dollars of our national spending. We fund Blackwater, a war corporation virtually unregulated. We give trillion dollar contracts (remiss of open-bid competition) to the likes of Halliburton at home and abroad - their graft is well known and yet what does our government do to protect the financial interests of its citizen's tax dollars? A sixth of our GDP is tied to healthcare corporations...hmmmm...42% of our population is without healthcare. This year, we face a 30% increase in premiums for policy holders. $1200.00 per month premiums, all for the benefit of having pre-existing conditions excluded? How is it that premium payers pay for a service only to be denied of those very services? Hospitals charge $121.00 for 1 oz of liquid Tylenol x 6 doses a day. Actual cost for 1 oz of Tylenol is around 2.5 cents. Rationale - hospitals need to charge $121. to cover capital and operating costs. This equates to $120.97 cost to provide a dose of Tylenol. Bull! Sounds like armed robbery by a different name - profit. Then, the American public is suppose to smile when we hear of health insurance companies who pay their CEOs 33 million a year, a billion dollar stock portfolio, and a billion dollar golden parachute. We wonder why we can't afford a sustainable healthcare system?

What do we think will happen to the average American worker when corporations have unlimited financial access to our courts and our legislature? Corporations, in our free market society get billions of our tax dollars outsourcing our jobs to other nations. Many of these corporations increase their profits by subjecting peoples of other nations to sweatshop/slave wages and conditions in which there are also no labor costs, e.g., healthcare, unemployment benefits, safety costs, or workman's compensation. Corporate justification - "well, these people (sic) are better off to at least have the work we give them as there are no alternatives for them." Reminds me of the ideologies of slave masters. We have laws in this country to protect against such human usery - why are we surprised the corporations are offshore? Labor supply and demand laws tells us exactly what to expect in our country - global labor supply will drive down national wages. Then we rejoice that our stock market shows profit strength. Shameful!

Today, the average American will never really "own" their homes, and for those fortunate enough to get a college education, their loans will take them most of the working life to repay. Millions of Americans lose their homes as we lose our jobs and the banks play Monopoly with the securities game. Tens of thousands file bankruptcy due to medical bills. Banks take their "pound of flesh" with inflated interest and fees, all while getting billions and billions of our tax dollars, and awarding the vampires at the top at our expense. 1% of the American population owns 90% of this country's concentrated capital wealth. What does that leave in the economic pot for 270 million Americans? Why isn't our economy recovering? Why are there few living wage jobs, the very source of economic generation? If 6% of our GDP is in healthcare, won't protectionism for this industry supercede the very reforms needed to save the bleeding patient?

In the light of our delusions and denials, I find moments of lucidity studying history for the answers, yet there is no comfort. The message is clear: "Feed them to the lions." "Let them eat cake." "Tell our people to dig for potatoes." "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Our system is broken and I wonder if we have the will to revolt, to change, to find the courage and sacrifice required for radical social and economic justice?

[protest_dude]

10. Band Aid - Not Vaccine

1. Publicly fund elections
2. Eliminate corporate person-hood
3. Initiate instant runoff voting
4. Eliminate electoral college
5. Ban exiting public officials from accepting lobbyist positions
6. Oversight of the Federal Reserve
7. Tax reformation
8. Budget reformation

This is not a good program. It doesn't get the root of the problem.

Every issue liberals take issue with has the same root:

War On Drugs - PROFITS for prison-industrial complex.
Unemployment - PROFITS for bosses, driving wages down, causing competition among workers.
Healthcare - PROFITS for insurance companies.
Bank Bailouts - PROFITS for banks who own the government.
War in Iraq - PROFITS for oil companies & Pentagon contractors.


SEE A PATTERN?

The answer is to seize the means of production.

The people should democratically control and operate industry, banking, communication, education, transportation etc.

Once profit gets the boot, we can start directing society in a good way.

Wanna end Global Warming? Wanna "restore democracy"?

UNTIL YOU OVERTHROW CAPITALISM, GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!

Capitalism is the root of the evils. We need to mobilize for revolution.