Viva La Rvolution!

[thefool_wa]

re-posted by suggestion from Lounge
I saw "V for Vendetta" last night and I have to say, besides being an excellent movie with very current themes and ideas, this movie gave me more than a little pause for thought about the tone of the entertainment media that has been coming out in the past couple of years.

It seems to have started some time before the American Idiot album hit the streets and has grown more and more prevalent until, now, the media-scape is finally rife with material on the subject of uprising and revolution in the modern, western world.

In this movie the character Evie quotes her father as saying "Artists use lies to tell the truth." (anyone know if this is credited to the author of V or if it is older?) and this is so true. More and more artists in every realm are seeing what we see in the world around us and casting out the warning to those in power that, in the not too distant future, we are going to finally be tired of it and rise against them, bringing about a true New World Order without their tyranny and devastation. My hope is that those of us out there with the charisma and the leadership skills can harness this new openness to the idea of revolution and draw people in who both feel the same and are ready to make the sacrifices necessary to affect true change.

I hope to harness this trend both for the promotion of the revolution based fiction I am working on and to help spread true political revolution in this country. That being the case, I believe it is time for a sound off. I want to hear from anyone out there who has a truly revolutionary idea to share (more than just let's blow stuff up, or down with the regime). To set the tone, I'll kick it off:

I feel that we should amend the constitution to create a third house of the legislative branch wherein all US citizens are further represented by officials they elect from within the companies for whom they are employed (under certain stipulations). The existing system of lobbying congress with regards to legislation would be made completely illegal. I have been working with a group of like minded citizens in the NW who believe this may be an answer to some of the problems our government faces and we have well developed text for these amendments. What we need are people to believe in the ideas.

Interested? Have your own ideas? Then sound off DU, show me what you got!

[ret5hd]

1. so, to sum up...

you believe business does not yet have enough power in this country.

okely dokely.

[thefool_wa]

7. On the contrary

Giving them a direct vote takes away a great deal of the shadow power they currently enjoy.

One-third of one-third of a say in our government is far less power than special interests wield through the existing corporate/industrial/npo lobbies.

[Voltaire]

17. Business should get NO vote

They are not human, why should they vote? If they can't compete, get out of business and stop rigging the government to grease everything they do.

[thefool_wa]

18. Corporations aren't represented as people

The employees of the company and the interest of the business are represented through as though the company itself were a state in the nation, but only in a single house of legislature newly created for this purpose. Employees would vote on representatives for their company the same way a citizen of a state votes for their representation.

These corporations already have a more powerful form of influence through the political lobby. If you strike that down and force on them true, regulated influence then you give the people back their voice in the two existing houses.

Business should have a voice in the government that regulates them, but what they have now is an ill-gotten voice that overpowers that of the people.

[Placebo]

2. It was a good movie.

:)

[thefool_wa]

10. Oh Yeah!

Best I have seen so far this year, but admittedly I have only been to the theater to see V and Narnia this year (small children make movie going difficult).

Those Wachowski Brothers are something else.

[kenny blankenship]

3. the lie/truth paradox is a Picasso quote

which means it goes back way farther than Picasso. And to continue with paradox as a guiding trope, we watch movies about revolution so we won't have one in real life.

[zeemike]

4. Unfortunately that is true. n/t

[thefool_wa]

8. I actually only used part of the quote

and it was going a different direction. The whole quote is "Artists use lies to tell the truth, politicians use lies to hide it." Still Picasso?

Personally, I watch movies about revolution for ideas on how to start one.

[zeemike]

5. I don;t like your idea of making it more complicated

instead of less
My revolutionary idea wold be to make it simpler. We already have a body that is suppose to be from the people and that is the House. If we did something simple like select our Representatives by lottery from among our own community that would fix a lot of things right there.

[thefool_wa]

9. They tried that

In ancient Greece and it didn't fair up well. You end up with representatives who know nothing about how the system of government works, how to read or pen legislation, etc. If this was true in the vastly less complicated society of the Ancient Greeks, I think it would be an exponentially worse problem here today.

Simpler might be better in most cases, but I think things in our government are getting too simple too quickly. As GW himself said, things would be alot easier if this were a dictatorship. Which is, after all, the most simple form of government there is.

[zeemike]

11. It is easier than you know

To make it simple.
Have a pool of qualified candidates to draw from, not just some random drawing.
Make the parliamentary rules simple and require a two thirds majority to change them.
Make comities assignments by lot as well so that the good ones with a lot of money around them would not be used as reward.
And then a simple six weeks course on how the congress worked could be taken for each new Representative.

[thefool_wa]

12. It misses a primary point of democracy

Wherein our officials are chosen by the majority because they represent the majority position (ideally). Choosing a random name from a hat, even when filled with qualified candidates only guarantees that nothing will get done, and that which does get done won't get done right.

I think our society has become too complex to simplify our government to this extent, unless we make the area governed geographically smaller (which I am all for). Again I have to site the ancient Greeks whose downfall is owed, in no small part, to "random government".

However, if I get the purpose of this methodology, a similar effect can be generated by term limits for every elected position. This has the effect of constantly stirring the pot and not allowing "fat cats" to sit in a seat for decades accumulating the influence and contacts necessary to become truly corrupt.

The main problem is the political lobby. It needs to end. It is the marketplace in which our government is bought and sold right out from underneath us. Lobbyists have stolen our elected officials and have already made the US a government by the people for the corporations. The only way I see to stop the corruption is to change the lobby into an elected political body.

[zeemike]

13. your point is well taken

And yes I would prefer democracy as long as it was not stolen from us by the power of the rich as it is now.
Like the shrewd bargainer, I will accept less than I ask for as long as it works.

[thefool_wa]

14. thanks for thought provoking conversation

just one more reason to love the DU.

[zeemike]

15. It is not hard to get an intelligent conversation here

There are a lot of intelligent, thoughtful and talented people here, and the board makes even conversations like this( conversation inside a conversation)easy to have.

[oneold1-4u]

6. Revolution-Resolution

When the people are resolute in understanding that a militarist government of industrialism is the worst type, and can show their revolt by simply not supporting it financially, that government will fail! This nation has endured through much in just the past century and many of those people haven't died yet! They will be the sought after teachers of revolt by self sacrifice and preservation of freedom!

[Jeffersons Ghost]

16. How about a THREE party system...

Hispanic immigrants could form a worker's party that would keep the fools who feed the Military Industrial Complex awake at night.