Quick! Sign this internet petition! Call your Rep! Call your Senators! Call the White House!

[No Elephants]

Why? Do you believe that the only reason that the 99% don't get what they want is that our so called representatives don't know what we want?

We want jobs, if we are able to work.

We want to be able to feed ourselves and our families when hunger strikes. We want to be able to shelter ourselves and our families, so that we don't die of exposure. If we live in a cold climate, we want to be able to heat our homes in winter without having to re-mortgage said homes. We want affordable medical attention, when necessary.

We want to be able to go to the convenience store for a carton of milk and come home alive, and preferable not mugged. We don't want babies sitting in a high chair shot through the kitchen window.

We want to be able to educate our children adequately, even through college, if they wish and are suited to it. Maybe college should not be free, but it damn well should not be so expensive that a college education leaves a new grad over $150,000 in debt, either, even with part- time jobs for students and help from family and savings to pay for things like clothing, food, housing, inexpensive dates, a car, etc.

We want breathable air and drinkable water. We don't want our troops--or anyone's troops or anyone--tortured because we are human beings and because things like that tend to be reciprocated.

We want wars to end.

We don't want our government experimenting on us without our consent, or even our knowledge. Etc. We want the rule of law to remain in effect and to be applied equally--which, being part of the Constitution of the United States, is part of the rule of law.

We don't want government to spend our money less carefully than we do (so please don't tell me how little $56 dollar muffins and extravagant junkets matter in the scheme of things unless every working American whose taxes pay for that stuff can easily afford the same, if he or she wishes).

In sum, we don't want a hell of a lot from government, and what we do want is not rocket science for anyone to figure out, let alone for politicians to figure out. A seventh grade class can probably come up with the above list (with the possible exception of experimenting on us without our knowledge,, which they may be too innocent to imagine).

Even if it were hard to figure out, there are pollsters making nice livings from polling us on all kinds of things. Polls are not an exact science, but there is more scientific effort behind them than random calls to a rep's office.

Back in 2008-09, for example, polls showed, among other things, that very strong majorities of people, 60 to 70%, wanted people making over $250,000 a year to pay higher taxes and wanted a strong public option. So, politicians everywhere knew, as if it took a poll to tell them anyway. How did that work out for 60-70% of people polled?

What the poll results did was not change the behavior of Washington, D.C. in 2009-10. What the poll results did was to tell politicians and media where the propaganda battles had to be fought in order to change our minds. And yes, I know that we now have an increase in taxes, back to Clinton era levels, on people making over half a million a year, probably every year. But, in dollars, that comes to very little, even assuming it's paid because so few people make over half a million a year,* compared with people making over $250K a year.

I will do at least one more post on this subject because I believe it to be important. I believe that most people who urge us to "make our voice heard" mean well, but are really avoiding, without thinking about it, the much harder work of trying to figure out what might work in each instance.

Besides, when we've all been trained to equate emailing our rep or signing an internet petition with "activism," it's hard to admit we've been deluded about that for all our adult lives. It's also not easy or convenient to admit that activism that has measurable impact requires sacrifices beyond keyboarding or calling.


* A couple of side issues on individual income taxes. The issues of passive income and of corporate taxes are, I believe, more important than the salary of people who need to work for a living. Also, we used to allow people to average income so that, if you worked yourself to death one year on overtime, or hit the lottery for say, $200,000, you could average your income over several years. Otherwise, you might pay tax that one year as though you were a billionaire. But, they dropped income averaging out of the tax code. (And, soon, they will no doubt drop the deduction for interest on mortgages for a primary residence.) Anything to make sure thqt the 99% don't get a tax break that billionaires don't get.

[Enthusiast]

1. Of course.

We are all discouraged by the blatant disregard for the wants and needs of the American people. And the weasel words used to explain away these betrayals must be setting some sort of record.

Never before have we had such a mechanism for telling our "representatives" what we want and expect. Yet it doesn't seem to be having an impact.

But remember, always vote "D" because, you know, they used to defend organized labor, the poor, the environment and minorities.

Yeah. There are many reasons to be pissed off.

[No Elephants]

2. But not many reasons to think calling your rep will mean anything.