"There is a feeling today among too many Americans that we might not make it," Lawrence Lessig writes in the introduction to his new book Republic, Lost. "Not that the end is near or that doom is around the corner, but that a distinctly American feeling of inevitability, of greatness – culturally, economically, politically -- is gone."I found this today, initially from an interview with Rachel Maddow, then the top Google of Lessig and his book took me to this Rolling Stone article. It crystalized thoughts I've been having. It's not that Politican A is more or less corrupted than Politician B. And A or B can be from either party. It's that the whole stinking mess is now thoroughly corrupted. Politicians are owned by the moneyed interests that fund their ever more expensive campaigns.
"We had the catastrophe. [the 2008 Wall Street collapse] And in our history every time we’ve had a major collapse like this, we’ve had a government with a strong enough backbone to step in and say “Okay, how can we fix the problem?” And many people thought that’s what was going to happen after the 2008 collapse. What instead we saw was that congress was overwhelmed by an army of lobbyists – twenty-five times the lobbyists defending bank interests as promoting reform! The product of that swarm of bank lobbyists was a reform package that has not addressed any of the fundamental issues that led to the bubble and the burst and the collapse of our economy. And that’s testimony to Wall Street’s extraordinary power over the left and the right. The president’s pandering to raise money on Wall St., the democrats pandering to raise money on Wall St., and the republicans of course smiling as Wall St. threatens to turn against the democratic party and favor the republicans because of the regulation of Wall St."President Obama hasn't the will or standing to enact the meaningful reforms he campaigned on with CHANGE.
"I think the only effective reform is to get a system where the money that funds congress, the “funders,” are basically the people, as opposed to the funders being separated from the people. So systems that try to push for small-dollar funded elections and make those effective. I lay out my own voucher program that tries to do that, but the challenge isn’t as much to imagine the solution as much as it is to imagine the process to bring about the solution, given how entrenched the cancer is and how much the very people we need to reform the system depend upon the existing system. "
"I think that the real challenge is we’re not used to exercising power as citizens anymore. We’ve been passive listeners to television commercials for too long, and not really active producers of democracy. So we might be inspired by other countries around the world that are doing this right now, because I don’t yet see in our own will the ability to exercise that energy and demand the fundamental change that’s needed here. "
Time to get out of the house and into the streets. We're all part of the "99%" that's getting hosed by large corporate money. It's time we get a handle on them. Find your local movement at #OccupyTogether and contribute whatever energy inputs you can - time, money, food, signs, your voice.
Also look at AmericansElect.org - an alternative to the two party system for nominating 2012 presidential candidates.
THE GOAL OF AMERICANS ELECT is to nominate a presidential ticket that answers directly to voters—not the political system.American voters are tired of politics as usual. They want leaders that will put their country before their party, and American interests before special interests. Leaders who will work together to develop fresh solutions to the serious challenges facing our country. We believe a secure, online nominating process will prove that America is ready for a competitive, nonpartisan ticket.
There's now as much difference between the rich and the poor as there was in 1929. The rich are killing their own golden goose -- us, the people that do the work -- with their Machiavellian attitudes and greed.
Get out of the house and into the street. Do something to help change the status quo while you still can.
Good Night, and Good Luck.
Amen!
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