Do you REALLY want to take back your country? Here's how...

[AnArmyVeteran]

SOLUTIONS TO TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY
Republicans always say they believe anyone should be allowed to give unlimited amounts of money to any political candidate, PAC or special interest group. They believe money is 'free speech'. It's obvious they believe the wealthy should have more of a voice in our electoral process. When pushed, republicans then say they want full disclosure believing it to be the disinfectant that will somehow make their position more sellable. But it's obvious 'full disclosure' isn't effective. By the time people realize who is funding an ad or a campaign it is often too late. And republicans know most people don't have time to research all of the data to find out who is buying their candidates.

MY SOLUTIONS:
PLAN A - We need publicly financed elections with zero campaign ads and instead force every media company to televise debates between ALL the candidates during prime time. All regular programming would be preempted by the debates so citizens can't change the channel to Spongebob or the Simpsons. The airwaves belong to the people, NOT to corporations.

PLAN B - If we can't get 'PLAN A' we should prevent anyone giving more than $100 to any one candidate. Only individuals could donate, and to donate to a candidate they MUST be able to vote for the candidate. No one from outside a district or a state should be permitted to contribute. This would stop massive amounts of money flooding into a district or a state from another state or even another country. All donations to political parties should be banned. All donations from special interest groups should be banned. And elections would be shortened to 8 weeks instead of the current 18 to 24 months. I'm tired of seeing my local elections all corrupted by millions of dollars coming from people 2,000 miles away. How can local people get a candidate who will represent them if the candidates are owned by people outside their district or state?

SUMMARY - Either one of the above proposals would take the corrupt rich out of our political process and stop them from corrupting almost every election in the United States. The only thing standing in the way of citizens taking back control of their country are STRICT campaign finance laws. And any person who tries to circumvent the system above would be fined 25% of their wealth and given a minimum of 5 years in federal prison. A person caught twice for violating the law would have 50% of their wealth seized and they would get a minimum ten year prison sentence. The ONLY way to enforce any law is to make a punishment harsh enough where it would deter the corrupt rich from even trying to corrupt our elections.

If we do not change the way we elect our representatives our country will continue on its downward spiral to oblivion. And instead of having representatives we will continue to have political prostitutes selling us out to their corporate pimps. Is that the America you want to leave to future generations, if our country even lasts that long? A person could be the best and most qualified candidate for an office, but they are prevented from even being considered to fun for that office solely because they lack the funds. That's why we end up with people who seem to lack creativity, intelligence, common sense and honesty.

Why should our soldiers be fighting and dying in foreign lands when the biggest threats to our county's survival are right here within our borders? Isn't it time to take our country back from the corrupt wealthy few who continue to exploit our system of government and our citizens who are the rightful owners of this once great country? The folk singer Woodie Guthrie used to sing "This Land is Your Land", but that no longer is true. A handful of the wealthy own most of the land or mortgages being held by millions of Americans. Every day, money and power are being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and they are not our hands.

NOTE: The above ideas are just that, 'ideas'. If you would like to add a comment to describe how you could make the system better I'd love to hear your ideas. Let's brainstorm here folks. Nothing I said is set in stone, but just a few ideas to start a dialogue. Remember, that when brainstorming no ideas are bad and the best ideas are created from contributions from everyone in a group, without fear their ideas will be attacked or condemned.

[gateley]

1. I see Boehner responded. nt

[cutlassmama]

2. lol

[AndyA]

3. Boehner responded on a Saturday afternoon? No way!

He's three sheets to the wind in some bar by now, or holed up in some luxury hotel suite with a bimbo swigging down booze. (He does his tanning on Saturday mornings to get it out of the way.) :rofl:

[AnArmyVeteran]

7. Boehner & his two unemployed brothers voted NO!

Who would vote no except a right winger?

[rucky]

4. We're not going to get them.

Because the people who we'd trust to change the rules are the ones who were elected under the current system.

What we need is organized support FOR candidates who want election reform, and a voter movement that specifically targets AGAINST incumbents who take money from large donors and launder money through PACS. Once the elected reps start feeling that no amount of fundraising can keep their seat safe, they may start backing elections reform.

This would require a copy machine and several boots on the ground to get messages out to voters. The mass media won't help.

[AnArmyVeteran]

9. I still like the idea of representatives being forced to wear corporate logos all over the suits.

If that one law was passed to force every officeholder in America to wear logos on their suits from the top 25 corporate donors to them. Disclosure laws don't work because record keeping is slow and it's hard for an average citizen to get that information. But if representatives, and even presidents, were forced to look like race car drivers with logos plastered all over them we would know who owned them.

[TheKentuckian]

5. Its got to be a deal breaker. Won't sign onto reform then you're getting voted out if Stalin is on

the ballot.

Virginia Foxx will go to the Senate? Fuck you, support election reform.

[Kermitt Gribble]

6. Plan B: I can agree with the $100 limit, but

I don't agree with restricting donations to individual districts. If candidates like Grayson or Kucinich need support, I would like to be able to donate to candidates who speak for me, no matter where their district may be.

[AnArmyVeteran]

8. I understand your position but what if your district was overran by foreign money?

Say you want to have a person in your own district elected, but tens of millions of foreign money from other states flood your area and distort your candidate's positions, character and integrity. Your candidate would probably lose because political advertising that's saturating your district against your candidate works.

I agree with you about if you see candidates in other parts of the country you like and want to support, but foreign money flowing from one state to another can cause severe damage to local races. If you wanted to run for office and you had a limited budget, you would be massively outspent from outside individual contributions and from huge amounts of party money all used to distort, lie and deceive the public. That's not fair to you, or the people of your district who deserve to have a fair and honest election free of the usual mindless negative ads.

I'd like to support people like Grayson too, especially if I lived in a district where 90 percent of the people were republicans and my contributions to a local candidate would be throwing my money away. We need to come to some kind of middle ground to solve the problem of too much money in elections. If elections were publicly financed and the only media exposure was from face to face debates it would eliminate most of the negative affects of corrupting money in campaigns.

Something has to change because our system is not sustainable. We keep voting for the same people and expecting different results. We will never get different results until we change the system and make it more fair and less corrupt. The solutions are easy, but the current power structure is designed to defeat any populist ideas or candidates. The party bosses and corporations who own them still determine who we get to vote for.

[Kermitt Gribble]

10. You make some great points, AnArmyVeteran.

I think a $100 limit, as you mentioned earlier, would prevent a massive influx of foreign money. I agree with you 100% on public financing.

If it were up to me, there would be no campaign contributions (or strict limits involving small contributions like your $100 recommendation), publicly funded elections, the media would have to provide each candidate X amount of air time along with debates, candidates would have a fixed amount of time to campaign (say 2 or 3 months), and we'd have term limits. I would even go as far as envision a revolving responsibility system similar to jury duty. Do away with career politicians altogether.

As you pointed out, "the current power structure is designed to defeat any populist ideas or candidates. The party bosses and corporations who own them still determine who we get to vote for". So the big question is, how do we force this change when the people capable of changing the rules are the ones who have devised the corrupt system that we need to replace?

[AnArmyVeteran]

12. I've thought about a system close to jury duty too.

Having a system where people were called for service into government just as we are called for jury duty couldn't be worse than what we have now. I would like to see 'none of the above' on every ballot if the current system stays in place. We need to do something to take money out of our election process. That is the problem.

The people who are in charge of the current system would never do anything to change it because it would chip away at their control over our politicians and our government. Even if a huge percentage of the population wanted reform any changes would be so watered down through the legislative process to render the new 'reform' almost meaningless. Lobbyists, corporate goons and officeholders all have a cozy relationship with each other and they write the laws. The only way to effectively change campaign finance laws is with almost unanimous public support. But in the 1990s, when the last attempt to make campaign financing laws tougher they were attacked mostly from the right, and conservative extremists were told by their right wing radio gods and Faux Noise that "money was free speech". It's sad when we have such a huge number of people in this country, like the right wingers, who are so damned stupid that they continually vote against their own best interests.

I'd like to think there is hope for real change in this country, but nothing substantial will ever get passed as long as our system is owned by a handful of very wealthy thugs. It's sad that the most unpatriotic and anti-American people are the extremely wealthy who couldn't care less about the future of our country or the sacrifices of those who really built it, the middle class and the poor.

[L0oniX]

11. Good luck with any real change to our corrupt system from either party.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/L0oniX/58

What's needed first is (1) campaign finance reform where corporations are entirely excluded from the political system. Next (2) we must remove person hood from corporations. Then we need to (3) reduce the pentagon budget to something reasonable and comparable to what other countries spend. That would mean voting everyone of the asscarrots out of office that continually vote for more war and pentagon funding. We need (4) to have a law that forbids any congress person and or senator from voting on any issue that has any connection to their sock portfolio. We need (5) a jobs restoration bill that demands a fare and equal trade that reduces the unfair advantage that slave labor gives other countries. We can't continue to have our jobs go over seas for any reason ...and I emphasize "any reason". We have to decide who we care more about ...our own or other countries. IMO we need some nationalism and I don't mean go overboard with this but enough of it to secure our jobs and our financial well being. We need (6) to restore the constitution and prosecute the war crimes of those involved at all levels. WTF people ...why do we stand for this shit where they get to commit crimes and don't pay for it when the little guy gets life in prison for getting caught with an OZ of weed in Texas? I mean what the fuck? There most likely are more steps to be taken. Bring em on.

I think we members of DU could work on these issues and agree to come to a reasonable conclusion as to what really needs to be done and in what order to fix our system. The DU infighting gets us no where and hurts us. At this point politically I can't get behind anyone unless I or we can force them to carry out what they promise and infer that they will do once they gain office. Maybe we need an (7) employment contract with them that gets all the promises down and binding. We can't take the lies anymore from any party. Our country is in a very dangerous position and it's not a joking matter anymore. We really are talking about the end of our US posterity. I'd settle for making an effort to have it be at least as good for the next generations.

I don't believe that DU has the gumption to do this but I throw it out here anyway. I have settled for what Gore Vidal and others have said about our sorry ass situation. I only wish that we wouldn't stand for anymore of this selling us out shit and do something about it instead of playing debate team here. Telling me or others that what they think or what they would do will not work is not constructive "if you don't offer a reasonable solution" in its place. If you have a better idea or better arrangement of the steps needed to fix and or restore our constitution and balance of powers and balance of trade and jobs then speak out. I do think I know this for sure ...unless we remove the corporate owners of our system we are going to be their slaves if we are not already. Are you willing to settle for that?