We Are the Change

We the People

I think that most politicians, Democrat or Republican, start out their political careers with the best of intentions. So why is it that our system is so corrupt and messed up? I think it is because of the influence of money in politics. Both parties are susceptible to this although Republicans, (as we’ve seen the last 5 years) probably because of their closer ties to corporations, seem to be more susceptible. If a Republican or Democrat wants to get elected or re-elected, they must have millions of dollars for advertising. If they listen and are receptive to the ideas of the corporations, they will receive that money; if not, they will almost certainly not be elected. How can we fix the system and limit the corruption? Here is my two-prong solution:
1. Public funding of elections: I know that this is generally unpopular since people recoil at the idea of giving tax money to politicians, but it is the only way to remove the big money influence from politics. This actually is one of the cheapest bargains imaginable since for a few hundred million we can save hundreds of billions in wasteful crony contracts and get a government that functions for the benefit of “We the People” instead of the benefit of corporations. It is well known in lobbyist circles that a few million given to politicians is the highest return investment possible. With public funding of elections we could, for the cost of one week of the Iraq war, remove the biggest corrupting influence from politics.
2. Corporate reform: Corporations are legally considered “people” and they have most of the rights of people. But corporations are not humans and therefore they cannot feel human emotions like pity, remorse, compassion, joy or grief; corporations cannot cry (I’m not talking about the individuals that are part of the corporations, but the legal entity we call a “corporation”). People (remember a corporation is legally defined as a “person”) who cannot feel pity, remorse, compassion, joy or grief are defined by psychology as sociopaths and our legal system’s primary goal is to try to remove those people from society and strip them of their legal rights. Yet corporations that meet the scientific definition of sociopath are given rights as people and access to the halls of power were they exercise tremendous influence, thus our system is so dysfunctional.
To solve this problem we must recognize that corporations are not persons and do not possess the rights of persons but only privileges that “We the People” willfully grant them. Corporations could be disbanded or re-organized and their privileges could be removed if found guilty of criminal conduct. Corporations must be redefined not as “people” but as a group endeavor that can exist only so long as it obeys the laws and functions to the benefit of “We the People.”

America’s S.O.S. (Save Our System)

On 4/20/04 President Bush said, “Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires - a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.” It has since been revealed that President Bush issued a secret presidential order (more than a year before the above statement) that authorized warrantless wiretaps on Americans.
Bush now claims that he has the right to spy on U.S. citizens without warrants, yet he knows it is illegal by his own comment: “A wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed.” The President of the United States has essentially declared that he is above the law and a compliant Republican Congress has put party loyalty ahead of commitment to principle thereby removing the prime Constitutional check on the power of the President.
We all agree that we need to wiretap those with terrorist contacts, but if the President is only spying on Americans with links to terrorists, why doesn’t he get a court order; could it be that he is spying on “political enemies?”
When Attorney General Gonzales was asked in a recent Senate appearance whether the domestic spying program was being used to “influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies or media”, he tellingly refused to answer.
Would Bush be consolidating almost total power in the Presidency if there was any chance that a Democrat would be elected in 2008? Why has Halliburton recently been given hundreds of millions of dollars to build concentration camps in the United States?
As William O. Douglas put it: "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged." There is no doubt that the United States is now experiencing the twilight.
To members of the Republican Party I have to ask. To whom do you owe your loyalty: A political party or your country and Constitution? On the issue of protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States, there is no Democratic or Republican position; there is only an American position. Without the help of true Americans to rescue and reaffirm our Constitution, our country is sliding toward the darkness.