The outlines of a new political platform begin to come clear: dump the claims and signposts of American exceptionalism.
1) Protect personal liberty: de-criminalize marijuana and de-criminalize American society.
2) Reverse policies and programs favoring the privatization of the penal system and military subcontracting.
3) Repeal and stop commercialization of drones in American skies.
4) Create meaningful firewalls between regulators and the regulated.
5) Enact campaign finance reform to reverse the domination of the American political system by corporations and big campaign contributors.
6) Health care: single payer system. Period.
7) Create a national energy policy to prioritize conservation and existing technologies to rapidly reduce emission of pollution to the atmosphere.
8) Protect the food and water supply. No GMO. End corporate subsidies to Big Sugar.
9) Provide a national infrastructure and transportation plan with a fifty year planning horizon to include sea level rise and retreat from vulnerable coastlines.
10) Reinforce the separation of church and state.
1) Protect personal liberty: de-criminalize marijuana and de-criminalize American society.
2) Reverse policies and programs favoring the privatization of the penal system and military subcontracting.
3) Repeal and stop commercialization of drones in American skies.
4) Create meaningful firewalls between regulators and the regulated.
5) Enact campaign finance reform to reverse the domination of the American political system by corporations and big campaign contributors.
6) Health care: single payer system. Period.
7) Create a national energy policy to prioritize conservation and existing technologies to rapidly reduce emission of pollution to the atmosphere.
8) Protect the food and water supply. No GMO. End corporate subsidies to Big Sugar.
9) Provide a national infrastructure and transportation plan with a fifty year planning horizon to include sea level rise and retreat from vulnerable coastlines.
10) Reinforce the separation of church and state.
17 comments:
Pure BS!
Love it, sign me up!
And name one thing from that list that's 'pure BS' Anonymous #1, ya big dope.
Move to Cuba. They have already implemented your perfect government.
Good luck with that.
How is my perfect govt like Cuba?
If you had to pick just one it would be campaign finance reform. Everything else on the list derives of the influence of money on our system of governance.
Canto XLV
BY EZRA POUND
With Usura
With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
with usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luz
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,
with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling.
Stonecutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom
WITH USURA
wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand
and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin’ not by usura
nor was ‘La Calunnia’ painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime
Not by usura Saint Hilaire,
Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man’s courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom
CONTRA NATURAM
They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet
at behest of usura.
N.B. Usury: A charge for the use of purchasing power, levied without regard to production; often without regard to the possibilities of production. (Hence the failure of the Medici bank.)
I like it!!! Gimleteye 2012!
Campaign finance reform is the biggest issue.
To claim freedom of speech is the reason corporations should be allowed unlimited contributions to campaigns is wrong. Campaigns should be publicly financed once candidates reach certain thresholds, and political advertisements on TV need to be changed.
Saying so doesn't mean that I favor Cuba. That's idiotic. To point out that we have our own homegrown tyranny in the U.S. isn't unpatriotic nor is the statement meant to minimize the importance of protected freedom of speech.
How about restricting political campaign commercials on TV to public access channels; one for each network. In other words, allow any network that wants; a shadow channel solely for the purpose of political advertisements. Ban all political and issue ads from any channel that carries news or entertainment, but allow any channel to create a shadow channel for those purposes.
I am sure that the people that gain from screwing the public will be against everything you put in your blog. Therefore I expect some to say bad things about the blog.
Gimleteye:
You have finally lost your mind.
I don't like extremists... Republican or Democrat. They just never mkake sense to me.
You remind me of those limousine liberals I had to deal with years ago...and I was a Democrat! I didn't realize they were still out there.
I remember a Black state senator wanted to introduce legislation to deal with Black-on-Black crime. Everybody thought he was nuts. The Chair of the Judiciary committee lived in an exclusive community and laughed at the Senator on the legislative floor.
"There is no such thing as Black on-Black crime," he screeched for every senator to hear.
In other words, he knew better than the Black Senator who witnessed it day after day in his district. Of course, the legislation got nowhere...killed in HIS committee!
Now every time I hear talk about Black-on-Black crime, I think about that incident.
You rich people always want to tell us what is good for us, what we need, etc. Then you get back in your limousine and go back to your rich neighborhood and leave us unprotected from whatever it is you determined was not good for us.
Besides, I challenge you to find 10Democrat elected officials who would vote for your list.
In reality you should call your list the Wish List, because there is no way in hell it would ever become a reality.
Gimleteye, this is the category in which you belong.
That is why I have finally learned to ignore your posts.
If I were you Gimleteye I would
dump that last comment, he/she used the
"You 'rich' People" ban.
You could call it the platform of clear thinking -- it might get support from the rationalists left among us.
I rarely see a program where I could concur on every point, but can't find anything to argue with here. Unfortunately, I can't think of a single politician with any influence who would be willing to adopt all of these ideas. I'd be fine with 8 out of 10.
I must admit, campaign finance reform is most important. Money and unlimited terms for representatives and senators at the federal level has taken everything good that government can be, and replaced it with all that can be ugly in politics. Term limits and government financing of campaigns with an absolute prohibition on any private sector campaign contributions and the elimination of PACs is the only way out.
Wow, some pretty boring criticisms up here.
"Limosine liberal"? "Rich people"?
Which of these platforms are against the interest of a majority of Americans, both Republican and Democrat? Explain, please.
I'd like to hear rational arguments but I suspect that some of the trolls on the blog are too busy to take a minute to explain.
What I guess is behind the lashing out is awareness that on the matter of individual liberty, and protection against government abuses, there are issues that transcend party lines and could form a clearer platform than, say, the rabid dog Tea Party.
Who can be a "supporter" of commercialization of drones, for example?
Or, for that matter, with U.S. incarceration rates that are the highest in the world-- and a penal system that seems geared to increase the tax burden -- who can be opposed to legalizing possession of marijuana? This is a "rich people" agenda? Don't think so!
So far, I've heard a bunch of ranting that is boring, uninformed, and vitriol for the sake of vitriol. If you have an argument, that is well reasoned, bring it.
I understand the problems with campaign finance and undue influence.
But I'm curious to know the impact of all that campaign spending on our economy.
After all, the money that is spent is spent on posters and signs and tv production costs and hiring marketing people and graphics people.
I know a small printer who loves campaign season - makes most of his money for the year in a few months.
The money being raised doesn't just collect in a big pot and get divided among the fat cats (although it seems that way sometime.) All those local tv stations that run the ads pay all of their local employees because of ad revenues.
What would be the trickle down effect of a limit on spending?
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