Simple Missions That Morphed Into Monsters

An income greedy financial sector, corrupt political parties, and bean counter corporations are all having lethal effects on the countries welfare.

All three areas once had a specific limited service to contribute to the country. Over the years, however, they have been allowed to expand their activities and boundaries to the point where they have become self serving and are now harmful to the economy, our democracy and our welfare  They have done this by abandoning service to the country and its citizens and focusing instead on creating in-house benefits. This has been accomplished with the full complicity of our elected government. All of these activities have been gained through expansion of their activities outside of constitutional requirements.

The Constitution granted Congress responsibility for the fiscal activities of the country. The Congress utilized private sources to assist it to perform specific functions and to assist in ensuring that funding was available to companies and citizens for productive use. Because they are managing national funds their focus should not be maximizing their own profits. This situation has reversed itself and these functions are now managed by central banks that are corporations focused on creating revenue for themselves, not for the productive sectors of our economy. Combine this with lax overview by the Government and we have hugh misallocation of funds misdirection of national goals, and financial disasters.

The Constitution does not mention political parties. Their potential for doing harm was warned by several founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, Geoge Washington, and John Adams. This was done on the fear that it would create primary loyalties to the party instead of the general welfare. This has proven to be true. There is a natural tendency of citizens to start groups that would organize to jointly advocate their position for pending legislation. Now, however we have only two parties that have been jointly untouchable in power for over 150 years. They have become a major anti-democracy factor by their tight control of the selection process that determines the candidates that are finally presented to the citizens. Their control of the elected government has allowed them to define an election process that greatly favors the current system. The result is that our election process is governed by two private organizations that have their primary loyalty to themselves rather than the nation

Reflecting the feelings that English corporations had been exploiting the colonies in the days before independence corporations in early America were rare, They were treated as unique organizations formed for a special business activity, such as building a canal. They are not mentioned in the Constitution and were initially solely a state responsibility. They were forbidden to become involved in politics. Over 200 years of mainly Supreme Court decisions have reversed this to give them all rights of a natural person and the right to use their profits `to exert enormous power over our legislative and electoral processes. To restore our democracy all three institutions must be put back into their proper position in relation to national governance.

The financial sector must be put back in the position of a service to the productive elements of the economy and not focused on non productive attempts to increase its own revenues.

Political parties must be reduced to equality as one of many organizations promoting candites and have no special advantages over unaffiliated candidates.

Corporations likewise must be focused on producing useful services and products, not on government and electoral process manipulation for special privileges.

These corrections will be difficult and take time. All three institutions will fight strongly to preserve their positions. It will only happen with an overwhelming demand from the citizens. It will require a drastic reduction of the funds that can be applied to influencing the government and elections.

Starbucks CEO Loses Patience-Withholds Political Party Contributions

Howard Schultz ,The CEO of Starbucks. has called for corporations to boycott contributions to political parties until Congress and the Administration agree to work together to address the real problems of the country. CBS News presents the elements of his proposal and contains a link to his letter. A Forbes article “Washington Losing Credibility Among US Business” offers more detailed analysis. The New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ have mailed his letter to all of their listed CEOs.


This is a big time effort to compensate for the lack of confidence in Washington that is retarding our economy. The citizen’s approval of the job by Congress by citizens has dropped off the chart to only 13% . Congress went on vacation at that point and does not intend to return until September.

The two articles and his letter present a realistic analysis of the actions to counter our inept elective government. The conclusion is that current Washington will not create a solution to the sluggish economy. They cannot be counted on to set aside their ideologies and special relations for a solution that is best for America. For the long term good of the country American corporations must actively step up on a bipartisan basis and demand confidence- building results. This is true even if it will sometimes means a hit to short term profits. The boycott of contributions is until decent reform is reached.

In contrast to the hot air politicians who have unproven ideologies they would like to try on us Starbucks has created over 135,000 jobs in the US alone.

It will be interesting to see how many companies join in. Shultz was very careful to say that he is making no comments or influence on policy. He asks only that the parties have their elected members working hard on solving America’s problems and stop viewing election at the national level as a personal and party-based business opportunity.

This is a distressed attempt for reform of our political parties by a practical American business. There is always the possibility that other companies benefitting from today’s confusion and ineptness will increase their contributions to maintain this situation. Good investigative reporting and close attention to those companies by well informed voters is the only counter to these actions.

Performance of Congress Reaches Point of Complete Breakdown

After months of self induced wasted time on the deficit while ignoring the crucial need for energizing the national economy Congress ended up on Tuesday with a bean counter solution for the national credit ceiling. The market immediately gave us its analysis of the legislation by going into free fall, with the Dow losing over 512 points on Thursday.


On Friday, for the first time in its history, the credit rating of the United States was lowered form AAA to AA+ by Standard and Poor. An explanation of the reasoning shows that the primary basis was the deteriorating legislative performance by the Congress, which after months of pathetic effort came very close to causing a default in the country’s’ credit.

Meanwhile Congress left town and won’t be back until early September!

Thus ended several months of record setting self afflicted elected government incompetency, while millions of Americans remain unemployed, our infrastructure crumbles, and our economy remains broken.

Naturally the citizens are irate at this performance. The latest NY Times/CBS poll shows that 82% of the US population disapproves of the performance of Congress. Everyone I know double disapproves. I have yet to meet someone who is a member of the approving 18%. No company would consider a management team as incompetent as the ones we have picked to run our country. I maintain that the root cause of the current pathetic level of performance is closely related to the undeserved power we have given our two political parties.

I specially blame the Democrats because they claim to be the party protecting the average American and have failed. The Republicans openly favor wealth and privilege interests and aggressively protects them with all its political power. In spite of their vast resources the Democrats, by contrast, show only weakness as they fail to confront the Republicans and the bean counters destructive and one sided policies. These policies have been very destructive to middle America. There is no third party to pick up the fallen flag of the American citizen.

Although our Founding Fathers did strongly warn us of the harm they could do, political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution. The current two parties have had over 150 years to legislate themselves into a very powerful position. We have let them capture both our electoral and legislative processes. They have established laws and procedures that make them very difficult to replace. We have only the election process established by the Constitution as a tool. We must very carefully use it in the 2012 election.

Our theoretical limit for Congress is to replace the entire House of Representatives and one third of the senate each national election. We must be careful, however, that the replacements are an improvement over the incumbents. This will require having real research about the candidates.

To get my vote the candidate will have to survive the following evaluation:

Be fully aware of the disaster to the American dream caused by the special interests driven government elite -- and be dedicated to correcting it


Have absolute loyalty to the United States and its people, not to a political party

Not be a one solution-solves-all ideologue.

Advocate revising congressional rules and privileges to be closely aligned with those of the average citizen.

Move the US toward a productive and creative economy by preparing and implementing a comprehensive national plan to restore our economy at all fronts.

Insist that we aggressively use all means available and eliminate the negative trade balance.

Runs a campaign that is faithful to truth and reason. Rejects the usual dodge and lie techniques.

Will treat being elected to congress as an honor and responsibility, not a position to be exploited

There are a few in congress that could pass these requirements, We must support them and drastically increase their numbers in 2012. Then we may have enough for real reform.

Major Political Parties Underestimating the Nations Anger

History

Political parties were just on the horizon when our country was formed. They are not mentioned in the Constitution. Our founders however, gave us due warning that it allowed to develop they could prove disastrous to the nation. One example is the special warning George Washington gave in his farewell address

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public counsels and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasional riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.

Similar warnings were given by the other founders. Sadly, we did not listen. By allowing only two political parties to control the nations election process we have seen all of the warnings become true. In effect, over the last 150 years, we have turned our democracy over to two self-serving organizations that focus on their own power. They have taken over every important step of the electoral process. for their own gain.

Every citizen sees firsthand the results of this situation

We have corrupt and weak candidate from both parties that are financed and controlled by special interests. There is more loyalty shown to party and to these financiers than to the citizens. Our choice in elections is limited to two sets of weak candidates that have been filtered through party only primary elections. These electionst favor extreme ideologues from both the left and right, with no choice available for moderate citizens.

The leadership of our country has been transferred from a productive to a financial elite. These financial elite, in turn, have mismanaged our economy and caused trillions of dollars of damage. This hardship for this is being placed on the American citizen.

The list goes on. We all watch as our elected government brings down our great country.

So what can we do?

Our two party system has almost 150 years of steady evolution and solidification of its position. Because their only competition in performance is the opposing party they have a very low bar for competency. Our rocking back and forth between two inept organizations each election will not fix the problem. Both parties are doing a terrible job but we are helpless to adequately punish them. Somehow we need to confront them with real competition from the many leaders that thrive in this country but are outside of the two party system. We must open up our governance to a broader talent pool.

Election Primaries for Unaffiliated Candidates

One scenario that could go a long way to accomplishing this is states running a third set of primary elections for unaffiliated candidates and voters. This would be in parallel with the two party’s primaries and have similar procedures. It would be funded by public contributions.

To participate in this primary the candidates must not be affiliated with one of the major political parties. The winners of the national unaffiliated primaries would be given slots on the election ballots as are the winners of the party primaries. This is not another political party, but an organization to get unaffiliated candidates before the voters. Voting would be for an individual candidate, not a political party.

Technically the unaffiliated primary campaign would appear very similar to that of the major parties. Only there would be a third track of candidates. You would have debates, a limited amount of promotion, and rules and fees to register as unaffiliated.

On primary day, depending on your affiliation, you would be given a Republican, Democrat, or Unaffiliated ballot to cast your votes’. On election day you would be selecting from individuals with Republican, Democrats, and Unaffiliated beside their names.

Is this radical change?


Giving unaffiliated voters the same election level of choice as party members? Is that such a radical idea? This effort would shake up and be fought vigorously by the major parties and the other special interests.

Only large numbers of angry citizen voters and continued poor performance by the two parties can make this happen. But it would really open up the talent pool and maybe even light a fire under the two underperforming parties.

And we would be getting back in sync with the Founders

Our Moral Obligation and a Total National Restoration Plan

The bean counters correctly complain about the financial deficit we are creating while attempting to end the recession. But because they are bean counters they have only one solution—maniacal cost cutting. It is driven by their DNA. Bean counters never lead to growth and expansion.

Cost cutting of wasteful spending is a valuable activity but it should not be done as an isolated task. Cost cutting alone, without wise investment of the savings; will only further shrink the already starved economy. It belongs as an element of an integrated national program where savings can be immediately put back into the productive work of our economy. The problem is that after all the time, suffering, and damage to our nations global position our two party elected government has still not developed such a plan.

The American vision contends that free people can productively govern themselves for the common good. No despots needed. This was a unique basis for a nation when the US was formed and the vision has been kept intact in America for 230 years. Sadly it is now at risk. We must not let the vision end with us. Like the Founders we must pledge our sacred honor to passing an intact America on to future generations. To fail would be a terrible legacy to leave our children.

We will never succeed with the existing approach of one by one attempts at underpowered solutions-followed by years of the parties blaming each other for failure. The citizens need to see an integrated program that reverses the self inflicted damage that was done to our interconnected financial, manufacturing, job creation,and trading systems. We have the talent to do this if we can free the process from interference by self serving special interests and the political parties. It will be an honest national restoration plan that the citizens can evaluate and support.

This is a complex undertaking because of the special interest opposition it will generate. Many of those who led us into the disasters are still in power and have benefited from our difficulties. They will fight against openness on past mistakes and the continual transparency of the plan’s execution to citizens.

It can succeed, however, if the majority of Americans feel strongly enough about the moral obligation to actively and honestly participate.

We must first gain an elected government, business sector, and population that agrees strongly with the moral obligation and the need for an integrated plan as a basis for action. Lots of details to work out but a primary characteristic is that it is citizen, not government, run.

This sounds like a job for that non-party, the Tea Party.

Founding Fathers Warnings on Current Issues

There is a common nightmare where you are faced with approaching danger but when you try to escape your legs are frozen in place. This seems to be the perfect metaphor for the United States as we struggle to recover the American vision after allowing decades of terrible decision-making by our elected government and their ruling class partners. We see the dangers but are so entangled that we are slow to respond. We must break free.

With all the pro-citizen tools embedded in the Constitution and the words of the Founding Fathers to guide us how did we lose control of the country-and to the very kind of people the Founders warned about? Here are a few of their warnings that we have sadly ignored. They are so timely that they could have been given this very day.

Political Parties

George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were all dead set against political parties on the basis that members would develop loyalty to the party rather than the country. They discussed the subject often. Here are a few quotes from George Washington’s Farewell Address, on September 19, 1796 and one of John Adams statements.

"Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party generally. The common and continual mischief of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it." – George Washington

"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations." – George Washington

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution. “– John Adams

Conclusion: They were 100% correct. Our two party system remains a major factor in enabling the damage being suffered by our country. Note how Adams exactly describes our current situation. We must minimize the role of the two political parties.

On Banks Gaining Too Much Power

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” - George Washington

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” - Thomas Jefferson

Conclusion: Oh boy, were they ever right on this. We have let the financial industry become the master of the economy and it is ruining us. We must return them to their proper position of providing a simple administration service to the productive units of the economy.

Foreign Policy

“Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.” - John Adams

Term Limits

“Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens” - George Mason

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” - Thomas Jefferson

Characteristic of Politics

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason. “ - Benjamin Franklin

“Those gentlemen, who will be elected senators, will fix themselves in the federal town, and become citizens of that town more than of your state.” - George Mason

“Half a truth is often a great lie.”- Benjamin Franklin

“No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.” - Thomas Jefferson

On Government in General

“While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.” – John Adams

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.” – Thomas Jefferson

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” – Thomas Jefferson

“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” - Thomas Jefferson

Concern That Their Work be Continued by Future Americans

The Americans suffered terribly through death, bankruptcy and deprivation during the years of the Revolutionary war. At the end the Fathers asked themselves if future generations would appreciate and continue their work. Here are quotes from Washington and Jefferson.

"No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass." – George Washington

“Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.” – Thomas Jefferson

What is our answer? If we don’t fix the current state of affairs and restore the government to the true American vision we will certainly stand disgraced in history.