Disastrous Elected Government Causing Strong Remedies

Background on Occupy Wall Street/99 %(OWS)
The OWS/99% movement is described more completely in the October 22, 2011 and November 22, 2011 posts on this blog.

The core conflict has occurred because those who call themselves the “99%” of the population refuse to accept the broken economy and dysfunctional society that the current system has brought us. The elected government shows no capability of correcting the problems.

The OWS/99% has chosen the First Amendment as the primary mechanism to call for reform. The First Amendment clearly establishes freedom of religion, speech, and the press, along with the rights of peaceable assembly and ability to petition the government for redress of grievances.
The standard method of protest is the “occupying” outside of an institution by hundreds to thousands of protesters at a symbolic site. Signs and activities at the sight outline the reasons for the protest. The “occupy” is to be non violent so as to meet the protection granted “peaceable assembly” by the First Amendment.

Responsibility for the mismanagement is placed on a 1% component of the population that holds the positions of power. The goal is to shift power from the 1% to the 99%.
 It is impossible for the hard core 1% to deny the economic and social problems that are not being addressed by the governance. Sadly, we have elected a Congress which is doing nothing to address the protests. In fact many of the hard-core members of the 1% were deeply involved in the creation of the problems and continue to benefit from them. They have chosen a counter strategy that ignores the problems but instead relies upon attacking the 99% as socialistic, left wing, and un-American and the real source of the problems. In short, they are substituting public relations for reform. In so doing they have committed the country to a clash of philosophies that could have very dangerous consequences.

Recent Events
November 17 marked the 2nd month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street (“OWS/99 %”) invasion of Soccotti Square in New York. They have established solidarity with hundreds of additional organizations that are also protesting the actions of the government and financial sectors. The November 17 Day of Action created “occupies” of hundreds of institutions and facilities that were felt to being wrongly managed by the 1%.

This date is also marked as the first large scale coordinated counterattack by the hard core governing 1% of the population. On this date numerous cities, including New York, moved to remove the 99% from their protest camping areas. Although this was generally done peaceably there was the use of excess force. Thousand of arrests were made. The claim by those cities and other institutions were that the protesters were not being “peaceful” and that the First Amendment did not therefore apply.


One series of damaging videos of the police spraying pepper spray on sitting non violent students is circulated widely on the internet and has added to tensions. A damaging proposal by a Washington public relations firm to the American Bankers Association (ABA) was also leaked. The proposal offered to initiate a program that would warn politicians of future penalties if they sided with the protesters and to initiate research to present negative information on the protesters. Although the ABA reported that they had refused the proposal it represents a discouraging attempt to substitute public relations for real reform.

State of the 99%
The OWS/99% movement has become large, global and distributed. It is being very aggressive in pursuing its protests. The question is whether it can withstand the forthcoming public relations firestorm when the 1% fully unleashes its vast financial and media resources. There is also the difficult task of converting public sentiment to legislative action with an ineffective Congress that has only a 13% approval rate.

Of special interest is a plan by OWS/99% to soon “occupy” Congress. Here they will address their most inept and fault ridden institution and hopefully have the entire nation cheering them on.
OWS has prepared a proposed vision statement with supporting goals. They propose major changes to some current financial policies.

State of the Hard Core1%
It is impossible to deny the existence of serious problems that were largely created by many of the hard line members of the 1% themselves. The obvious way to defuse the situation would be to correct the reasons for the protests. However this is not being done by either the government or responsible institutions.

Polls show that only about one half the population currently understands the situation and its seriousness. That uninformed half will be a prime target for their PR campaign.

The Near Term
In the near term we will continue to see major “occupy” efforts by OSW99% and strong public relation counter measures by the hard core 1%. It is unknown how far the hard-core ideologue members of the 1% will go to attempt to preserve the current status. Nor do we know how the 99% will be able respond to their attacks. There is a real danger of losing public support if the “occupies” are unwisely overused.

The 1% does have powerful control of the financial sector and elected government, along with almost unlimited financial resources. A little attention to the internal traffic of the competing groups, however, shows that there is considerable overlap between the 99% and the 1%. Many people who fall in the upper 1% in a financial test recognize the problems being cause by the current environment and would support many of the reforms proposed by the 99%. It is hoped that this group can eventually contribute to a reasonable, non violent , and just middle ground. As of now, however, there are no indications that either side will accept a compromise.


Stand by for Round 2 and hope for a peaceful and just constitutional resolution

The OWS and 99/1 Movements-A Quick Update

On the Oct 22 post we described how the one- sided self serving actions of the current governing elite finally aroused the population into forming a fast growing organization dedicated to shifting governance responsibility away from the 1% elite to the 99% middle class citizenry. The movement started with the Occupy Wall Street (“OWS”) actions to occupy Succotti Square near Wall Street. This immediately let to similar organizations being formed in US cities and towns and spread throughout the world into a global network. This post brings you more information on the progress and environment they have created. There is so much action it only touches on high points.


Positioning

After 6 weeks the total movement is beginning to take form as hundreds of local organizations outside of New York establish “solidarity” with OWS on the global network. The movement has continued to establish itself as the center of the 99% who are demanding corrective action after a bungling Government and allied institutions have proven to be disastrous to the nation. Wisely, the movement has been extremely careful to avoid being co-opted by other movements, agendas. or political labels. It is clearly described as a pro-democracy movement to correct major deficiencies in the nation’s governance by moving to a more democratic middle class environment.

Organization

Each local organization in the network is self managed but must be non violent and democratic. The local governing body in each node is a General Assembly that must approve all actions. They use a decision support system called “People’s Assembly” that focuses on distributed consensus decision making across a group environment. All members can participate. A methodology of hand signals express positive and negative positions and keeps discussions moving and on topic. Communications is open between nodes to all members via Twitter or other social systems. This system continuously maintains real time communications with hundreds of local organizations through the world and allows instantaneous coordination of activities. There is a tremendous volume of information flowing. You can follow much of it through Twitter. The information system plus the large number of people involved is impressive. This is an advantage over the many layered hierarchy of the 1%.

Competition

Significant portions of the 1% are not hardened ideologues and recognize the disaster that the remainder of the 1% has dealt the nation. They are supportive of reform and could eventually be a basis for reasonable compromise. But there remains the hard core ideologues and the plain greedy that are profiting from the current situation and viciously resist any change. Unfortunately they are deeply embedded in positions of wealth and power in Congress, the media, and the corporate and financial sectors. It was in those positions that they created the very situations which are the point of contention with the 99/1 % movement..

This hard core 1%seems to feel that with their power they can eventually make OWS/99/1% meaningless. They do not yet seem to understand the scope and intensity of the OWS/99/1% movement. They are going to find it difficult to hire the energy and intelligent dedication which is standard within the 99/1% movement. Their only hope for survival is to turn the general public against the OWS /99/1% movement.

They have embarked on an extensive misinformation and infiltration program to try to create in the public mind an image of a left wing, communist, violent, and unlawful agenda made up of drug addicts and sexual predators which must be brought under control. If the movement stays true to its current path, however, the public will surely recognize the falseness of these accusations. This site gives you a better perspective of the typical 99% membership.

Summary

The 99% have made a good start by gaining worldwide exposure and in identifying the critical issues that need reform. The strong infra structure of the 99% is already showing its ability to call broad attention to the thoughtlessness of different government policies by holding thousand person plus “occupations” of the offending institutions.

The movement is an intelligent core being applied to financial and governance issues that the public recognizes. Because it has no legislative authority, however, it must face the next critical step. That is to elect a new Congress that will provide the required legal actions.

This is setting up to be a very competitive and important contest for the mind of the American citizen. It is encouraging to find a force that is still fighting hard for the American Dream.

OWS-The Citizens Finally Run Out of Patience

The greed of the financial sector, the ignorance of the ideologues, and the unimaginable incompetence of the 111th and 112th Congress has been causing excruciating pain to American citizens for almost three years. We could not be expected to quietly accept this situation indefinitely. A common sense Congress could have defused the situation by correcting obvious errors and sincerely addressing the underlying problems. Unfortunately the guilty parties have refused to offer serious solutions.


The nearest opportunity for citizens to replace many of the current non performing members of Congress through elections is over 12 months away. Continuance of the current ineffectiveness by Congress is longer than the citizens could wait. Thus a far reaching global protest movement has become activated. The movement is serious, and growing at an explosive rate around the world. It has been joined by numerous additional organizations. Initiated by the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest movement it has as its battle cry the taking away financial and political power from the self serving portion of 1% of the population and returning democratic control to the 99%. Polls show that this concept is strongly supported by the majority of middle class citizens.

No one knows where these protests will lead. At this time they are wisely adamant about remaining independent of political parties. The organization has not been in place long enough to present a code of demands but one is being prepared. I saw a listing of eight demands that were being suggested for inclusion by one protester. All were legitimate, practical, and addressed needed actions. Some were addressed to laws already passed that were nullified through congress cutting funds to the intended enforcing agency. One demand dictated that all laws passed by Congress would apply equally to them as to the citizens. Reducing the influence of unlimited money and special interests on the democratic process was an important theme.

The protests are definitely legitimate and aimed at correcting the overreach practices by the established institutions that is damaging our country and our democracy. They should have been corrected long ago by Congress. It is extremely important that real progress on the major issues happens while the protests are controlled by citizens strongly motivated by patriotism and democracy. This will require the elimination of many practices of the financial and political systems.

I suggest you follow the protests closely. Read and understand the demands when they are presented. Offer advice and criticism. Be prepared to resist the forthcoming propaganda assault by those who brought us down to the current state.

American Jobs Act Update

On September 5, 2011, after over 2 yr years of recession and 14 million citizens still unemployed the President announced a $447 billion American Jobs bill which included $140 billion in infrastructure construction work. On September 13 this blog applauded the bills’ focus for finally providing direct help to the middle class. We concluded, however, that it could only pass the current Congress if forced to by strong public support.


On September 20, 2011 Gallup released the results of a detailed public opinion poll on the citizen’s response to the bill. It was overwhelmingly favorable for the bill. The infrastructure element was favored by 72% of the citizens polled. A blow-out 80% favored an accompanying tax deduction for small businesses. The reference covers the results by element and political party affiliation.

It is now October 5 and in spite of numerous presentations by the President the bill has not been submitted to either house by party leaders. No target dates have been set. (Of course, the Congress did have a week of vacation to get in). On Sept 28 the Democrats announced that they don’t have the votes for passage in the Senate and won’t bring the issue to a vote until they do. Republican leaders in the house have called the bill “campaigning” and have not announced a date when they would bring it up for debate,--if they do it at all. Today they announced it DOA.

With trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure work to be done and 14 million American citizens out of work you would think that leaders of both parties would be all over each other to work out a plan. They should want to flood the country with projects that would get the citizens off unemployment and back to value-added work. But you would be wrong.

The question is why would the US Congress prefer to write unemployment checks and watch our infrastructure crumble than provide productive value-added work to its citizens? My only observation is that this is the expected behavior of our current Congress. This is exactly why the latest Gallup poll shows citizen approval of Congressional job performance is down to13% and 9% with Independents.

There are many studies which point to the benefits of an immediate national infrastructure plan. On March 5, 2011 the New America Foundation released a widely distributed evaluation estimating that our inadequate infrastructure was costing the nation more than $192 billion a year in wasted fuel consumption, lost time, additional handling and other delays. As a specific example, this article by USA Today discusses the waste and additional costs that inadequate infrastructure is causing the grain export business.

It is apparent that there are ideologues and special interests that do not want the act to pass, but in view of the public support are afraid to be seen voting against it. Hence every delaying trick available will be pulled to avoid a vote.

What can the citizens do to force a vote when Congress refuses to even consider an issue that is so important to the citizens? Although national referendums are common in municipalities and states there is no mention of them in the constitution. (The Founding Fathers apparently never considered the possibility of incompetence at the level we now have.) In the short term we have only the advisory force of public opinion as determined by the countless political polls. In the longer term we have our 2012 election where we have the opportunity to replace all of the Representatives and one third of the Senators.

Keep up the pressure. What are your representatives doing?

The American Jobs Act-A Critical Decision

The American Jobs Act presents an important choice for America. We will have to determine if we want to give up and join the bean counters in their rush to the economic bottom or fight to regain a booming American economy. This decision is so important that a wrong choice could portend the concluding stages of the American dream.


It is not that the proposed Act is the final solution. There is much more to do and this Act is over two years late. But at last there is an aggressive middle class oriented plan put before the nation. It shines when compared to the special interest actions of the ineffective congress with which we have been living. We need it to pass now, however, not in fourteen months with a new congress. Sadly, the only way we will see significant action with the current congress is through such overwhelming public support that each congressman decides that to oppose it would be political suicide.

Your understanding is very important. You will need to educate yourself on its’ contents to withstand the misrepresentations, half truths and delaying tactics that are on their way from the ideologues and their politicians. You can move toward an independent and knowledgeable judgment by reviewing the American Jobs Act Fact Sheet.

The Act addresses four major areas, all focused on middle class issues.

Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow ($70 billion)

Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America ($140 billion)

Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs ($62 billion)

More Money in the Pockets of Every American Worker and Family ($175 billion)

The items in each area are explained in detail in the fact sheet. There is also a detailed cost table in the fact sheet. The fact sheet further claims that it is fully paid for as part of the president’s long-term deficit reduction plan.

As the proposed Act is further understood we should begin to see the results of legitimate public polls as opposed to the unscientific self serving ones starting to be published now.

Understand it and you will support it.

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Americas Economic Problems are Political - Not Resource Limited

The founding fathers were not bean counters. So they must be confused when they hear the ideologues and bean counters tell us that we can no longer afford to do the good things for our citizens that are described in the Preamble of the Constitution.


What exactly are they saying? That we don’t have enough science and talent to support a health care system for our citizens? We don’t have enough engineers and skilled tradesmen to manufacture everything we need? Are we short on farming and the land needed to grow our food? Are there not enough engineers and construction workers to fix our infra structure?

They talk nonsense. We have an ample supply of all of these assets. The country is filled with everything we need to satisfy the material and creative requirements of all our citizens.

There is one thing that we don’t have--a thoughtful and honest Congress. One that will make sure everything that should happen on the national level does happen, regardless of party ideology. It is the absence of a willful elected leadership that is pulling us down.

With a thoughtful and honest Congress we would not be in the current mess. They would have recognized that having everyone together in productive work is the only way to financial and social stability. We would by now have an all out program focused on that. Instead the two parties have wasted over two years bickering with each other over unproven ideologies while the confidence of the nation is destroyed. They have yet to provide the citizens with a substantial plan for economic recovery.

The current Congress has had its’ chance and failed miserably. Remember this. Be very careful how you spend your vote in 2012.

Congressional Cost Cutting Obsession is the Tail Wagging the Dog.

When will the bean counters acknowledge that deficit reduction should only be one element of a national economic plan? Nothing would be more slipshod than to create a cost reduction plan without careful attention to how it affects a national economic recovery plan. The trouble is, after over two years of recession, the US has never built a national economic recovery plan. What our congress is doing with this single minded devotion to cost cutting is similar to only studying seat covers while trying to build an automobile.


We do need a comprehensive plan but it should be for economic recovery. It should address all sectors that impinge on the economy such as citizen employment, expanding the manufacturing sector, correcting the trade imbalance, protecting our science leadership, restoring financial integrity and a general return of the principles of the American dream. Obsessive bean counter concentration on cost cutting without understanding the consequences on the rest of the economy will lead to disaster. It is discouraging that this nation is being managed by leaders who do not seem to grasp such a simple principle.

The lack of basic management skills had created a Congress that is badly failing the country. Americans realize this. The current Congress has no creditability with the citizens. The latest Gallup poll shows that only 9% of independent voters support the way Congress is handling its job while 84% of all voters disapprove. These are disastrous results.

What can the citizens do? What can be done to restore the citizens’ faith in its governing institutions? In spite of these failing ratings I have not heard of a serious proposal for extensive reform of Congress from either party. If these polls haven’t energized them what will?

The Constitution makes no allowance for the early termination of an existing Congress. We will have to wait until 2012 to exert our voting power. Unfortunately, unless the situation changes, our choice of candidates in 2012 will come from the same process that created the current gene pool.

The known solutions of letters, emails, and calls don’t seem to be providing the driving force for the level of reform we need. We definitely must open the election process to have more choice in candidates. In fact it may be time for that risky street-driven movement that says “Don’t vote for an incumbent.”

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.

A National Economic Restoration Plan Versus a ”Grand Deal” for Deficit Reduction

What was the Administration thinking when it asked congress to present a “grand deal” for controlling the deficit in return for the increase in the national debt ceiling? The plan had Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security as “on the table”. What a morale killer for an already demoralized population!. They learn that their leader wants a plan for full retreat that threatens what little support they have left. They certainly don’t need a bean counter driven plan of retreat that discounts the national potential we would have if the system would only let us work.

Does the administration think the current special interest controlled congress is even capable of developing such a “grand deal” of retreat for the country? No one else in the country does.

In any event I am tired of listening to the Republicans and Democrats talking right past the citizens. They then negotiate with each other for final results that always seem to satisfy the special interests and shortchange the citizens.

Addressing a real problem, the “grand deal” we need is one directly with the citizens to develop and really implement a comprehensive road map for Americas’ economic restoration. The plan would assemble our total talent pool and make both the economy and the American spirit soar again. Its progress would be completely transparent to the citizens.

Nothing of this nature will come from the bean counters. Retreat is in their DNA. Not only will the bean counters say we can’t do it-they will say we shouldn’t even try. They support the sure path to mediocrity.

This is America. Our greatness is not due to bean counters. Don’t let them set “the things that need to be done”.

Restoring our economy is the only acceptable way to cut into the deficit-but more importantly it is also the only way we can remain true to the American Dream.

Unfortunately we have voted in a Congress that is pitifully inadequate, both organizationally and talent-wise, to lead us down this path. They are proving this every day. Somehow we must identify the few competent and honest members of congress and vote the rest out.

It is critical that the plan make use of the extensive citizen talent pool that has blessed this country. The sections of the plan must be explained in understandable English to the citizens and progress completely transparent. Congress has to be prevented from injecting special interests at the expense of the country. All elements of the US economy must become dedicated to its success.

Elements to be resolved are: trade balance, manufacturing deficit, constructive employment of our citizens, an honest and stable financial system, energy policy, and an efficient political system.

Sound impossible? Not as complicated as going to the moon. And extremely important.