To Whom It May Concern
(Was Open Letter to Bernie Sanders in 2016)
It's rather obvious that working "within the system" hasn't worked (again). This should come as no surprise since as we've seen UniParty rigged (s)Elections are a political version of the Game Of Switch.
Folks sent to Congress work in a toxic institution that has been bought by campaign “contributions” from those who OWN the country. The privatized, rigged system with "elections" driven by a corporate media propaganda machine owned by 6 corporations insures majorities of willing allies in office to do the dirty work for the richest of the rich. It appears certain that "normal" channels are not going to bring about any of the existentially necessary systemic changes we desperately need.
In order to get extremely popular necessary legislation passed prominent public figures truly interested in the well-being of the American People should help create a People's Army of Lobbyists to serve as an ever-present countervailing force for We the People in the Halls of Congress.
People's Lobby
The suggestion is to create a 501(c)4 non-profit that can use tax-deductible funds raised to recruit, train, house and pay a living wage and decent benefits for teams of 2-5 constituents from each state and Congressional district to work 4 hour shifts to constantly lobby their “representatives”. The idea is to get enough office holders to turn campaign rhetoric that implies that they care about most American's best interests while running for office into the minimum of 279 votes necessary to pass legislation in Congress.
These People's Lobbyists will act as a constant presence to peacefully, non-violently but relentlessly educate their Congresspersons in the halls, offices and committee hearing rooms of the Capitol Building during every hour they are physically present.
After a few victories at the Federal level it will also be possible to organize People's Lobbies at state and local levels using paid staff and volunteers to assert lobbying pressure on their state and local “representatives” to do the People's Business. These local People's Lobbyists can also provide the amazingly small number of votes that are needed to insure that most office holders who refuse to carry out the People's Business will lose their re-election bids during their next primary.
This Movement of Movements should begin by choosing the most important, VERY popular legislation pass in Congress and get it signed into law. The People's Agenda of wildly popular proposals would serve as a good starting point for organizing and blueprint for our initial set of demands.
The People's Army of Lobbyists could be created and maintained with only $27 per year* in donations from 450,000 to 1 million Americans interested in a decent, more sustainable future with a higher Quality of Life taking the place of the current existentially dangerous, suicidal slide the current government is on.
* That's about 5 cups of Starbuck's coffee per person per year.
https://peoples-lobby.org/
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The People's Agenda
1) HR3069/S1506 - National Expanded and Improved Medicare for All. This bill will easily pay for itself by reallocating the over $5.4 Trillion PLUS being spent each year for the 69th rated remedial sick care for corporate profits system (over $2 Trillion per year for corporate profits) toward financing a system for comprehensive, universal, accessible, Holistic Health Care as a Human Right for every person living in the USA and territories. While returning at least 3/4 of a Trillion dollars in savings to the People. See how much YOUR family would save with M4A.
2) HR8005 - Social Security Expansion Act - Preserve funding and expand benefits. Increase the cap, keep Grandma alive.
3) College as a Public Good without crippling debt. Remove Student Debt with reparations for less affluent folk who paid off their student loans. REFORM education system including K-12, more classrooms and teachers and broader "Green" curriculum and provide ALL education at little or no cost.
4) Empower the Working Class! A Living Wage or even better a Universal Basic Income (UBI) NOT tied to a "job". Begin by PASSING a PRO Act on Steroids to empower workers NOW! HR2474 - Protecting the Right to Organize.
5) End the Forever Wars* including the corrupting, toxic, racist failed "Drug War". SLASH the war budgets: Federal, State and Local. They are toxic drains on society and the “economy”. Sharing Societies don't need a police state.
6) A REAL Green New Deal - a massive program of MEANINGFUL infrastructure and systemic changes to prepare for our fossil-fueled Warmed Climate Change future. See Number 8!
7) Tax the rich again - higher marginal rates on the highest incomes, a wealth tax and tax on stock transfers among others. Change the tax code to favor Workers and Worker-Coops over corporations, Wall Street, the polluters, fossil-fueled chemical Big Ag and Big Meat and ultra-rich wealth hoarders.
8) Reform the Food System: Funding and logistic and infrastructure support for urban farms, food co-ops, farmers markets and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Transition our agricultural system to regional and local Regenerative Agriculture with relocalized distribution. End subsidies to fossil-fueled Big Ag. as part of the REAL Green New Deal. In addition, provide training and financing for restoring wetlands and wild-lands to sequester even MORE carbon from the atmosphere.
9) A Department of Peace engaged in domestic and global Restorative Justice to help repair the damage over 75 years of Forever War has caused. This would include leading the way toward ending domestic racist and class based oppression and social control perpetrated by police at the Federal, State and Local levels.
10) HR3755 - Women's Health Protection Act of 2021. Protect the very popular Right to Choose. Reverse SCOTUS' decision in Dodd and other egregious rulings and state laws against Choice.
11) HR2584 - Judiciary Act to Balance the Court from 9 to 13 seats (as was done in 1870s) and fill the new seats with Warren Court Style "Liberal" Justices to protect all of this legislation and future solutions to our real problems. Without this, "conservatives" will control SCOTUS until the 2050s. This agenda item will allow us to END CAMPAIGN BRIBERY and pass legislation to replace rigged UniParty (s)elections run using Plutocrat Dollars and Corporate Media Ownership and make a fair and equal access to the electoral system the norm without a cabal of right-wing extremists overturning it.
12) The Peace Dividend! We want back at least some of the trillions taken from us as good, decent citizens under false pretenses, then used to fight unnecessary wars and buy military junk we never needed. Money which just ends up in the coffers of the defense industry, and ultimately in the bank accounts of wealthy investors who profit from the never-ending wars. The Peace Dividend refund currently totals $25,029 for each and every living U.S. citizen.
13) Free Cuba! End the Illegal Blockade! End the Forever Wars to Free the People of ALL nations to pursue their own path toward a decent, sustainable future. Share the global resources and technologies instead of hoarding them to extort corporate profits. While we're at it, end the Forever Wars and FREE THE WORLD!
* FY2024:
(Newly Greedy) Pentagon asks for $848 Billion
Biden budget has $842 Billion
House and Senate jack it up to $886 Billion by inserting massive pork and perks for craven members.
$38 BILLION more than Pentagon asked for!
And of course that DOES NOT INCLUDE Additional hundreds of Billions for the fossil-fuel proxy war in Ukraine, Genocide in Gaza and more unnecessary saber rattling at China - which is all "borrowed money". Total war budgets will exceed $1.5 Trillion in FY2024.
Now that War Mongering Republicans have regained Congress and the White House, the PENTAGON budget will doubtless exceed $1 trillion and the entire war budgets (money borrowed from the rich) will greatly exceed $1.5 Trillion in FY2025.
UPDATE - 12/16/24, House passes $895.2 Billion for Pentagon. Senate committee passes out $923.3 Billion for Pentagon + perks for the war machine.
UPDATE - 2/26/26, Congress will pass at least $1.05 Trillion for Pentagon and hundreds of billions more for "off the books" wars that will easily total $1.5 Trillion over the next year. All money Borrowed from the Rich and put on the U.S. Taxpayer's "credit card". Just paying The INTEREST on past war debt will exceed $1 Trillion FY 2025/26.
TOTAL war budgets are currently predicted to exceed TWO TRILLION DOLLARS for FY 2025/26.
Here's some food for thought
The ENTIRE NEW DEAL from 1933 to 1938 cost $879 Billion in today's dollars and it put tens of millions to work, enhanced Society, built infrastructure we're STILL using and promoted the arts, created the Social Safety Net we now enjoy the remnants of and saved capitalism from itself (for a while).
JUST the Pentagon piece of ONE YEAR of the bloated war budgets is almost enough to finance more than FOUR YEARS of a New New Deal.
Congress Literally DOES NOT CARE What You Think!
In 2014, political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, in a study published in Perspectives on Politics, empirically established how average U.S. citizens are almost completely ignored by U.S. governmental authorities in terms of public policies. Reviewing U.S. public opinions of policy issues, along with examining 1,779 different enacted public policies between 1981 and 2002, Gilens and Page determined that “even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.” They conclude, “The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”
The Democracy Crisis That Is Never Discussed
Corporate media’s democracy-in-crisis discourse almost never mentions the gap between what Americans want and what corrupt elected officials are doing
In 2014, Northwestern and Princeton researchers published a report statistically documenting how lawmakers do not listen or care about what most voters want, and instead mostly care about serving their big donors. Coupled with additional research documenting the discrepancy between donor and voter preferences, they bluntly concluded that the “preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically nonsignificant impact upon public policy.”
Seven years later, America is witnessing a very public and explicit illustration of this situation in real time — and Tuesday's off-year election results are the latest confirmation that the country seems pretty ticked off about the situation ahead of the 2022 midterms.
https://www.dailyposter.com/the-democracy-crisis-that-is-never-discussed/