Category Archives: Democracy

Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground: Part VII

Posted on April 21, 2016 by johnrachel

Getting the truth out to the voting public on exactly where the candidates stand requires audacity, creativity, courage, some outside-the-box thinking. But it can be done. It should be done. It must be done! Voters don’t need to see protest signs. They need to see honest and clear choices at the polls. Candidate contracts leave no room for error or misinterpretation. They preclude elected representatives from going back on their commitments to their constituents when they enter the money chamber of the Washington DC bubble. Continue reading →

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Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground: Part VI

Posted on April 15, 2016 by johnrachel

When we identify candidates who are on our side — the ones who willingly sign contracts for those specific things the vast majority of us want done — we unite behind them, a huge voting bloc of citizens who are serious about having true representative government — real democracy — in America. Candidate contracts are the surefire way of determining what candidates are on our side. Continue reading →

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Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground: Part V

Posted on April 7, 2016 by johnrachel

It’s all about people power. Not PACs and SuperPACS. Not big piles of money. Change still comes down to the choice each of us personally makes in the voting booth. Power resides in our aligning our individual choices, so that collectively — as in tens of millions of us united in an unstoppable juggernaut of people power — we get done what needs to get done. We must elect representatives who represent us. We will guarantee they will represent us by making candidates sign legally-binding contracts. Or we don’t vote for them. Continue reading →

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Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground: Part IV

Posted on March 29, 2016 by johnrachel

People must unite at a local level, not under party banners, but as a voting bloc around issues that are important to them. Party labels — also very much the case with ideological labels — muddy the waters, get people unfocused on what’s truly consequential. ‘Democrat’, ‘Republican’, ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’, ‘libertarian’ — even more so with ‘socialist’, ‘Tea Party’, and ‘Green Party’ — have recently become so emotionally charged, clear thinking becomes difficult, constructive dialogue impossible. Continue reading →

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Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground: Part III

Posted on March 25, 2016 by johnrachel

Maybe people won’t talk politics. But once the floodgate is open, people will talk about what’s hurting them, what’s holding them back, how they are getting screwed by the system and those who run things, how they had wonderful dreams and hopes for their children which are being destroyed. So talk to them. And listen. Please! The future of our country depends on it. Continue reading →

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Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground: Part II

Posted on March 18, 2016 by johnrachel

Americans actually agree on a lot of important things. Most things! But the astonishing and powerful consensuses get lost in the trivialization, marginalization, and other weapons of mass distraction and sheer propaganda we all endure just trying to find out and understand what’s going on. We are teased, taunted, cajoled, manipulated, titillated, dazzled, and generally overwhelmed by the main stream media. Thus we lose focus. We can’t keep our eye on the prize, because by watching television we have no idea what the prize even is.

Turn off your TVs. Hide your smart phones under the mattress. Let the screensaver on your computer do whatever it does — swimming fish, go-go dancers, shooting stars — and don’t disturb it to watch the latest Trump riots or primary predictions. Go talk to someone. Your neighbor, your cousin, your kid’s teacher, that lady down the street who is always working in her garden, the guy who polishes his car three times a week. Bring cupcakes. Get to know them . . . and talk. Continue reading →

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Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground: Part I

Posted on March 9, 2016 by johnrachel

A president is a lightning rod. But a president is not the lightning. We the people are the lightning. We the people are the energy, the force, the real movers-and-shakers behind fundamental change. We the people and only we the people can shape the future we want. Continue reading →

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R2P = L2K

Posted on February 25, 2016 by johnrachel

Time to turn the tables and call out the real enemies of America. We’ll start small and build. Samantha Power is currently the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Wherever this violent, disingenuous shrew appears publicly, and even where possible privately, everyone should be reminded she is a murderer and a war criminal. Continue reading →

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The BS Challenge

Posted on February 19, 2016 by johnrachel

Cheer leading and hero-worship are the easy part. Revolution is hard work. So here’s my challenge to all those people feeling the Bern. Are your hearts truly filled with the awe-inspiring message of Bernie Sanders? Are you ready to do some heavy-lifting? Or is Chris Hedges right? Is this just more BS along the historical road to disintegration and collapse? If you’re serious, there’s important work to be done. Continue reading →

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Choose A Symptom, Ignore The Disease

Posted on February 1, 2016 by johnrachel

America is very, very sick. The disease which is destroying our nation feeds on: 1) Unchecked imperial ambitions. 2) Exceptionalist hubris and arrogance. 3) The crushing power of corporations. 4) The militarization of everything. 5) Plutocratic tyranny and greed. None of the presidential candidates will talk about the disease. Because none of them has a cure. Continue reading →

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