This again builds on preceding articles, which outline my approach to community-based “regime change” activism. I recommend you read them first to fully appreciate what now follows here.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
It’s easy to get discouraged — even become cynical — when viewing our current electoral system. The news is highly sensationalized. Much coverage is quite superficial, focusing on human drama, scandal, who’s up who’s down, more resembling reporting of celebrity gossip and sports team rivalry than offering responsible perspectives on political matters.
Of course, the Democrats and Republicans are fine with this, neither truly committed to representing the needs and demands of the voting public. Anything which distracts us from realizing their indifference to the everyday citizen is to their benefit and welcomed. Along the same lines, they stubbornly prevent minor party candidates from participating in debates, guaranteeing the absence of fresh ideas or meaningful controversy. A genuine, thoughtful and rewarding national conversation about the challenges confronting both the country as a whole and us as individual citizens appears impossible in this environment.
But is it?
The whole point of this series of Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground articles is that it is possible! But for it to happen we must rely on ourselves. The corporate media and our government are not going to lead this effort. In fact, those now in power will do everything to prevent a national conversation of substance from occurring, because it would threaten their privilege and primacy.
Do you think I’m exaggerating?
Just look at the news. Just look at our choices for president.
Clinton? Cruz? Trump? Is this a bad joke or what?
Bernie Sanders offers a powerful vision and coherent plan for change, which is why he gets virtually no press and faces sure annihilation at convention time. John Kasich appears not to be a raving lunatic, which in this election clearly disqualifies him from consideration.
Let’s face it: To come up with a more extreme version of reality, we’d have to resort to reading Franz Kafka novels or watching Andy Warhol movies.
So with nothing better to do than shake my head at the absurdity of it all, I am with no irony or secret agenda trying to salvage something constructive out of this election ordeal. And I start by ignoring the entire presidential three-ring circus and focusing on the only political sphere which by any sensible analysis can make a difference come November.
There is no law — not yet anyway — against any of what I’ve proposed thus far.
We gauge community support and solicit voter endorsement on hot-button issues with citizen petition/pledges. This is grass-roots democracy in action.
Based on the (hopefully) substantial number of petition/pledges gathered, we formulate candidate contracts. All candidates running locally for a particular office are offered the opportunity to sign them. If possible, extending this offer should occur in a highly public forum — a campaign rally, a town hall meeting, any public event or personal appearance where there are people and reporters.
Because the contracts are so demanding and the associated penalties so severe for breach of their terms, we should expect the mainstream candidates to reject them outright.
A candidate who does sign them — only expect there to be one, probably one identified beforehand by the citizens group which formulated the candidate contracts — should get enormous praise. He or she deserves love and support, accolades and plaudits, and most of all deserves to get elected.
The candidates who do not — this will often include the incumbent — should be called out, demonized, vilified. Voters should be clear in their minds about what the contracts mean. A candidate who signs is on the side of the voters. Candidates who don’t are working for the rich and powerful.
Sign contract = good! Don’t sign contract = bad!
Yes, I’m serious. This is not being simpleminded. This is just being straightforward.
After all, the contracts equate to a commitment to represent the needs and desires of the voting public. That’s good! That’s exactly what we’re trying to accomplish. Democracy of the people, by the people, for the people.
Correspondingly, a failure to embrace and sign the contracts calls into question both the integrity and commitment of a candidate. I’d say that’s pretty damning, wouldn’t you?
Every opportunity to draw public attention to the contracts — who is on board and who is not, keeping a keen eye for press coverage — should be exploited to fullest advantage and potential for mass exposure.
This is the main thrust of the contract strategy! It is not a piece of legalese to be stuffed in a file folder. It’s a PR device which should be front-and-center in a campaign. The contract embodies a powerful message. The candidate who signs it has integrity, transparency, is willing to put his constituents first, intends to go to Washington DC to do the job the voters elected him or her to do.
Bear in mind that the candidate who signs the contract probably will be independent or minor-party, or running on the short end of the stick against a powerhouse incumbent. Thus he or she will not have much money. The only way to get around this obstacle is generating free publicity. Free publicity is obtained by creating news-worthy events.
I believe that if the candidate contracts are wielded properly — not as some polite legal document but as a weapon of mass media engagement — it will not be all that difficult to get them and the candidate who signs them all over the news. It’s just a matter of setting the stage and getting the lighting right.
Let me offer a couple examples. These may at first seem a bit extreme, but as far as I’m concerned, in the service of real democracy and honest representation, there’s no such thing as ‘too outrageous’. Having said that, please understand that I’m not advocating dishonesty or mean-spiritedness. There’s a lot of room for creativity here, without embracing the dark side.
Example #1 . . .
We have an incumbent that won’t sign a contract protecting Social Security. We have an independent or minor party candidate who has signed it. So we line up ten or twenty very old people in wheel chairs and block traffic on a major street. They hold signs that say: “Why won’t Congressman [ name of incumbent ] sign the contract? I need my Social Security to survive!” The candidate who did sign it circulates among them holding up the signed contract in one hand, and a poster in the other that says: “I’m Michael Marvellous. These elderly people deserve our support. I SIGNED THE CONTRACT!”
Of course, the media was given advance notice for this staged event. Even if they send second stringers, they’ll still get it all on video.
Now what’s going to happen? Are the police going to pepper spray grandma? Well, now that I think about it, they might. (Sorry about that, grandma.) But this is perfect! I can see the headlines now . . .
Sweet Old Lady in Wheelchair Pepper Sprayed at Protest
Over Incumbent’s Refusal to Support Social Security
How does the expression go? . . . You can’t buy publicity like that!
As if you hadn’t surmised, I am all for street theater, massive protests, civil disobedience, getting arrested, whatever it takes barring violence to get the public to focus on important issues. What makes no sense to me is when such displays don’t produce the potential for concrete action. Going on right now as I write this piece is a very admirable effort to make the public aware of how thoroughly our democracy has been corrupted and destroyed by big money in politics. Sadly, Democracy Spring has gotten very limited media exposure, though its agenda and intent are truly laudable. So far their biggest claim to notoriety seems to be how many people have been arrested, a new Guinness Book world record! Other than that, it offers no actionable agenda, no specific legislation, no constitutional amendment, nothing voters can rally around and vote for, other than a vague demand that America needs a new Congress which will listen to the people.
My example draws attention to a specific choice: Vote for a buttplug who, notwithstanding a lot of wonderful sounding campaign rhetoric, doesn’t give one whit about retirees caught in a web of poverty, or vote for a candidate who has signed a legal contract that guarantees he or she will fight to keep Social Security viable, solvent, and sufficient to meet the needs of the elderly who depend on it for a decent life in their golden years.
Voters are given something they can act on. Vote for a black hat or a white hat.
Let me give one more example, even more dramatic than the last, of how the candidate contract can be used to draw in the media, always hungry for news that “bleeds”.
Major party candidate A refuses to sign a contract to end all the wars in the Middle East. Candidate B, who has signed the contract, goes to a VA hospital with a talking head from the local television station. Several patients are wearing ‘Candidate B signed the contract!’ t-shirts. One of them holds up a sign . . .
If Congress had brought the troops
back home, I’d still have my legs.
The talking head interviews some of the maimed and crippled vets. Candidate B talks about how “supporting our troops” means not fighting wars we don’t have to fight, going on to explain how most Americans want the wars to end. He declares his unequivocal support for ending the wars in the Middle East and waves the contract as proof.
Is this manipulative, exploitative? It’s not as manipulative and exploitative as our leaders lying and leading the country into conflicts it doesn’t have to fight. It’s not as manipulative as saying one thing when campaigning just to curry favor with potential voters, then going to Washington DC and doing the bidding of lobbyists and fat-cat campaign donors. And it’s certainly not as exploitative as having our soldiers in the bloom of their youth give their lives for corporate profits or in pursuit of delusional fantasies of world empire.
Sometimes we have to fight fire with fire.
And always, we have to fight lies with the truth.
Maybe it makes you uncomfortable thinking about grandma getting pepper sprayed or looking at young men with stumps where healthy legs used to be and puckering sockets where they once had eyes. But personally it makes me really uncomfortable thinking about grandma starving to death in her apartment or dying because she couldn’t afford some prescription medication, or seeing these these young men mangled in battles which never should have been fought in countries we never should have invaded, all while inside the DC bubble congressman are having $200 lunches with lobbyists from Wall Street and CEOs for the defense contractors.
My point is simple. If we want to change the way politicians get elected, we need to make choices stark, obvious. No ambiguities. No equivocation. No obfuscation. No excuses.
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. The contracts leave no room for error or misinterpretation.
“Hmm. That fellow signed a legally-binding contract. If I vote for him, I know I’ll get some service, not a bunch of broken campaign promises.”
On the flip side — that is, in terms of the candidate who refuses or can’t sign the contract, — we can’t show any mercy. None! This individual is showing his or her true colors and should be stigmatized, ostracized, and condemned at every opportunity. Picket campaign offices, demonstrate at rallies and all public appearances. Get manhandled and arrested. Get in the news! This is free publicity. But it’s news the public should be getting.
Is it negative campaigning? Let’s see. This candidate is making a public refusal to sign a contract that commits the candidate to serving the needs and desires of his constituents. It’s a refusal to represent the very people who elected him! Why shouldn’t that be public knowledge? Before they cast their ballots, people need to ask themselves things like . . .
Why won’t the Republican guy sign the contract to raise the
minimum wage? Can’t his rich friends pay a living wage?
Why won’t the Democrat for Congress sign the contract for
free college tuition? Isn’t education important to her?
Why won’t my congressman sign the contract on GMO
labeling? How do I know what I’m feeding my kids?
Why won’t my congressman sign the contract ending
Citizens United? Whose side is he on anyway?
I know of no other way go about this, besides magically coming up with an enormous pile of money to take on the enormous piles of money these bought-and-paid for politicians have in their coffers — legal bribes to charm and woo voters, often to deceive them.
Either we play tough or we lose. Then all we’re left with is wiling away the time until the next election rolls around, pining about what we could and should have done.
Politics is not a polite game of ping pong. It’s a gladiator sport. Either come ready to do battle or slink back to your slave quarters and sip on the brine they’re telling you is soup. At night you can lay on your moldy cot thinking of ways to apologize to your children for not having acted boldly and decisively when the duties of citizenship required it.
I offer no apologies for being so blunt. We are losing our democracy.
We are losing the America we all believe in.
We need to come together!
We need to act now!
Because of some trademark or product protectionist agreement or with Bayer, there is no such thing as generic aspirin here in Japan.
Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground: Part IV
Part I
Part II
Part III
We put away the smart phones and let the computers go to sleep. TV and movie habits are put on hold, at least for a few hours each week. Using basic social skills we were all taught as children, engaging others face-to-face, we talk and listen to friends, neighbors, relatives, even strangers in our communities, about the problems we all individually and collectively face. We talk about what ails us. Most people love to complain. Misery loves company. Next . . .
We tactfully and respectfully navigate the discussion to those critical issues which are the direct consequence of government policy and can only be solved by our elected officials.
We find common ground. This should be easy. So much has gone wrong over the past several decades, it is almost impossible to find someone who hasn’t been negatively impacted by the mess we find ourselves in. Americans on the whole are hurting. Individually we are victims of much misguided decision-making.
We continue to talk. And most importantly . . . to listen.
Maybe this doesn’t sound like much of a breakthrough, but if we get this far — having a comfortable adult conversation about one or more specific things which are contributing to the ongoing dysfunction — it actually is quite noteworthy, taking into consideration the current environment. More typically now whenever anything appears to remotely involve politics, we expect to see folks either maniacally shouting or withdrawing into a coma-like state of mute detachment.
Talking and listening thoughtfully and graciously represents dramatic progress!
So . . . where are we taking this?
Time for a refresher on the Constitution.
Congress makes laws. The president enforces them.
Granted, this clear division of labor has in recent times been compromised, with abuse of regulatory powers and signing statements by the president, and the wholesale surrender of war making powers by the Congress. Let’s still be clear. And I offer this both as a warning to the ebullient Bernie Sanders supporters, and to those anxiety-ridden progressives who live in fear of either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump ascending the presidential throne:
Without a supportive Congress, nothing positive — or for that matter negative — will get done, especially if the new president is isolated. It will be animus, gridlock, confrontation, blame-gaming, a show of distrust and open hostility between the executive and legislative branches, which will make the past decade look like a friendly game of flag football. This would certainly be the case with either Trump or Sanders. Perhaps the most frightening prospect is a Hillary presidency, since her most menacing and treacherous policies, both domestic and international, presently have widespread support by our current corrupt, corporate-owned legislature.
There is no question that a strong, visionary president would be a good thing.
But a responsible, responsive, representative people’s Congress is absolutely crucial.
Strong, visionary congressional action is a matter of survival for our nation.
Nothing will change until we change the laws.
Laws won’t change until we change the law makers.
This is exactly where our grass-roots, boots-on-the-ground, community-based campaign must be entirely focused.
It is about electing individuals to Congress, both the House of Representatives and Senate, who will be directly accountable to their constituents. The immediate goal of our efforts is to elect representatives who will pass legislation on a whole host of issues which are clearly important to voters. These are things the public wants done . . . but aren’t getting done.
This means one of two things. Either the incumbents running for office come around and do what the voting public demands. Or they are replaced with fresh candidates who have made a binding commitment to do so.
Back to our “conversation” with our neighbor, cousin, street cleaner, bartender, war vet.
We have been talking and listening. It is obvious that the person we are talking to feels passionately about one, maybe several of the key issues. Here’s what unfolds next — for each and every initiative — using Social Security here as an illustration:
“What is it?”
“It’s a petition.”
“Oh great! Another petition. Those never work.”
“We think it will this time. We’re coming up with a way to force our elected officials to do what they say they’re going to do.”
“Who is we?”
“Well, ‘we’ is folks just like you and me. This isn’t a political party. It’s just citizens who want to see some important things get done. Get some serious problems solved.”
“How? Politicians say one thing and do another.”
“Exactly. That’s why we need to demand they stop playing games. People like us have to stand up for ourselves. The politicians are like children and will get away with whatever they can. So if you and I don’t take a stand, it’ll never change. We have to try. If enough of us raise enough hell, stick together and refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer, we just might pull this off.”
“How? How are you going to get these guys with all their money and powerful backers to pay attention? How can you make them do anything?”
“And how will we know they will actually do this? What’s my signing a petition got to do with making my congressman get his butt in gear?”
“It’s a place to start. We will build on it to demand action. For one thing, you’re saying this is very important to you. If fact, you’re saying if he wants your vote, he had better step up to the plate.”
“And they’ll promise to do it, get elected, then break their promises.”
“This time we won’t let them.”
“Hah!”
Most people are pretty jaded and pessimistic about the possibility of moving the system. Inaction is the norm, the status quo the accepted state of things. Resignation is endemic.
Many will want to argue at this point that we’re wasting our time.
This is not an argument you can win. No one knows for sure what will work and what will not. And frankly, those skeptics have history on their side. For the average American things are going backwards. Very little is getting done, unless it benefits the rich.
At the same time, that’s not an excuse for not trying. Not trying guarantees failure.
“If we don’t try, then we’ll never get anything done. If you don’t want to see Social Security destroyed, then sign this and we’ll take it from there. It can’t hurt.”
That’s all that needs to be said for now. Here is what the petition pledge looks like:
What does a person have to lose by signing this?
Or signing similar petitions on other issues they feel strongly about?
Some might still be reluctant. They may want to know why we need signatures on the petition. If they press the matter, then explain what happens next — which is what I’ll discuss in detail in Parts V and VI of this series.
“Once we know we have enough voters behind this, we’ll demand that each candidate signs a legally-binding contract. That will be the ‘absolute commitment’ to do what you’ve asked them to do.”
“And if they refuse to sign it?”
“We don’t vote for them and we find someone who will. No contract, no vote.”
“They’re not going to like this.”
“But we will. And we’ll get something done for a change that we want done.”
This idea is so simple, yet so powerful. But there’s only one way it can work . . .
Forget the labels, affiliations, philosophies. Stick with the issues. They’re staring us right in the face.
I hate sounding like a broken record, but please look again at the issue polls cited in my previous two articles:
75% of Americans want a federal minimum wage of $12.50 per hour.
63% of Americans want a federal minimum wage of $15.00 per hour.
75% of voters want fair trade agreements protecting jobs, workers, the environment.
76% of voters want a cut back on military spending.
76% of voters want the U.S. completely out of Afghanistan.
79% of voters want no reductions in Social Security, 70% support expanding it.
79% of voters want no reductions in Medicare.
80% of voters oppose the “Citizens United” U.S. Supreme Court decision.
68% of voters think taxes on the wealthy should be increased.
71% of voters support massive infrastructure renewal.
65% of voters want laws to combat climate change.
62% of voters want tuition free public colleges and universities.
74% of American voters are for ending oil industry subsidies.
93% of voters want GMO labeling on their food.
These are huge consensuses. These are the big issues. To set the stage for real reform, to get our future elected officials listening, these are the issues which draw a line in the sand. Either the candidates commit to getting these things done or they simply don’t get elected. Period!
This is how we force candidates to pay attention.
Why will they pay attention?
Their jobs depend on it.