The Plutocrats' Puppet Show -and a proven way to cut the strings.

Via Daily Kos

Soon after the 2008 election, my then-20-year-old friend G.W. (who happens to be black) told me "Obama's the next puppet." (G.W., please call, Facebook seems to have disappeared you!)

I've come to agree. Obama's gone the way of Clinton, the boy from Hope, Arkansas who also turned out young voters, but sold out for NAFTA and making the U.S. the top arms supplier. Obama (the hopiate of the people) is another puppet of the plutocrats, who spend their time and money manipulating "our" government. Buying Congress is likely the world’s best investment, paying off at 1000 to 1, according to several sources, including Jack Abramoff.

Or take "my" Senator Mark Udall -to Pluto, please! Elected as an environmentalist Congressman from Boulder, but in a supposedly tight race for Colorado Senator in 2008, he caved and came out for offshore oil drilling. He must have made enough "friends" then who showed him a good enough time that this year, though securely in the Senate until 2014, he also came out for free carbon credits for coal users and increased subsidies for nukes!

• Evan Ravitz's diary :: ::
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Soon after the 2008 election, my then-20-year-old friend G.W. (who happens to be black) told me "Obama's the next puppet." (G.W., please call, Facebook seems to have disappeared you!)

I've come to agree. Obama's gone the way of Clinton, the boy from Hope, Arkansas who also turned out young voters, but sold out for NAFTA and making the U.S. the top arms supplier. Obama (the hopiate of the people) is another puppet of the plutocrats, who spend their time and money manipulating "our" government.

Buying Congress is likely the world’s best investment, paying off at 1000 to 1, according to several sources, including Jack Abramoff, in the 3rd paragraph of this Washington Post story. By now, plutocrats buy from Congress perpetual war, torture and bailouts when the deregulation they bought earlier goes bad. It seems likely the Supreme Court will soon make it even easier to buy Congress. Everything civilized must be sold off, faster!

Take "my" Senator Mark Udall (to Pluto, please!) Elected as an environmentalist Congressman from Boulder, but in a supposedly tight race for Colorado Senator in 2008, he caved and came out for offshore oil drilling. He must have made enough "friends" then who showed him a good enough time that this year, though securely in the Senate until 2014, he also came out for free carbon credits for coal users and increased subsidies for nukes! References

"Our" Senator Udall (born on 3rd base to a prominent environmental political family) hits a triple for oil, coal and nukes. Now, THERE's an environmentalist an old-energy company can invest in!

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

So said Einstein. How many more generations shall we waste begging Congress and the President for representation? For mercy?

If you want all money, all power, all truth, all justice, all matter, all energy, all space, and all time flushed into the emergent black hole, you want a purely "representative" government. Without more participation, the puppets will continue to sucker us for votes, while representing the parasite class.

The Swiss system is the "Plan B" we need

Since 1848, the Swiss themselves have "checked and balanced" their Parliament with NATIONAL ballot initiatives. This has kept their Parliament far more honest and representative than Congress. Voting 4-7 times a year on local, regional and national ballot initiatives, the Swiss also read more news than anyone: they take their responsibility for self-determination seriously. Actually, they call their system "co-determination," a good idea for ALL relationships!

While the media have harped on the few problematic U.S. state ballot initiatives, largely in California, a century of ballot initiatives in 24 States and D.C. shows initiatives are the origin of most reforms, such as women's suffrage (passed in 13 states before Congress went along), direct election of Senators (similarly in 4 states), publicly financed elections (passed by initiative in 6 of 7 states with them), medical marijuana ( in 10 of 13 states with them) and increasing minimum wages (in all 6 states that tried in 2006). Most media kiss up to politicians (who want absolute power) by picking on problem initiatives. Research it yourself with the National Conference of State Legislatures' database:

Outcomes depend on who uses the power of ballot initiatives. Here in Colo., ballot initiatives gave us the country's first Renewable Energy Mandate (Amendment 37), the country's strongest ban on lobbyists giving politicians ANYTHING (41), campaign finance reform (27), increased K-12 funding (23), Background Checks at Gun Shows (22), Medical Marijuana (20), cleaner hog farms (14) and Term Limits (12), just in the last 6 general elections. Amendments 23 and 41 were sponsored by my friend Jared Polis (who supports NATIONAL ballot initiatives) even though he's now a Congressman!

"There are NO exceptions to 'power corrupts,' including me when I had power"

So says maverick former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel. Congress has absolute national legislative power, and they've been corrupted absolutely to give away the economy to those who crashed it, give away the peace to the war industry, and give away the climate to the fossil fuel industries. Only a monopoly can do this.

The best project for U.S national ballot initiatives, with big improvements to prevent problems like those in California, is the National Initiative for Democracy (Vote.org), loosely led by Senator Mike Gravel, who in 1971 released the Pentagon Papers, which got Daniel Ellsberg off the hook for leaking them. That release, and Gravel's solo filibuster led to the end of the draft and then the Vietnam war. The National Initiative is the main reason Mike Gravel ran for President last year, but most media didn't mention it.

Oregon has pioneered the biggest improvement to ballot initiatives, Citizen Initiative Review, which in Gravel's proposal is accomplished by "Deliberative Committees."

Our project is endorsed by people such as Patch Adams, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, "Granny D" Haddock, Julia Butterfly Hill, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Ralph Nader, John Perkins, Coleen Rowley, Pete Seeger, Cindy Sheehan and Howard Zinn. Nader is releasing a book about it this coming year.

But perhaps you think that campaign finance reform is THE reform we need?

Congress passes "campaign finance reform" every generation, always with loopholes big enough to drive their campaigns through. FACT: 6 of 7 states with REAL, publicly-financed "clean" elections got them via ballot initiatives. The far more fundamental reform is NATIONAL ballot initiatives, so that we can effect whatever reforms we need.

As you can imagine, Congress will not amend the Constitution to permit national ballot initiatives, which would end their monopoly.

Gravel discovered that the Founding Fathers had the same problem: the 13 state legislators refused to ratify the Constitution.

So, in the words of James Madison, the Founders "resorted" to "the people" and "first principles" and had citizens, not politicians, ratify the Constitution. (See Madison's 2nd statement in the 1787 debate.)

Similarly, YOU are invited to Vote at Vote.org to take the "mock" out of democracy.

This process is vetted by many experts, including the country's most cited constitutional scholar, Yale's Akil Amar. Read his Popular Sovereignty and Constitutional Amendment

"The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government." --George Washington

We need your ideas -and some money. Democracy doesn't come easy.

"The people can never willfully betray their own interests; but they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people" -The Federalist, No. 63

"On the most major issues we've dealt with in the past 50 years, the public was more likely to be right...based on the judgment of history...than the legislatures or Congress." -George Gallup, Sr.

Citigroup memo from 10/16/2005 (Docstoc.com)

Citigroup- Oct-16-2005- Plutonomy- Report- Part-1