A Populist Vision for America

An essay about why America needs a populist - meaning democratic - government and how to get it. "There can be no real democracy unless all citizens, regardless of their ethnicity or monetary status have an equal opportunity to vote. All too often in this country, voters in rich white suburbs can walk into the precinct voting location, spot one of a number of vacant voting booths, cast their ballot, and be out in ten minutes. Meanwhile in poor, minority precincts, voters stand in line for eight hours or more waiting for the chance to vote. Those who have to work just give up. The law should require that the ratio of voting machines to registered voters be the same in every precinct." Some other topics: Separating big Money and Political Power; substituting treatment for addiction for the war on drugs; common good banks; direct democracy; that Corporations and other fictitious entities are not ‘persons’ under this Constitution, and shall have none of the rights and privileges thereof ...

Candobetter Editor: We welcome essays and papers from Dr Robert Bowman. Robert Bowman was in charge of the program to build an outer space missile defense shield in the early 1970s under Presidents Ford and Carter. He retired in 1978. In 1980, when President Reagan took over the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) it was put into the hands of a group of people who wanted to turn it into a means to launch a first strike nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. Many of the top brass under Reagan were opposed to this but could not speak out publicly. Robert Bowman, as he was already retired, was free to speak without incurring any penalty. Because he was free to speak, the top generals, who themselves felt unable to speak up, appealed to Robert Bowman to use his voice to stop the SDI. Bowman gave thousands of public speeches against the SDI and, of his own efforts, turned American public opinion around, so that the SDI, as a first strike weapon, had to be abandoned.

8 June 2010

A POPULIST VISION FOR AMERICA

“Of the People, By the People, For the People”

By Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret.
National Commander, “The Patriots”

2010
The Patriots Press
1494 Patriot Drive, Melbourne, FL 32940
(321) 752-5955
www.thepatriots.us

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Part I: Why Populism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 1: Government Out of Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 2: The Bush /Cheney Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Chapter 3: The Obama Phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Chapter 4: The Scott Brown Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Part II: Political Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Chapter 5: Direct & Jeffersonian Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Chapter 6: Electoral Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.1: Diffusing the Power of Political Parties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.2: Let Everyone Vote; Count Every Ballot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chapter 7: Separating Big Money and Political Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7.1: Campaign Finance Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7.2: Media Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Part III: Economic Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Chapter 8: The Need for Economic Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Chapter 9: Benjamin Franklin and the Iroquois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Chapter 10: From the Constitution to the Fed: Follow the Money . . . . . . . . 16
10.1: What Then Can We Do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Chapter 11: Exploding Some Myths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
11.1: War Is Good for the Economy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
11.2: Reducing Taxes on Businesses Creates New Jobs? . . . . . . . . . . 19
11.3: Inflation Is Bad for People? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Chapter 12: What Could the Government Do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Chapter 13: What Can We Do Without the Government? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
13.1: Do It State By State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
13.2: Common Good Banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Part IV: Populism In Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Chapter 14: Left and Right Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
14.1: Populism and Patriotism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
14.2: Conservative or Liberal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
14.3: What Can We Agree On? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Chapter 15: What Can We Do As Individuals? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Chapter 16: Vision for America: Inaugural Address of a Populist President 38 - 48

INTRODUCTION

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – that to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles and organizing its Powers in such Form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

These words, penned by Thomas Jefferson and signed by him, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and 52 other men make it clear that the purpose of government is to bring about the safety and happiness of the people – not just a handful, but ALL the people. In other words, government should be “populist” or (to use Lincoln’s words) “of the people, by the people, and for the people”

“Of the People, By the People, and For the People”
Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

There have been very few such governments in all of recorded history. Even those carefully designed to operate that way have usually changed over time. As money, land, and other resources become concentrated in a few hands, those elite tend to exercise undue influence over those financially dependent upon them, and that translates into political power. Once power is in the hands of the few, they tend to exercise it to their own benefit, not that of the “rabble.” Lincoln recognized that government would not operate “for” the people unless it was controlled “by” the people (a “populist” government).
Before discussing the necessary conditions for a government to be “populist,” we should reflect briefly on why such a government is so badly needed.

PART I: WHY POPULISM?

CHAPTER 1: GOVERNMENT OUT OF CONTROL

To be specific, this chapter deals with government out of THE PEOPLE’S control. So it’s not exactly true to say our government is “out of control.” It’s under control alright – control of the wealthy elite and their giant corporations.

The recent past should make the situation crystal clear. The last president (indeed the last nominee of either major party) not to have been a member of the Trilateral Commission (TC) and hand-picked for the nomination of his party was John F. Kennedy (and we know what happened to him). A couple of presidents (Carter and Clinton) have tried to go against their handlers in the TC (Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Gergen, respectively) once in office. Both got crushed. Carter was sidelined for the balance of his presidency, and Clinton went back to following orders. As a result, for the last 40 years, government has come more and more under the control of giant corporate interests, including banks, oil companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, insurance companies, and weapons providers.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the American people wanted an end to the Vietnam War, and yet it dragged on for years after our government KNEW we had no chance of winning. According to Robert McNamara, both he and Lyndon Johnson knew that as early as 1965! So about 55,000 of our young soldiers died (as well as a million Vietnamese) in an unnecessary war that our government knew would be lost! The author flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970 and was very nearly among those sacrificed in vain by a government totally out of the people’s control.

In 1981 and 1982, 80% of Americans wanted a nuclear freeze, yet we never got one. In the late 1980s, the overwhelming majority wanted an end to nuclear testing (after all, Gorbachev had unilaterally ended testing by the USSR). Yet testing continued year after year. A clear majority wanted an end to the Contra war against Nicaragua, to no avail. Even after Congress passed the Boland amendment, cutting off funds for the conflict, Ollie North and company ran drugs and sold arms to Iran in order to continue their illegal war. In 1993 (and again in 2009), most Americans favored a Single-Payer National Health Program. Fat chance getting that past the insurance companies! In 2004 and 2006 and 2008, the people overwhelmingly voted for an end to the corporate wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. But too many are getting filthy rich off them. We wanted relief for homeowners facing foreclosure. Sorry, the trillions go to the banks, insurance companies, and investment firms that caused the problem.

“Enough is enough!” But to whom do we say it? The best Congress money can buy? And how can we scream it loud enough to be heard over the din of lobbyist money and the constant drone of corporate “issue ads”?? We need a populist government that serves the needs of the people, not the greeds of the corporations. But they are in control.

CHAPTER 2: THE BUSH/CHENEY ERA

In the administration of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, this control became so complete that:

• Energy policy was made by Enron and Chevron-Texaco.
• Drug plans for seniors (Medicare part D for disaster) were drawn up by the drug companies and insurance companies.
• Regulatory agencies were put under the direction of executives and lobbyists of the very corporations to be regulated.
• The tax burden was shifted from the wealthy CEOs and stockholders to the workers by slashing taxes for the very rich while increasing FICA (Social Security) taxes, the most regressive tax on the books.
• The deficit and national debt were doubled and redoubled through massive military spending, while social programs were starved of funds.
• Workers were forced to pay hundreds of billions in interest on the national debt to wealthy stockholders in the privately-owned Federal Reserve banking system.
• Labor Unions were disempowered, and wages for workers were eroded by government subsidies for corporations exporting jobs and importing cheap illegal labor until real wages were a third of what they had been in the 1950s.
• The rights guaranteed to the people in the Constitution and Bill of Rights were illegally taken away by the misnamed “Patriot Act,” the “Military Commissions Act,” indefinite detentions without charge, wiretaps without warrant, and even the torture of American citizens.
• The “Free Press” disappeared because of collusion between the government and the corporate monopoly media, making “Free Speech” a hollow shell, now interpreted to only mean that big money interests are free to buy up votes and elections, while dissident citizens are penned up in remote “Free Speech Zones” and denied their rights of assembly and redress of grievances.
• (and worst of all) Working Americans, caught up in an “Economic Draft” are forced to kill and be killed in multiple corporate wars of aggression against countries that posed no threat to the United States.

None of these policies (which have largely been continued or even expanded under President Barack Obama, to his shame) are in the interest of the people. Such policies would never be instituted by a populist government. They reflect, rather, a fascist oligarchy. This is why it is essential that we Take Back America for the people.

CHAPTER 3: THE OBAMA PHENOMENON

The landslide election of Barack Obama and its euphoric aftermath were, I believe, widely misinterpreted, especially by Washington Democrats. It was not just a rejection of the Republican Party, nor merely of Cheney/Bush neo-conservatism (though these were certainly involved). No, the Obama phenomenon reflected the widespread desire of the American people for “Real Change” … for Change they could believe in – just what Obama promised. It reflected not just a desire for a change in party (they could have had that with Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden), but a yearning for a fundamental change in how government does business and (I contend) for whom government serves. In short, it reflected the hope that Obama would truly serve the needs of the people and not the moneyed elite. Some of us still harbor faint hope that President Obama will yet turn out to be that kind of President – a populist President who brings about “Real Change”, not the “chump change” we’ve seen so far.

Alas, the young (and relatively inexperienced) President surrounded himself with members of the Washington status quo elite he showed such disdain for during the primary season. Even before the election, many of us saw the hand-writing on the wall. His selection of Joe Biden (the most hawkish of the primary candidates) as running mate was an early indicator. Naming Rahm Emanuel (the Israeli super-hawk who kept all us anti-war candidates from being funded by the Democratic Party in 2006) was the final nail in the coffin. We didn’t even have to wait for him to pick his national security team to know that our hopes for a quick end to the corporate wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq would be dashed. Is he an improvement over the previous administration? Certainly! (Even John McCain would have been that.) But is he a populist president who is putting the needs of the people ahead of the greeds of the wealthy elite? Certainly not! Let us count the ways (well, a few of them).

(1) He has turned his back on the majority of Americans who voted for him primarily for his opposition to the Iraq War. He has not only let that occupation drag on, but he has greatly increased our involvement in Afghanistan and extended that war into Pakistan as well. His use of unmanned drones against targets in residential areas (and the resultant killing of innocent civilians) far exceeds that of his predecessor. The whole “War on Terror” is phony, and he should know it.

(2) He has failed to reverse the Cheney/Bush usurpation of our Constitutional rights. His extension (and in some cases expansion) of the “Patriot Act” and his continuation of the threat of martial law, surveillance and punishment of dissidents, and use of torture-induced testimony against suspects is unconscionable.

(3) He has dashed the hopes of the majority of Americans who want a single-payer national health system by excluding even the discussion of such a change during the entire health “reform” fiasco. The resultant bill is little more than a gigantic subsidy for the insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers, guaranteeing them millions of new (forced) customers, while doing nothing to provide competition or limit premiums. The new law does put some useful constraints on the worst abuses of the insurance companies, so it’s not all bad. Let’s hope it leads to something better.

Most critics of Obama say that he has lost support because he has gone too far to the left. Many of his disillusioned base say he has gone too far to the right. They are all wrong. This old left-right paradigm simply doesn’t work any more. The old far left and the new far right are together in their rejection of centrist status quo corporate-dominated politics. The people have been artificially divided for far too long. The question is not how big government should be. It’s whom government should serve. The real divide now is between the populists who want to serve the people and the professional politicians who serve only themselves and big money.

Obama is not what we voted for. To get that, we must break the stranglehold of the two-party system and the corporate monopoly media.

CHAPTER 4: THE SCOTT BROWN EVENT

Exactly one year after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, the Massachusetts Senate seat held for 47 years by Ted Kennedy in the most liberal and bluest of the states was won by a (gasp!) conservative Republican, Scott Brown.

This shocking event was widely blamed on several factors: (1) Martha Coakley was a poor candidate that (arrogantly) took her victory in the general election for granted; (2) The people of Massachusetts already had universal forced health insurance, and didn’t want their taxes increased to provide it to the whole country; and (3) the independents turned against the Democrats because they had gone too far to the left.

As usual, this analysis contained a mixture of truth, falsehood, and omission. (1) Yes, Martha Coakley was a poor candidate who appeared arrogant and aloof until it was too late. (2) Yes, Massachusetts already has something similar to the Senate “reform” bill, but the people up there I talked to don’t like it! They don’t like being forced to buy inadequate insurance at exorbitant and continually-increasing prices, and they certainly don’t like the fines if they fail to buy what they don’t want. Perhaps they saw the “Obama-care” bill as an impediment to them getting something better for themselves. And maybe they wouldn’t wish such a system on the rest of the country; and (3) Yes, the independents turned against the Democrats, but NOT because they had gone too far to the left. They turned against them because they had gone too far to the RIGHT, that is: toward the middle-of-the-road milk-toast center, and they had gone back on their promise of real change. What every single pundit omitted from their analysis of Brown’s win was a fourth (and perhaps critical) reason: (4) The huge majority that gave Obama his landslide victory in Massachusetts were disappointed, dispirited, and frustrated that the change they voted for didn’t happen. In particular, they were incensed because they had voted against the corporate wars of aggression in 2004, in 2006, and in 2008, and were ignored. (There was actually a fifth possible reason, also universally ignored. Martha Coakley actually WON every county in which the votes were counted by hand. Brown’s win came from counties using ES&S and Diebold electronic voting machines.)

But why, even considering all these reasons, would liberals in Massachusetts vote for a “conservative?” This is the really important point to be taken from the Scott Brown event. The American people are beginning to understand that they have been artificially divided into liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, left and right … and that these labels have very little meaning. The real divide is between the populists and the professional politicians. Scott Brown painted himself as a populist. He is conservative on fiscal issues, and so are most Americans. He is liberal on social issues, and so are most Americans. He did not trumpet his Republicanism, but his independence. In his acceptance speech, he never uttered the word “Republican” – not once. But he repeatedly referred to himself and his supporters as “independent.” Now, chances are that he won’t turn out as independent or as populist as he painted himself. More likely he’ll vote pretty much the way the Republican leadership tells him to vote. (But if he does, he’ll wind up a one-term senator. Most of the citizens of Massachusetts who voted for him did NOT vote for a conservative Republican, but for a populist independent.)

It has now become painfully obvious to most Americans that BOTH major political parties at the national level are currently owned lock, stock, and barrel by the same big money interests. (It has been obvious to some of us for a long time, which is why we supported John Anderson, Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader, and why I ran for President as an independent in 2000.) We must now face the fact that it is impossible for a true populist to get the support of the leadership of either party or of the monopoly corporate media. But Barack Obama enjoyed the support of both of these, and therefore they must have KNOWN that he wasn’t really the populist he pretended to be. The same goes for Scott Brown. Those who really ARE populists (like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul) are marginalized by their party and ridiculed by the media.

How then are we to elect a populist government? Under the present conditions, it seems impossible. So let’s change the “conditions.” To do that, we must understand the conditions that could make a populist government possible. They are Political Democracy and Economic Democracy. Parts II and III of this book will explore these in turn.

PART II: POLITICAL DEMOCRACY

First, a populist government requires some measure of political democracy. The people can’t elect a government who will serve them unless two conditions are met: (1) The people have a real choice between candidates who include populists. If our only choice is between candidates hand-picked by party leaders committed to the status quo, we’re sunk. There is nothing democratic about a two-party system where both parties are owned by big money interests. We have to either empower third parties and independents or get rid of political parties altogether. The electoral system must be thoroughly reformed. (2) The electorate must be educated, not brainwashed. We have had populist candidates available to us for years, but they have not survived the primary season because they were either ignored or ridiculed by the corporate monopoly media. The media must be reregulated and reformed.

CHAPTER 5: DIRECT AND JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY

True democracy means that all adult citizens meet face-to-face to make important decisions by consensus. This true (or direct) democracy has existed in tribes, kinship clans, some ancient city-states, and in early New England town meetings. It is obviously impractical for a modern nation-state. In his 2008 book “Fixing the System,” Adrian Kuzminski shows how democracy can be extended to groups too large to meet face-to-face through carefully-crafted layers of representation.

Many think we in the United States have a “representative democracy.” We have no such thing, because our elections do not take place in small, face-to-face meetings. We don’t have any layers of representation between us and the U.S. Congress, and Congressional districts are much too large (In the first Congress in 1787,the average district had 60,000 residents. Today it’s nearly 800,000). (The U.S. Senate is even worse, but that’s another topic.) Because of the size of electoral districts, electoral outcomes are generally determined by who can spend the most money on advertising, and who has the support of the mass (corporate monopoly) media. Thus most elections for federal office can only be won by those who are extremely wealthy or those who sell themselves to those who are. As a consequence, we now have a government “of the corporations and bankers, by the corporations and bankers, and for the corporations and bankers.” Such a government is not only anti-democratic, it is also totally incapable of effecting the “Safety and Happiness” of the people.

The solution posed by Kuzminski (and before him by Thomas Jefferson) is “confederal democracy,” in which town or village or neighborhood face-to-face meetings elect a representative to a county council, which in turn elects a representative to a state legislature, which in turn elects representatives to the U.S. Congress. At each step, representatives are accountable to the group which elected them and recallable by them. At each step, elections take place in face-to-face meetings of a group small enough that members know each other and know who they can trust to properly represent them at the next level. In populous states, additional levels may have to be created to keep meeting sizes manageable.

CHAPTER 6: ELECTORAL REFORM

Jeffersonian democracy, as outlined above, is probably a long way off. It would require constitutional changes at both the federal and state level. We might be tempted to dismiss it completely as an impossible dream. Still, it is useful to discuss such a system in order to identify the characteristics that we might be able to approximate under our current constitutional framework. One of these characteristics is the lack of domination by political parties. There is nothing in the Constitution about political parties. In the early years of our country, they didn’t exist. If we can’t get rid of them altogether, at least we ought to be able to attenuate their enormous power.

6.1: Diffusing the Power of Political Parties

Short of outlawing political parties, there are steps we can take to reduce the power of the two major parties. One way to do this is to empower third parties and independents.

One of the most important ways the major parties keep third parties weak is through unreasonable ballot access requirements. In 1992 and 1996, Ross Perot spent millions of dollars getting on the ballot, and hired many thousands of people to gather signatures on petitions. In spite of how well he did, in 1999 and 2000 I had to recruit thousands of volunteers to get the million or so signatures required to get me on the ballot as the Reform Party candidate. Ralph Nader in 2004 and 2008 faced a similar challenge, and failed to get on the ballot in every state. The Democratic and Republican candidates for president don’t have to go through that. The state of Florida changed its rules so that the candidate of any party which holds a national convention automatically gets on the ballot, with no fee and no petitions required. All states should similarly reduce their ballot access requirements to give third party candidates a fair chance.

Once they get on the ballot, third party candidates face other electoral challenges. One of the worst is the fact that no state requires a majority of votes cast for getting its electoral votes. There are no runoffs. So if you vote for a third party or independent candidate and he or she loses, you have no chance to express your preference between the major party candidates. Those of us who voted for John Anderson had no chance to choose between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Those of us who voted for Ralph Nader in Florida in 2000 helped elect George W. Bush, even though almost all of us would have preferred Al Gore. In essence, we threw our votes away. We are always told that we have to vote Democrat or Republican or we are throwing our vote away. This causes millions of people to NOT vote for who they really want. In 1992 Ross Perot got over 19% of the vote. But in exit polls, people were asked who they REALLY wanted to vote for. Over 50% of them said Ross Perot. But they didn’t vote for him because they didn’t want to throw their votes away!

The solution to this problem is to require a majority vote for a winning candidate, and to allow voters to vote for their first three choices in a system called “Single Transferable Vote” or “Instant Runoff Voting.” Such systems are already in use in several municipalities and in other countries. This way you can vote for a third party or independent candidate without fear of throwing your vote away.

Another big hurdle is that televised debates are currently run by the major political parties, so independents and third parties are excluded. The parties even exclude some of their own candidates from primary debates, usually on the grounds that they are not well-enough known. How are they to GET known if they are excluded? The REAL reason these candidates are excluded is because their populist views are “out of the mainstream.” (In other words, their views and policies are against the financial interests of the party leadership and their big funders.) The solution to this one is to return control of the debates to the League of Women Voters.

Yet another problem is our “winner take all” system. Most democracies in the world have some form of Proportional Representation. If a party gets 5% of the votes in a parliamentary election, they get 5% of the seats in the legislative body. Such a system would give real power to Greens, Libertarians, and other third parties.

6.2: Let Everyone Vote; Count Every Ballot

There can be no real democracy unless all citizens, regardless of their ethnicity or monetary status have an equal opportunity to vote. All too often in this country, voters in rich white suburbs can walk into the precinct voting location, spot one of a number of vacant voting booths, cast their ballot, and be out in ten minutes. Meanwhile in poor, minority precincts, voters stand in line for eight hours or more waiting for the chance to vote. Those who have to work just give up. The law should require that the ratio of voting machines to registered voters be the same in every precinct.

Similarly, so working people can actually vote, election day should be a federal holiday.

Finally, any method of voting which does not produce a paper ballot which can be counted, recounted, and audited as necessary (by hand) should be declared unconstitutional.

CHAPTER 7: SEPARATING BIG MONEY FROM POLITICAL POWER

7.1: Campaign Finance Reform

For years, legislators with a populist bent have been trying to perfect campaign finance reform, one of the key steps in separating big money from political power. Just over a decade ago, Granny D (Doris Haddock) walked across the country at the age of 90 for campaign finance reform. I will never forget her stirring address to the 1999 Reform Party National Convention (where I was drafted to run for President). She said “Corporations are not ‘persons’, and money is not ‘speech’.” Her point was that corporations have no Constitutional First Amendment right to spend as much money as they want buying up politicians and influencing elections. On January 21, 2010 the Supreme Court decided against Granny D and struck down key sections of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform law. This has opened the floodgates for big money to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens and perpetuate the fascist nature of our government.

This clearly erroneous decision must be reversed, if necessary by a Constitutional Amendment restoring the intent of the Founding Fathers. For ten years, I have been the National Chairman of the 28th Amendment movement. The proposed amendment states that “Corporations and other fictitious entities are not ‘persons’ under this Constitution, and shall have none of the rights and privileges thereof.” Passing this amendment seems to be the only way to effectively bring about true campaign finance reform, in which the use of private money can be prohibited in favor of full public financing of political campaigns for qualified candidates. I call this 28th Amendment the “Granny D Amendment” in honor of my dear friend and supporter, Doris Haddock, who passed away at the age of 100.

7.2: Media Reform

It is not only money from corporations, labor unions, and other fictitious entities that influences elections. The corporate monopoly media exert enormous influence over the American people. This influence has increased and become more insidious since the Reagan revolution deregulated the media. Now, almost all radio and television stations and newspapers are owned by a handful of multinational corporations. These corporations have interlocking directorates and other close relationships with weapons manufacturers, oil companies, insurance companies, banks, and other giant firms setting both foreign and domestic policy of our government and profiting from the corporate wars of aggression it is engaged in. These media corporations have seats on the Trilateral Commission, the Council of Foreign Relations, and other groups holding power over our elected officials.

If there were really a free press in this country, at least SOME of the media outlets would be delving into stories now completely suppressed by the corporate monopoly media. For example, why has it taken over eight years for someone (Jesse Ventura) skeptical of the official government conspiracy theory regarding 9/11 to get any air time? You’d think the crime of the century would attract all sorts of investigative reporters. (We don’t really know if 9/11 was an “inside job,” but there is absolute proof that the government’s story was a lie, and that there was a massive cover-up.) Where are this generation’s Woodward and Bernstein when you need them? Why was Bob Scheer (one of the best reporters in the country) fired by the Los Angeles Times?
The solution to this problem is to re-regulate the media, undoing the Reagan revolution in which the FCC threw out the limitations on ownership of multiple media outlets. Such limits should be re-imposed, so that the giant media conglomerates have to sell off their assets, and we can return to family-owned radio and television stations and newspapers.

The next step is to give every qualified candidate for office a specified amount of free air time, the amount depending on the office sought. Additional paid ads, whether by the candidate, a political party, an “issue group,” or whoever would be prohibited. And, of course, as noted above, debates should be under the control of an organization like the League of Women Voters, not the major political parties.

PART III: ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY

CHAPTER 8: THE NEED FOR ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY

As we have seen, real political democracy is not easy to come by. A perfect system would require massive changes to our Constitution. Fortunately, we don’t need a “perfect” system. We can, by implementing the above steps, achieve an imperfect, but adequate system. It would have to be carefully designed to eliminate the undue influence of the wealthy and of the media. Even a perfect system of direct democracy can be corrupted if there are economic dependencies within the meetings. Kuzminski puts it this way: “free and full participation in democratic governance depends upon each citizen personally commanding resources sufficient to maintain his or her relative economic independence vis-à-vis other citizens.” It means all having “some fair share of societies’ resources” or “common wealth.” The bottom line is that no one should be rich enough to buy up the loyalty or vote of another, and none should be so economically dependent on another that they can be bought or unduly influenced. In other words, there should be no “wage slaves” or “debt slaves” among the citizenry, and no economic slave masters. This is also true in the “imperfect but adequate” system proposed above.

A populist government thus requires some measure of economic democracy in addition to political democracy. This has been recognized by various thinkers over the ages, the earliest we know about being an ancient Greek, Phaleas of Chalcedon. No original document is known, but he is quoted in Aristotle’s “Politic”’ as calling for citizens to have “equal estates,” something he apparently envisaged as being brought about by dowries only being paid by the rich and only being received by the poor. In our day, different means will be required to give all citizens a measure of economic independence. For decades, I have called for a “negative income tax” which would eliminate poverty in this country. Another way to approach it would be to abolish the Federal Reserve, eliminate the debt-based monetary system, and grant all citizens a “social credit” as their share of the common wealth.
In the above sections, I’ve discussed at length the way to Political Democracy, including Electoral Reform and Media Reform. My task now is to point the way toward Economic Democracy through Banking Reform, Tax Reform, and Monetary Reform.

However it comes about, a system with political democracy can only result in a survivable populist government if it also incorporates Economic Democracy. Even the best-designed Jeffersonian confederal democracy cannot survive if the people electing representatives and making decisions include wage slaves or debt slaves and economic slave-masters. In such a situation, the slave-masters will inevitably accumulate political power and make decisions favoring their own interests at the expense of others. This enhances their financial power, which leads to even more political power in a vicious cycle such as that we see today. A robust Populism can only operate if the people all have sufficient resources to meet their needs. Good government is dependent on social justice. But of course, social justice is usually considered to be a result of good government. Our task is, in spite of the absence of a government with the slightest interest in the people’s welfare, to bring about sufficient social and economic justice to enable a true populist government to arise. That is the subject of this section.

CHAPTER 9: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN & THE IROQUOIS

The reforms required can be inferred from a little-known true story from the eighteenth century.

When Benjamin Franklin was a young man, he attended a pow-wow of the Iroquois Nations. He was fascinated by the fact that they had had a thousand years of peace and prosperity, and he wanted to know how they did it, and asked the Big Chief. The Chief responded that all the Chiefs were selected by the “crones” (the grandmothers and old women), and if the Chiefs didn’t serve the needs of their people, the crones could “unselect” them. In addition, the Chiefs couldn’t take their people to war without the approval of the crones.

While they were in the midst of the pow-wow, a young brave came in loaded down with wampum, and laid it all at the feet of the Big Chief. Franklin asked the Chief what was going on, and the Chief replied:

“Every year, we distribute wampum to the Chiefs of the nations. They distribute it to the chiefs of the tribes, who distribute it to the chiefs of the families, who make sure that everyone gets enough wampum to meet their needs and to allow them to give gifts at all of our many ceremonies during the year. Everyone must have enough wampum to allow for a free exchange of goods and services. That way there is always prosperity. There must be no poverty among the people, whether young or old, and no embarrassment at not being able to be generous in gift-giving. It’s a matter of dignity.”

A light went on in Franklin’s head, and he never forgot what he learned from the Iroquois. Later in life, Franklin saw to it that the Colony of Pennsylvania issued sufficient Colonial Scrip to make possible the free exchange of goods and services. Eventually, all the colonies followed suit.

Around 1750, Franklin went to London to represent the interests of the colonies. What he saw shocked him. The streets were full of beggars. Franklin asked his hosts why there was such poverty in the richest nation on earth. They answered that there weren’t enough debtors prisons and poor houses to handle all the unemployed, the homeless, and the indigent. Franklin explained that they had no debtor prisons or poor houses in the colonies, and if they did, there would be no one to put in them, because there were no debtors or poor in the colonies. Everyone had enough money. His hosts said that England had too many people, and Franklin responded that the problem was not too many people, but too little money. Then he said the same thing to Parliament, and word reached the Bank of England. The Bank then forced Parliament to outlaw Colonial Scrip and decree that all debts in the colonies be paid in the British coin of the realm.

Soon there was not enough money in the colonies. Purchasing dropped, unemployment became a problem, and poverty spread throughout the colonies. After the Revolution, Franklin said that “We could have put up with their silly tax on tea and the Stamp Act. What made the Revolution necessary was the outlawing of Colonial Scrip.” Perhaps Franklin wished that he had kept his big mouth shut while in London!

CHAPTER 10: FROM THE CONSTITUTION TO THE FED: FOLLOW THE MONEY

The Constitution gave Congress the power to coin money, but disagreement persisted over how this would be done. Populists like Jefferson wanted the government to issue debt-free money. Others, like Hamilton, wanted to create a central bank like in England. The bankers railed against Jefferson, saying that the government should quit issuing money and get out of the business of banking. Jefferson responded that on the contrary, the banks should stay out of the business of governing.

One of the Rothschilds once said, “It doesn’t matter to me who writes the laws. Give me the power to print the money, and I rule everything.”

Eventually, the populists lost out, and in 1913 the Federal Reserve (which is about as “federal” as Federal Express) was created and given the exclusive power to issue currency. Since then, all money has been issued as loans, with interest due to the Federal Reserve. As the principal of the loans is paid off, the money is eliminated. But where does the money come from to pay the interest? More loans, each with their own interest due. In this vicious circle, it is impossible for the people or the government to ever get out of debt. And, of course, those who collect the interest don’t want us to get out of debt. This whole system is a gigantic pump, sucking money from workers and taxpayers to the extremely wealthy who own the Fed.

Inevitably, the resultant disparity in wealth has created a similar concentration of political power (especially considering the anti-democratic nature of our electoral system). Rothschild was right. The vast majority of people in this country have become both wage slaves and debt slaves. We are therefore unable to get one of our own elected to Congress to represent us, and are therefore apparently powerless to influence policy.

It is no wonder then that the policies made by the “best Congress money can buy” and the Executive Branch (always hand-picked by the billionaire king-makers and beholden to them, regardless of political party) are not in our interest. National policies from tax structure to international trade agreements to decisions to go to war are made to further the financial interests of the already-rich in the power elite.

Millions of Americans protest these policies. We protest the wars of aggression. We protest NAFTA and the WTO. We demand a single-payer National Health Program. We protest the “Patriot Act” and other violations of our Constitutional rights. We demand action to reverse Global Warming. We work for women’s rights, children’s rights, and gay rights. We protest the plight of the unemployed, the homeless, disabled veterans, Native Americans … you name it. To no avail! These are merely symptoms of the disease. How many of us are trying to do something about the root causes?

As I have said for decades, “Those of us who devote our lives to peace, economic justice, and environmental conservation can make little progress in our struggles so long as ultimate power is in the hands of those who profit from war, poverty, and pollution.

10.1: What Then Can We Do?

For years, we have followed the lead of “Granny D” Doris Haddock in attempting through campaign finance reform and other measures to eliminate the influence of money on elections. Such efforts must, of course, continue. But they can never be completely successful. In spite of various legislative attempts to accomplish this, the influence of big money has only increased in recent years. Campaigns are now so expensive that only billionaires and their puppets can compete. So while we continue the struggle for Political Democracy, we must put a major part of our efforts toward Economic Democracy. In fact, Economic Democracy, in which every citizen has sufficient resources for their needs and shares in the Common Wealth, may be a prerequisite for Political Democracy.

So what can be done to reverse the concentration of wealth at the top? Ideally, we would abolish the Federal Reserve, eliminate the debt-based monetary system, and issue every citizen debt-free money every month. It can be done, but it would require that those in our government bite the hands that feed them. In the short term, such action is unlikely.

A second, somewhat less drastic, approach would be to simply modify the existing tax code to create a “Negative Income Tax” raising those at the bottom out of poverty and slowing the accumulation of wealth by those at the top. This, too, would require legislative action by Congress, and is only somewhat less likely in the short term than the previous plan.

So while we’re waiting for government to do something, what can we the people do to move us toward Economic Democracy? Before tackling this question, I would like to take on some popularly-accepted myths.

CHAPTER 11: EXPLODING SOME ENDURING MYTHS

Everyone knows that war is good for the economy, that reducing taxes on businesses creates new jobs, and that inflation is bad for people. There are little elements of truth in each of these, but for the most part, they are myths which justify policies against the interests of most of the people. Let’s tackle these myths one at a time.

11.1: War is Good for the Economy?

I’d like to start by sharing some excerpts from an editorial by Fred Reed. He says he doesn’t understand jobs or economics. Then, by what he says, he proves he understands very well indeed.

“I understand that a farmer does something that really needs doing. People gotta eat. I understand that a truck driver does something that needs doing. People can’t eat the food unless somebody brings it to them. But I don’t see what, in an economic sense, the military does.

“Guys in Minnesota or somewhere get paid union wages to dig iron ore out of the ground. Then jillions of people in steel mills get paid to turn the iron into plate, and in Norfolk or wherever other folk get paid to weld the plate into an aircraft carrier. Then 6,000 squids get paid to drive it around the ocean until it gets old and rusty, whereupon other guys get paid to cut it into scrap.
“And everybody flourishes. The miners buy houses. The steel workers send their kids to college. The squids get drunk. Everything is roses. And yet building the carrier produces not one thing that anyone can eat, wear, or live in (except the carrier, but that’s expensive housing). The whole exercise looks like a dead economic loss.

“So, the world being now warm and fuzzy and safe, we eliminate all this wasteful military spending and save tremendous amounts of money. And what happens? Everybody is out of work. Towns fold. Hundreds of thousands of service folk get tossed into an economy that doesn’t have jobs for them. Apparently in order to save money we have to be poor and unemployed.

“What really puzzles me is that the entire military-industrial enterprise is just about as much a make-work proposition as any federal jobs program … Economically, what is the difference between paying an infantry division to go on maneuvers in Kansas for 30 years, and simply paying it? What if, instead of paying the miners to dig the ore and the steelworkers to make an aircraft carrier which the squids drive in circles fo 40 years until it gets cut up for scrap, what if we just sent all these people their paychecks and let them play golf?” [end quote]

Now this piece wasn’t in some liberal alternative press rag. It was published in “Air Force Times,” a very pro-establishment, pro-military journal. It pinpoints an essential truth that is little understood. People are always saying that defense spending is good for the economy. I have even heard people say that war is good for the economy. Nonsense! Fred Reed hits the nail right on the head. Paychecks are good for the economy!

NOTE: This whole section on “War is good for the economy?” is copied from an article I wrote entitled “It’s Jobs, Stupid” and published in “Space and Security News” in August 1993. Some things never change.

11.2: Reducing Taxes on Businesses Creates New Jobs?

This myth is based on a more fundamental myth: “Businesses create jobs.” The truth is that in a free market system, CONSUMER DEMAND creates jobs. Government can cut taxes on businesses all they want, and banks can make loans to businesses easily available. But not a single job can be created unless there are consumers willing and able to buy the product or service offered.

Let’s be perfectly clear, taxes should not make it more difficult for businesses to make a profit. Indeed, there should be NO taxes on businesses until they are profitable. For many, many years I have been saying that there should be NO payroll taxes. Businesses should not be taxed for providing jobs. You only tax what you want to discourage or limit. Do we want to discourage jobs? Of course not. But once a business is profitable, it should pay a reasonable tax on those profits. That will not discourage businesses from trying to make a profit. After all, no matter how much profit they make, they will get a percentage of every extra dollar they make. Reducing taxes on profits will not create jobs. It will only put a little more into the pockets of the stockholders and CEOs.

What creates jobs is a citizenry with sufficient money to buy products and services. Paychecks are good for employment! Of course, we are conditioned to think that paychecks only come from employment, so no job no paycheck. But that’s not necessarily true. The government can create paychecks first. Employment will follow. Not necessarily for all, but that’s OK. Productivity is so high that we can afford a significant fraction of the population living off their government check and deciding not to seek employment. Maybe they will stay home to raise their children. Maybe they will paint or write poetry or compose a symphony. Maybe they will just goof off and play video games. That’s OK too. Most people want to be productive, and since income tax rates on their earnings will start at zero and go up slowly, those who choose to work a few hours a week will keep almost everything they make (and, of course, will lose none of their basic paycheck).

If you want a vibrant economy in which every person who wants a job can get one, forget the subsidies for businesses, the corporate welfare, the tax cuts for the rich. Just send regular checks to every citizen.

11.3: Inflation Is Bad for People?

It used to be that inflation hurt many people. Most retirees were on “fixed incomes.” Some still are, but for the most part, those days are gone forever. Social security recipients get a Cost of Living Allowance (COLA). So do retired military. More and more ordinary people are protected from the ravages of inflation by such arrangements. But there is one segment of society without such protection – the very wealthy. Think about it. Most of us owe money on our houses, our cars, our student loans, and our credit cards. In times of inflation, our assets (house, car, etc) increase in value. But the amount we owe does not. We wind up paying our debts in dollars worth less. For all of us debtors (and that’s most of us), inflation is a good thing.

But what about the folks we owe that money to? The dollars they eventually receive in payment are worth much less than the dollars they loaned us in the first place. If the rate of inflation is allowed to exceed the interest rate on the loan, they are actually losing on the deal. That’s why the elite, ever since Paul Volcker wrung inflation out of the economy in the early 80s, have used the power of the Fed to keep inflation low. Sure, prices for food, energy, and health care have skyrocketed, but wages have not followed suit – and that’s the kind of inflation they worry about. They don’t care if we have to pay more for necessities, just so their cost of doing business stays low (and that’s primarily wages). One way they do this is by exporting jobs and importing cheap (mostly illegal) labor. And since we wage slaves don’t have a government subsistence check to depend upon, we have no choice but to accept whatever they’re willing to pay us for the few jobs available. Family income in this country is about the same as it was in the 1950s. But the number of hours worked per family has tripled! That means real wages for workers in the United States are about a third of what they were in the 1950s – a third! People haven’t noticed because it has taken place over a long period of time, but the way they’ve done it is by keeping wage inflation a tiny fraction of price inflation, increasing their profits. Just look at the Minimum Wage. If it had been indexed for inflation when it was created at a dollar an hour, it would now be about $16 an hour.

Inflation is bad for the big creditors, and it is bad for low-wage workers with no COLA who rent their home and have no real assets to appreciate in value. Inflation is good for people heavily in debt, especially those of us with fixed-rate mortgages on our homes. Recession, of course, has the opposite effect. It is a financial boon for the creditors. It is devastating to people in the middle class whose assets are depreciating. And it’s disastrous for workers who lose their jobs with little chance of finding new ones. Those at the lower end of the scale lose out in both periods of inflation and recession. This impact, as well as that upon the middle class, could be minimized by a government subsistence check adjusted for inflation.

For the last few decades, the wealthy elite have managed to orchestrate the boom-bust cycle to their advantage. It’s time to take that power out of their hands and return monetary policy to Congress, as the Constitution intended.

CHAPTER 12: WHAT COULD THE GOVERNMENT DO?

First, let us acknowledge that the federal government is unlikely to do anything which will truly help … until we gain control of it. Nonetheless, we have to know what it is we would want from the government if and when that happens, and we have to work toward electing people who want to be part of the solution. There are a few of them in Congress already – folks like Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Alan Grayson, Barbara Lee (It’s not a very long list.). So what do we ask them to push for? What is it, in our wildest dreams, that the government could do to bring about Economic Democracy?

For starters, let’s abolish the Federal Reserve, and return monetary policy to the Congress. Then let’s use that power the way the Iroquois and Ben Franklin did: make sure every citizen has sufficient money to meet their needs and then some. A monthly subsistence check, adjusted for inflation, should be the centerpiece. That would eliminate job loss as a source of poverty.
In addition, we need to eliminate the other major risk factor that drives people into poverty -- health care. The government must create a Single-Payer National Health System. The only fiscally-responsible way to provide health care is to eliminate the profit, the overhead, the red tape, and the interference between doctor and patient of the insurance companies by kicking them out of health care altogether. The people do not need health insurance, they need health care.

Okay, so how does the government pay for all this? The health care part is easy. The total cost of health care under a single-payer system will be about 30% less than it is now, because we will save all the profit and overhead of the insurance companies. It will just be collected differently. It will be collected by the government in taxes instead of by the insurance companies in premiums and the health providers in co-pays.

Paying for the subsistence checks or negative income tax is also rather straightforward. I published a plan in the February 1996 issue of “Space& Security News,” the predecessor to “Patriot News,” to counter the “Flat Tax” proposals of Steve Forbes, Dick Armey, Phil Gramm, and Pat Buchanan. The complete article can be found on www.rmbowman.com/ssn/taxes.htm . Our tax proposal (adjusted to 2010 dollars) starts by giving every adult citizen (18-64) $10,000 a year, $5,000 for a family’s first child, $2,000 for each additional child, and $15,000 for a senior citizen (all to be adjusted annually for inflation). In addition, every American would receive health care under a Single Payer system. All of this was to be paid for by returning marginal tax rates on those earning more than $250,000 a year to 1972 rates, with a top rate of approximately 70%. All payroll taxes, including FICA would be eliminated, saving businesses lots of money and mountains of paperwork. The only tax on businesses would be a tax on profits. Corporations moving offshore and doing business in the United States would be subject to excise taxes if they didn’t pay taxes on their profits. The net result for the government would be an immediate reduction in the deficit. The boom caused by all Americans having financial security would lead to enormous increases in tax revenues, wiping out the deficit completely in short order. Ironically, this system would be so good for business that the rich would do very well indeed. Many new millionaires would be created. The higher top tax rates might make it harder for people to become billionaires, but that’s something I can live with – and so can they.

Now we might have to approach this goal incrementally, starting with stricter regulation of banks, mortgage companies, investment firms, and insurance companies to eliminate the rampant gambling that led to the 2008 meltdown. But we need to go far beyond that. The federal government must somehow keep working (and out of work) Americans from losing their homes, and somehow provide economic stability to all.

Unfortunately, it will be very difficult to get such a Real Change through Congress. So what do we do to bring about Economic Democracy if the government doesn’t cooperate with us?

CHAPTER 13: WHAT CAN WE DO WITHOUT THE GOVERNMENT?

If we can’t get rid of the Federal Reserve and its system of banks, we can pursue other ways of depriving them of customers and power, and eventually making them irrelevant. Here are some possible approaches – approaches which should be pursued whether or not we succeed at the federal level.

13.1: Do It State By State

North Dakota has its own state bank, and has no deficit. Even if we can’t get Congress to take back its Constitutional responsibility for our national currency, we can get our state to establish a state bank and issue its own state currency. It can then improve the standard of living within the state. A state bank is preferable to a national bank for two main reasons: (1) it is not for profit. Any profit is plowed back into the state, and (2) it is more in touch with the needs of the people of the state, and therefore better suited than the federal government to make financial decisions benefitting the people of the state.

Finally, whether or not we succeed at the federal and state level, we can (and should) establish our own system of local banks. That is the idea behind the “Common Good Banks.”

13.2: Common Good Banks (CGB)

Common Good Banks (commongoodbank.com) describe themselves as a social mission with a bank, not the other way around. It is a system of democratic, community-based banks with several unique features. The depositors decide what the bank will invest in. All depositors have an equal voice. All profits are reinvested in the community, to schools and other nonprofits. Credit card processing is free to local businesses. The bank gives micro-loans for new businesses and community projects. CGB is committed to sustainability and social justice, and will provide a full range of FDIC-insured banking services. CGB will create local currency through credit and, perhaps eventually, through the issuance of paper currency.

Common Good Banks will not have the resources to provide every family with a subsistence income (as the federal government could do), but by taking customers away from the big banks in the Federal Reserve system, they might be a step toward making the Fed irrelevant, and eventually killing it. Moreover, there are excellent reasons for creating Common Good Banks no matter what the federal government and state governments do. Even if we got our wish and the Fed disappeared, we would still need Common Good Banks.

In the first place, Common Good Banks are democratic. Their decisions are made by the depositors, large and small alike. If you have ten dollars in your account, your vote means just as much as the vote of someone with a million dollars on deposit. Financial decisions are made by ordinary folks, not by a handful of wealthy “bankers.”

Secondly, Common Good Banks are local. Each branch gets to make decisions affecting their community, identifying projects that are important to the community, being aware of skills and talents available, and allocating resources and credit so the job can get done and people are put to work. These decisions are made by local depositors within the community, not by faceless beancounters and bureaucrats thousands of miles away.

Third, Common Good Banks are non-profit. Their reason for existence is to serve the people in the community, not to maximize profits for billionaire shareholders and pump money out of the community to foreign investors. As non-profits, they are free to operate as proposed in 1861 by Edward Kellogg in “A New Monetary System: The Only Means of Securing the Respective Rights of Labor and Property and of Protecting the Public from financial revulsions.” In this book (reprinted in 1970 by Burt Franklin, New York), Kellogg proposes a system of non-profit local banks loaning to citizens at an interest rate of 1.1%, with bonds issued at 1%. This would undercut the existing system of usurious interest rates, a system which divides people into the wealthy few who multiply their wealth without labor and the vast majority who work hard but are doomed to remain perpetual debt slaves. Whatever profit is made by a Common Good Bank is returned to the community, with the local depositors deciding if it should go to education, libraries, free health clinics, the arts, parks, etc.

Now, most credit unions are also local and non-profit, but they are generally not democratic. So they share some (but not all) of the advantages of Common Good Banks. Moreover, by their charters, they are incapable of providing some of the services of a bank. In some communities, Common Good Banks are approaching credit unions with the aim of establishing partnerships. Some credit unions may choose to convert into Common Good Banks.

It is clear, therefore, that local Common Good Banks (by whatever name) provide a means for achieving a level of economic democracy, and should be pursued.

PART IV: POPULISM IN ACTION

CHAPTER 14: LEFT AND RIGHT TOGETHER

14.1: Patriotism and Populism

The United States is in trouble. We’re in danger of becoming a fascist dictatorship where big government and big business combine to rule, and where the people are considered just a source of labor. The marriage of government and the investor class has succeeded in exporting our jobs, importing illegal laborers to provide a pool of cheap labor, and driving down wages for all American workers, destroying the middle class. Their foreign and military policies have led us into unnecessary wars of aggression to gain raw materials and enhance profits of the global robber barons. Their trade policies have resulted in capital flight, job loss, trade deficits, and the ownership of much of our infrastructure by foreign interests.

We’ve gotten into this fix because our presidents, of both parties, have been servants of the global investors, and because our representatives in Congress, again of both parties, have abdicated their Constitutional responsibilities and subjected themselves to an imperial presidency.

A “patriot” is defined as one who loves, supports, and defends his country. The Latin and Greek roots refer to “father.” If, for a moment, we ignore the sexist nature of the ancient civilizations giving birth to the word, it is clear that to be a “patriot” is to have a parental love for the people of one’s tribe or nation. One cannot have a “patriotic love” for the corporations in one’s country or for its military-industrial complex, only for its people. Clearly then, those in our government who have served their corporate masters to the detriment of the people are not patriots, and have no claim to the word. The vast majority of Americans love our country in ways that equate to service to the people. We are the patriots. You can’t be a patriot without being a populist. Populism is patriotic.

Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution make it clear that the whole purpose of government is to serve and protect the people.. Ours is a government designed to be “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We, the Patriots, have a right and a duty to demand and to secure such a government. If those in power will not fulfill their Constitutional duty to serve the people, then we must remove them and replace them with those who will.

We, the People of the United States of America, deserve better than we have been getting. We must demand a government which (1) follows the Constitution, (2) honors the truth, and (3) serves the people. We Patriots can bring about such a government by electing Patriots to Congress and recruiting Patriots already in government to our cause. It is always tempting to start yet another political party, but our system makes such a course futile. Until we have instant runoff voting (IRV), proportional representation, real campaign finance reform, re-regulation of the media, and debates involving all political parties, no third party can win the presidency or more than a handful of seats in Congress.

Accordingly, “The Patriots” is not a political party, but a nonpartisan organization of patriotic Americans seeking to return our country to Constitutional government based on truth and in service of the people. We started in 1982 as the non-profit Institute for Space and Security Studies, a 501c(3) organization. In 2007 we officially changed our name to “The Patriots.” Our immediate mission is to educate the American people on the issues. In the future, we may form a “Patriot PAC” to support candidates for public office and to promote specific legislation. We also intend to form a Patriot Caucus including members of Congress from all political parties. However, for now we are concentrating on public education, and on encouraging loyal citizens in every Congressional district to run for Congress against bought-and-paid-for incumbents of whatever party.

14.2: Conservative or Liberal?

The first question usually raised is, “Is this organization conservative or liberal?” The answer to that question is, “Yes.” We have both conservative and liberal members, and both conservative and liberal ideas. But mostly, we are just patriotic Americans embodying the best of both conservatism and liberalism in the service of the American people.

You see, neither the Progressive Populists nor the Conservative Populists are strong enough to take back the country for the people. Only if we put our differences aside and work together can we succeed. We the People have been artificially divided for far too long. We have been divided into left and right, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican. The billionaire masters who own both political parties keep us divided and fighting each other, rather than coming together to oppose them. They use hot-button social issues to divide us and to give us the illusion that we have a choice between two very different parties.

They tell the parties, “You be for abortion, and you be against it. You be for gun control, and you be against it. You be for gay rights, and you be against it. You be for school prayer, and you be against it.” What all those issues have in common is that the billionaires couldn’t care less how it comes out. Those issues do not affect their bottom line. But when it comes to issues that DO matter to them, like going to war to secure a gas pipeline or signing a trade deal to drive down wages and drive up profits, they make sure that the Democrats and Republicans are identical. We progressives have to remember that it was President Bill Clinton who carried out the rape of Yugoslavia and gave us NAFTA. It was Al Gore, the darling of environmentalists, who was the hatchet man for the Clinton administration, ramming NAFTA down the throats of a reluctant Congress.

That’s why in 2000 I ran for President as an independent, securing the nominations of the Peace and Freedom Party, and also the Reform Party until Pat Buchanan had a judge throw out our National Convention in Las Vegas on a technicality, giving Buchanan the nomination and the twelve and a half million dollars in federal funding that came with it. I then threw my support to Ralph Nader. I just didn’t see a dime’s worth of difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush. (We must remember that Gore proposed a bigger defense budget than Bush, and Bush ran against “nation-building” and foreign entanglements. Who could have known that Bush would turn out to be the worst president in our history. If I had it to do over, I would support Gore, with all his faults.)

One thing I learned from that 2000 campaign was that conservatives are not the enemy. At one campaign event in rural Georgia, everyone there was a Conservative Republican. By the end of the evening, I had them agreeing with most of my positions, including support for a Single-Payer National Health Program. True conservatives, like liberals, love their country but fear their government, and with good reason. Both of us have been ignored, manipulated, alienated, marginalized, and mistreated by what I call the “radical center,” which is the corporate-dominated status quo.

Real conservatives, like the late Senator Bob Taft of Ohio, stood for three things: (1) fiscal responsibility, (2) avoidance of foreign military entanglements, and (3) protection of the Constitutional rights of individual Americans. As a radical liberal and a Socialist, I find nothing wrong with any of those three core beliefs of Conservatism. Ironically, George W. Bush turned out to be the LEAST conservative president in our history, doing more to destroy all three of these than all previous presidents combined. Is inheriting a surplus and running up the biggest deficits in our history “fiscal responsibility”? Are the corporate wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq “avoidance of foreign military entanglements”? Are the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act “protection of the Constitutional rights of individual Americans”? Hardly! So if he wasn’t “conservative,” was George W. Bush a “liberal”? Of course not. He was a tool of fascists who called themselves “neoconservatives.”

You see, there is nothing mutually exclusive about true liberalism and true conservatism. One can be both. Or, of course, like George W. Bush, one can be neither. Liberals are often caricatured as being immoral, Godless, welfare queens who follow the rule “If it feels good, do it.” Are there a few like that? Sure. But most of us are highly moral, spiritual, hard-working folks who believe that society should be organized like that of the early Christians, and whose rule is the Sermon on the Mount. Similarly, Conservatives are caricatured as greedy, selfish, heartless, and self-righteous racists whose rule is “I’ve got mine, you go get yours.” Are there a few like that? Of course. But the vast majority of conservatives are warm, generous, loving folks who want to preserve the values and heritage of their ancestors, and who don’t have a racist bone in their body.

There is nothing “conservative” about racism. When the Republicans ended slavery after the Civil War, all the racists became Democrats. Then when the Democrats passed the Civil Rights legislation and integrated schools, all the racists became Republicans. Racism has nothing to do with political philosophy. It’s an unfortunate result of slavery and its aftermath, and will disappear eventually except in those few individuals who desperately need someone to feel superior to.

14.3: What Can We Agree On?

I would like now to propose specific political positions which I believe could appeal to both conservatives and liberals. Few will agree with all of the following positions, but all Patriots ascribe to the basic devotion to Constitution, truth, and service to the people. That is what is important. The specific policy positions below are mine alone. I see them as a good basis for further discussion. They are all anathema to those currently in power.

We Patriots are “conservative” inasmuch as we are devoted to the Constitution, to individual rights, and to fiscal responsibility. We recognize the value of limited government. Yet we also recognize that government must be strong enough to protect us from the power of multinational corporations and their cartels.

As conservatives and as liberals, we oppose NAFTA, the WTO, and the SPP/NAU as being contrary to our sovereignty, antidemocratic, and against the interests of the American people. We support the 2nd Amendment right of the people to bear arms in order to deter and, if necessary, resist tyranny, while supporting reasonable gun control to reduce the level of violence in society. Working out the balance between these two will be one of the jobs to be tackled once we have taken back our country. The conservatives among us tend to oppose illegal immigration and “amnesty” as means by which the corporate elite exploit immigrants and depress the wages of all working Americans. We liberals believe that immigration policy must be compassionate, respecting the dignity of undocumented workers, supporting the unity of their families, and providing a path toward citizenship for those who work, pay taxes, learn English, and obey the law once here. We recognize that the ultimate solution to the immigration problem is to raise living standards in Mexico and the developing world and to protect Mexican family farmers from the devastating effects of NAFTA. All of us oppose the intrusion of government in our religious and private lives. We oppose our nation becoming entangled in foreign military ventures not essential to our national security.

As conservatives and liberals, we define “national security” narrowly, meaning the protection of our nation, our borders, and our people – and excluding the financial “interests” of multinational corporations and global investors. This is not isolationism, for we support international law and the creation of international institutions which serve the needs of humankind by promoting cooperation on global issues such as disease, pollution, and warfare which do not respect national boundaries. We want the United States to be a responsible, respected member of the family of nations. But we will not seek imperial expansion through aggressive wars to make client states. Nor will we surrender our sovereignty to “trade organizations” like the WTO seeking to turn us into a third world country.

Some of the conservatives among us oppose the United Nations as part of the “New World Order.” Most of us, however, recognize that the UN is not part of the problem. The New World Order we oppose is composed of corporate entities like the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank (WB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The UN’s main problem is its undemocratic nature, since it does not represent people, only governments. Its other problem is its weakness, lacking proper enforcement mechanisms for keeping the peace. This latter problem can be seen as a strength, since we wouldn’t want a strong UN that was undemocratic. Still, the UN has been a useful forum for discussing, and in many cases solving, international problems. It should, if possible, be improved, not discarded. My guess is that the UN will not become more democratic until the governments of the world (including our own) become more democratic and more populist (responsive to the people).

As conservatives and liberals, we support our military, including our veterans who have served and survived. We insist that our government fully fund the VA and fulfill its responsibility to care for our veterans and their families. We also are determined that our government honor promises made to veterans and our retired military members. To make thousands of disabled veterans in corporate wars and then refuse to take care of them is unacceptable, unconscionable, and un-American. We believe that history has shown that combat veterans govern better than draft dodgers and chicken hawks. Those who have experienced the horrors of combat are less likely to send our sons and daughters off to fight wars for the oil companies. We also believe that the only Constitutional mission for our military is to protect our borders and our people, not the global financial interests of multinational corporations. Eliminating the latter as a military mission will allow us to greatly enhance our national security and at the same time reduce the defense budget by 80%. That is a step toward real fiscal responsibility.

As conservatives and liberals, we will not tolerate “borrow and spend” government, which saddles our grandchildren with trillions in debt and gives China the ability to bankrupt us at will. We acknowledge that economic crises require deficit spending, but once the crisis has passed, we demand a return to balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility.

As conservatives and liberals, Patriots oppose a closed, manipulative, and secretive government, and demand the truth from our elected officials. We will not tolerate “Gulf of Tonkin” incidents as excuses for war. We reject the deceptions which involved us in the first Gulf War under George H. W. Bush and in the rape of Yugoslavia under Clinton. We abhor the lies about WMD, “yellow cake,” and “mushroom clouds over New York” which got us into the 2nd Iraq War and its interminable and disastrous occupation. We do not believe the lies about 9/11 which led to the invasion of Afghanistan and the phony “War on Terror.” We applaud President Obama for recognizing the wrongness of the attack on Iraq, but we plead with him to rethink his characterization of Afghanistan as a “war of necessity” that needs escalating.

As conservatives and liberals, we call for a “Sunshine Law” which will make conspiratorial meetings like that between Dick Cheney and Ken Lay on energy policy impossible (or at least illegal). We reject as totally inadequate the Kean-Hamilton-Zelikow 9/11 Commission Report which admittedly contains perjured testimony, refrains from assigning responsibility and accountability for our defense’s failures, and fails to even address dozens of unanswered questions and obvious flaws in the Bush Administration’s official story. We therefore demand a new and truly independent investigation of 9/11. We demand an investigation of the cover-up which followed 9/11 involving the confiscation and destruction of evidence, lying to investigators, and obstruction of justice. Finally, we demand an investigation of the exploitation of the 9/11 tragedy to launch unnecessary wars against Afghanistan and Iraq under false pretenses. One of the enormous benefits of the 9/11 Truth movement is that it blankets the entire political spectrum and has united conservatives and liberals in a joint effort.

As conservatives and liberals, we reject the misnamed Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps, the loss of “habeas corpus,” The Military Commissions Act, Presidential Directive 51, and all other attacks on our God-given freedoms enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. We will not tolerate infringement of our first amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and redress of grievances. We agree with Teddy Roosevelt and others who insist that dissent is often the height of patriotism, and we will not stand for dissenters being interned as “enemy combatants.”

As conservatives and liberals, we Patriots insist that our government fulfill its Constitutional responsibility to provide for the general welfare. We agree that this must, for example, mean providing health care, including prescription drugs, for all Americans. The only fiscally responsible way to do that is to eliminate the overhead, profit, red tape, obstructionism, and interference between doctor and patient of the insurance companies by removing them from health care altogether with a Single-Payer National Health system.

As conservatives and liberals, we take seriously our responsibility to conserve the environment, our natural resources, and the beauty of our land, so that we may pass these on to our grandchildren and their grandchildren for generations to come. We acknowledge our role as stewards of God’s creation, and will not tolerate a government which puts creation at risk or allows corporate interests to do so. As fiscal conservatives, we insist that polluters clean up their own messes instead of forcing the taxpayers to bail them out. Destructive activities such as strip mining, clear-cut logging, and the burning of fossil fuels should be taxed sufficiently to provide the funds needed for repair and amelioration. There is no industrial free lunch, and there should be no corporate welfare.

As Constitutional conservatives, we demand that the democratic underpinnings of our Republic be respected. Free elections under the “one person, one vote” principle and in which every person has an opportunity to vote and to have their vote counted are essential. We therefore declare any method of voting which does not produce a paper ballot which can be counted, recounted, and audited as necessary to be unconstitutional. We also call for non-partisan apportionment of Congressional districts, making election day a federal holiday, preference voting, and proportional representation.

We Patriots are also “populist” inasmuch as we declare that government should serve the people – not the big money interests and giant multinationals. We declare that corporations and other fictitious entities are not people and should have none of the rights and privileges thereof under the U.S. Constitution. This means, for example, that corporations have no Constitutional right to buy up politicians through campaign contributions and other favors, nor to buy elections through unlimited “issue ads.”

As conservatives and populists, we declare that the conservative principle of limited government is not so much about government’s size as it is about what government can do. Most of all, it is about whom government should serve. It should serve the people. The present partnership (or marriage) between giant corporations and big government is precisely what Mussolini defined as fascism. We must once and for all dispel the myth that conservative political philosophy favors the rich and big business. It does not. That is fascism. True conservatism honors individual rights and puts people first. We demand a return to such a true conservatism.

As conservatives, we insist on laws being enforced. Employers who entice illegal aliens across the border and exploit them in order to avoid having to pay American workers a decent wage should be fined and jailed. Once the jobs dry up, the undocumented workers will go home. We won’t have to deport them. The best thing we can do for Mexican workers is to repeal NAFTA until such time as the Mexican government gives their workers the same benefits and protections we demand for ours, and raises the standard of living of their people. Then we can have fair trade with them, not corporate globalization which reduces our standard of living to that of the Third World.

As Constitutional populists, we Patriots are open to those of all political parties. We welcome Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, Reformers, and independents. We embrace conservatives and liberals who share our values. But we understand that “If it feels good, do it” libertine so-called liberals will probably reject them. Similarly, “I’ve got mine, you go get yours” big-money so-called conservatives won’t like our values either. Personally, I am a Bobby Kennedy Democrat, but I reject Democratic leaders who sell out to big money and corporate interests. I have a loyalty to my party, but have a higher loyalty to my country and its people.

The kind of liberal we embrace is that described by President John F. Kennedy as “someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people – their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties – someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad. If that is what they mean by a ‘Liberal,’ then I’m proud to say I’m a ‘Liberal’!” As conservatives, we Patriots are concerned about morality. But as liberals, we insist that government concern itself more with morality in the boardroom and the war room than in the bedroom.

As conservatives, we do not sanction a welfare state. Yet at the same time, as liberals we want every member of society to share the benefits of productivity, and we expect workers to receive a fair share of the wealth they create. And we see no conflict between these views. Patriots can be conservative without being selfish and cold-hearted. True family values mean valuing families. As Conservatives, we insist that women not be forced to work outside the home to support themselves and their children. Being a mother is hard work. Doing it well is a benefit to society. Compensating mothers for their contribution to society is not welfare. It is justice. It is beneficial to families and therefore to society. As liberals, however, we recognize that in some families the wife will be the breadwinner and her mate a house-husband. It should be their right to make that choice.

The bottom line is that we cannot be put into a box with an ideological label. We address each issue on the basis of what is best for our nation and the American people. The differences on policy issues between our conservative and liberal members are few. On most issues, we all recognize that the populist position is clear and obvious.

Until now, the globalist big-money elites have divided American Patriots by artificially using hot-button social issues which the federal government has no business getting involved with in the first place. But no longer. It’s time for us to come together to take back our country. Patriots of the left and of the right share a great deal Both love their country but fear their government. Both abhor the domination of America by the World Trade Organization and its multinational masters. Both want to preserve our Constitutional freedoms. Both cherish families. Both want government to serve the people. Sure, the left and right use different language to describe the same thing, and often differ on the means for achieving their common objectives. But there will be time enough to work out those details once we Patriots of all stripes take back our country for our values, our objectives, our Constitution, our heritage, and our fundamental beliefs.

There is a Bible verse which says, “There is no longer male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free …” I would like to adapt that idea to our purpose. “There is no longer Republican nor Democrat, conservative nor liberal, left nor right. There are only we Patriots speaking truth to power and taking back our country for the people.” Let’s get on with it. Patriots, arise and join together. There is work to be done!

“Follow the Constitution, Honor the Truth, Serve the People”

CHAPTER 15: WHAT CAN WE DO AS INDIVIDUALS?

If you have ever asked yourself that question, here are some suggestions.

(1) Educate yourself and others on the problem. Study the chapters in this book until you understand them well enough that you can explain the problem to others. Explore www.thepatriots.us in depth, and subscribe to both the print and electronic version of Patriot News. (Send us any donation, and we’ll give you a lifetime subscription.)
(2) Send us a list of names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for friends and relations you would like us to educate for you. We’ll send them a free trial subscription to Patriot News.

(3) Start a chapter of “The Patriots.” Get together with some friends who share your political views. Agree to meet monthly to take action to bring about a populist government. Select one of you to be the contact person for the chapter until elections are held. Email the name, address, phone numbers, and email address of the contact person for the chapter to us at [email protected] , along with the name of the chapter, the geographic area it includes (a city, county, Congressional district, etc.), and a list of the zip codes in that area. We will publish the contact information for the chapter on our web site. We will send you a list of all our members in your target zip codes, so that you can invite them to join your chapter. How you organize the chapter, whether you have dues, and what kind of actions you take are up to you. We will give whatever help we can.

(4) One of the main things we hope your Chapter will do is groom candidates to run for Congress and for state offices in the primaries of both major political parties. (A strong Patriot Caucus can make the parties irrelevant.) In 2008, about 30 of our members around the country ran for Congress, all of them as independents, Greens, or write-ins. None got elected. The electoral system is completely stacked against any candidate outside the two main political parties. Just getting on the ballot is a major hurdle. That’s why we encourage Patriots to run as Democrats and Republicans. I ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2006, and was opposed by Rahm Emanuel and the party machinery. I never got a dime from the Democratic Party at any level. The newspapers blasted me as a “9/11 conspiracy theorist” with fringe views. Yet I won the primary against a middle-of-the-road, mainstream Democrat named Jack Kennedy! Beat him by ten points. If we had had paper ballots that can be counted by hand, I would have won the general election. Some exit polls indicated that I beat my seven-term incumbent Republican opponent by twelve points! But the electronic touch-screen voting machines had it the other way around. With the anti-incumbent feeling out there now, populist candidates can actually win. We need Patriots in Congress.

(5) Put electoral reform, media reform, and banking reform at the top of the agenda until we can elect a real populist government. Earlier chapters showed that these are essential to getting a government that serves the people. It is essential for folks of good will to understand this. Whether you are interested in working for peace, or economic justice, or women’s rights, or children’s rights, or Native American rights, or gay rights, or veterans’ rights, or protection for the environment, or against cruelty to animals, or whatever good causes you are involved in, you must help get all these groups to put electoral reform, media reform, and banking reform on their agenda, because without these, nothing else of value is possible. All these good causes buck up against the profits of giant corporations. If we don’t get big money out of politics, all these causes will fail. So if you belong to PETA or NOW or PFLAG or the Sierra Club or Pax Christi or VFW (or whatever), work to get them to add to their agenda the fundamental reforms of the electoral system, the media, and the banking industry that we all need in order to succeed.

(6) Once we have succeeded in electing representatives who really want to serve us, then we can demand of elected officials and candidates alike that they support an end to corporate wars of aggression and the Federal Reserve, establishment of a Single Payer National Health System, return of our Constitutional rights (Do away with the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security), an independent investigation of 9/11 and the subsequent cover-up, and an end to corporate personhood (add your own issues too). Of course, there’s nothing wrong with asking for these changes now, but don’t expect much success with the Congress we have now.
(7) Use the internet, local access TV, letters to editors, your own newsletter, and personal contact to press your agenda. Such efforts won’t make much of a dent in politicians feeding at the corporate trough, but they are an important part of educating the American people. The more people understand the realities of our situation, the easier it will be to elect good people to office.
(8) Continue writing letters to your Congress critter, but emphasize that being ignored will result in running a populist candidate against him in the primary. There are some essential guidelines to follow when writing to your elected representative.

(a) Letters should be hand-written, not typed or xeroxed. Anything that looks like it might be part of a mass mailing will be tossed out. Emails are OK as long as it is clear that it is an individual effort and not forwarding something someone else wrote.
(b) Use your own words. Duplicate letters, even if hand-written, are likely to be discarded.

(c) Stick to one issue. Letters are not read by the member of Congress. They are opened by staffers and “counted.” The member is told how many letters he got in favor of health care reform (for example) and how many against. If you mention more than one issue in a letter, they won’t know what pile to put it in, so it will get tossed.

(d) State which side of the issue you’re on in your first sentence. The staffer is not going to read your arguments, and they will never get to the member. So don’t bother going through them all. Just tell them where you stand. If the staffer can’t tell right away which side you’re on, the letter will be thrown away.

(e) Include your name, address, phone number, and email address on the letter itself. The envelope will be discarded even before the letter is read. So if your contact information isn’t on the letter, it will be considered “anonymous” and tossed.

(f) Be courteous in tone. You don’t want to come across as a crank or a nutcase. That too can get your letter discounted. Even if you are writing to express your disappointment with one of his votes, do it politely.

(g) When your elected representative actually votes the way you want on an issue of importance to you, please take the time to write and thank him or her for their vote. Praise their wisdom, sensitivity, courage, or whatever is appropriate in each case.

(h) If you follow these guidelines, your letter will be considered to be the equivalent of ten thousand votes. They figure that for every person who sends an individual letter on an issue, there are another 10,000 who feel the same and didn’t bother to write. So you, as an individual constituent, have great power. Use it wisely.

(9) Follow through, and vote out all incumbents and party hacks who represent big money and not YOU!

(10) Financially support candidates who are real Patriots and populists and who promise not to take corporate money and not to perpetuate the corporate status quo. Work as a volunteer in their campaign. Chances are they won’t get any help from their party, so they will need YOU.

(11) Support organizations like ours. Send a check (no matter how small) to “The Patriots” today to support our work. Solicit others who may be able to make a larger donation. Encourage them to do so. No matter how small your estate, leave part of it to “The Patriots.” The best thing you can leave your heirs is a safe planet and a government that serves their needs.

(12) When your candidate gets elected, hold his/her feet to the fire. Make sure they don’t take lobbyist money and become corrupted. Never settle for anything less than a government that “Follows the Constitution, Honors the Truth, and Serves the People.” Together, we CAN and WILL make a difference!

CHAPTER 15: VISION FOR AMERICA: Inaugural Address of a Populist President

What difference would it make? What would a Populist government do? What actions would a Populist president take? To answer this question, I would like to conclude with my Inaugural Address. I’ve been giving presidential addresses since 1992, the first one being published in “Space & Security News” (www.rmbowman.com/ssn/StateOfUnion9202.htm ) in the February 1992 issue. What follows is from October 2009.

My organization, the Patriots, demands a government which follows the Constitution, honors the truth, and serves the people. Specifically, we want to end the corporate wars of aggression, reverse the transfer of wealth to the already filthy rich, and restore the rights and freedoms of the American people.
But these, as important as they are, are merely dealing with symptoms of a much larger problem – the domination of our government by a handful of billionaires and multinational corporations. It’s this bigger picture that I want to concentrate on this evening – not just by giving you a laundry list of what’s wrong, but by showing you how things can be better.

I have a vision for America, a vision I’d like to share with you tonight. It’s a vision of an alternative future, I think a better future. Now I don’t have all the answers as to how to bring this future about, but I do know that before we can do so, we have to have a clear vision of what it is we want. So I’m going to give you my own “Inaugural Address” as the new President of the United States in what I suggest is that better future. I wrote a version of this speech for President-elect Obama, and sent it to him in December 2008 to use at his inaugural. For some reason, he didn’t use it.

I am now going to ask you to pretend that I am speaking to you as President at my inauguration. In the audience are all the members of Congress, government officials, and you, the American people.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My fellow Americans:

We come together in a time of multiple crises. There’s the financial meltdown, global warming, peak oil, the plummeting dollar, falling wages and rising prices, a spiraling deficit, the health care shortfall, immigration, housing foreclosures, our deteriorating infrastructure, high school dropouts, astronomical incarceration rates, homeless veterans, rising suicide rates, the loss of our civil liberties, a growing alienation from our allies around the world, crushing debt, hungry children, inexcusable poverty, an exhausted military stressed by disastrous wars, and (unbelievably) persistent ignorance and apathy among our people.

The good news is that there are solutions for all these problems and crises – solutions which have been worked out in considerable detail, and have been available for some time. The only reason these solutions have not been implemented is that they reduce the profits of giant corporations who exercise control over our government.

Corporations, over the last about 150 years, have increasingly escaped government regulation and have accumulated political rights as if they were persons. This has included so-called first amendment free speech rights to spend as much money as they want buying up politicians, drafting legislation to profit themselves, and buying voters and elections through their monopoly corporate media. It has reached the point where foreign policy, international trade, and military decisions are made for short-term corporate profit, to the detriment of the American people and our national security. Our government has become totally controlled by corporate interests, and this is the very definition of fascism.

Our problems are not due to incompetence or inexperience or a government which is too big or too small. We have these problems because those in government no longer serve us. They serve their corporate masters and benefactors and have deliberately chosen policies which harm our nation and our people.

Those of us who dedicate our lives to peace, economic justice, and environmental preservation can make little progress in our struggles so long as ultimate power is in the hands of those who profit from war, poverty, and pollution. But here comes the good news. Tonight, that power has come to an end.

I didn't get here tonight by taking corporate millions. I didn't get here by selling myself to the oil companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the insurance companies … . To be quite honest, I'm not sure how I got here! But here I am, and as long as I am President of the United States, this government will serve the needs of the people, not the greeds of the wealthy elite.

Turning things around won't be easy. What our Constitution empowers me to change, I shall. (And I’ll do it fast!) But for much of what needs doing, I will need the cooperation of you in Congress, and I ask for it tonight. The Constitution does not make me “the decider,” only the proposer and the implementer. You, the people’s representatives in Congress, are the deciders. I am therefore vacating all the over 1,100 signing statements imposed by President George W. Bush. I’m revoking Presidential Directives 20 and 51, which give me dictatorial powers. I ask for repeal of the misnamed Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and all the martial law and special and dictatorial powers acts passed in the last ten years. This is not a monarchy, and I have no interest in being a dictator! (Oh, I’ll be called one, because of the sweeping changes I am instituting. I’m talking about REAL change, not CHUMP change. After all, returning to the Constitution is not just a change, it’s a revolution.)

The first American revolution was when we broke free of the tyranny of King George III. The second was when the federal government became increasingly powerful and centralized and dominated by corporate interests, resulting in a new tyranny, recently under another George. Tonight represents the flowering of the third American revolution, when We the People once again throw off the shackles of tyranny and take back our country and our Constitution.

Restoring the Constitution means ending the Imperial Presidency and returning power to the people’s representatives. But I warn you members of Congress. If you continue to violate your Constitutional responsibility to serve your constituents, and instead serve only yourselves and the big money interests you are indebted to, if you ignore the Constitution and attempt to protect the crooked corporate-dominated status quo, I will go over your heads to the American people and ask them to retire all of you, regardless of party.

In order to restore some semblance of our republic, we must give the people real choices not false ones, and we must have an informed electorate, not a brainwashed electorate. This means electoral reform and media reform.

First, electoral reform:

The Constitutional principle of one person, one vote means that any method of voting which does not produce a paper ballot which can be counted, recounted, and audited as necessary is unconstitutional. I ask Congress and the States to return to paper ballots and institute full public financing of elections, proportional representation, preference voting (sometimes called Instant Runoff Voting), abolition of burdensome petition requirements on independents and third parties, and (so working people can actually vote) making election day a federal holiday. This will all be coordinated by my new Chair of the Federal Elections Commission, Bev Harris.
Many of these changes are designed to empower third parties. There is nothing democratic about a two-party system when both parties are owned at the highest level by the same powerful interests.

I also ask Congress to quickly pass a Constitutional amendment restoring its original meaning. The amendment says, “Corporations and other fictitious entities are not ‘persons’ under this Constitution and shall have none of the rights and privileges thereof.”

And now, media reform:

I am ordering the Federal Communications Commission, headed by Bill Moyers, to immediately reinstate the ban on ownership of multiple media outlets. It’s time for a return to family-owned newspapers and radio and television stations. The monopoly media conglomerates must sell off their assets immediately. (Sorry, Mister Murdoch.) The public airwaves are once again going to belong to the people and serve the public interest.

The key to ending fascism is to separate big money and political power. We are taking immediate steps to do just that.

I have asked the Justice Department to indict members of the Bush administration, including the former president and vice-president. as war criminals. They exploited the 9/11 tragedy to deceive this nation into unnecessary and illegal wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq, abused their power, and violated the Constitution and their oath of office. The evidence of their guilt is absolutely overwhelming.

When I was sworn in, I promised to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies, foreign and domestic – and that includes a renegade President and Vice President. If I or any member of my administration ever gives illegal orders such as we have seen in the recent past, I expect the military to refuse them and take action against us. Your duty to the Constitution far exceeds any perceived loyalty to any person.

Those of you in the military and law enforcement have taken the same oath and must never follow orders to participate in a war of aggression, and must never follow orders to disarm, arrest, or incarcerate your fellow Americans who are exercising their Constitutional rights of dissent.

Those attempting to take away our rights have cited the phony “war on terror” and the attack of September 11th, 2001, to justify their actions.

But there is also evidence of a massive cover-up with respect to 9/11 itself. The official 9/11 Report, tightly controlled by the Bush White House, amounts to little but a whitewash. I’ve spoken with both Governor Keane and Congressman Hamilton. They both acknowledge that there are outright falsehoods in the final report (which they had no control over). Members of the commission admit that they were told NOT to dig into the evidence of how it happened and who did it. When combined with the confiscation of videotapes, audio tapes, black boxes, and other evidence by the FBI, it is clear that regardless of who was responsible for 9/11, the subsequent cover-up was itself a conspiracy involving elements of the Bush White House and the intelligence establishment.

The American people have still not been told who was really responsible for 9/11. Dedicated researchers have proven that it could not have happened the way the Bush administration said it did. I’m an old interceptor pilot, and hijacked airliners do not fly around for an hour and forty minutes without being intercepted … unless our air defense system was sabotaged. Indestructible black boxes do not evaporate in the same fire from which an unharmed passport floats to the street below. Steel skyscrapers do not collapse at free-fall speed because of a kerosene fire. Steel buildings do not collapse at all because of a kerosene fire – never have, and never will. A kerosene fire does not turn concrete into a powder containing particles of nano-thermite, a military explosive used in controlled demolitions. And building 7 wasn’t even struck by an aircraft. The truth about 9/11 is that after nine years we still don’t know the truth about 9/11 … and we should, and so should the families of victims.

President Barack Obama expanded the war in Afghanistan and extended it into Pakistan. And why? He said it was a war of necessity because those were the folks who attacked us on 9/11. He failed to reverse the erosion of our Constitutional rights and to end the threat of martial law. And why? You guessed it, 9/11. It has become clear that until the government myth about 9/11 is exposed and some real truth told, all these evils will continue, no matter which party is in power.

I am therefore appointing a commission to conduct a new and truly-independent investigation of 9/11. This investigation will be co-chaired by David Ray Griffin and Richard Gage, and coordinated by my Vice President, Cynthia McKinney. Never again must we allow this nation to be stampeded into war under false pretenses.

But 9/11 is not the only Truth we are concerned about. There have been many other cover-ups, including the murders of a number of our soldiers in the field (most of them women). If the Pentagon won’t do a proper investigation, we’ll do it for them. Parents have a right to know what really happened to soldiers like Pat Tillman and LaVena Johnson.

Most Americans have heard of Pat Tillman – football star turned war hero turned conscientious objector. He was supposedly killed accidentally by “friendly fire.” Believe me, there is nothing friendly about a barrage of bullets fired from closer than ten feet. The evidence indicates that Pat Tillman was deliberately “fragged” because he turned against the war.

But few Americans have heard of LaVena Johnson. LaVena was a lovely young African-American girl, a Christian, and a virgin. She volunteered to serve in Iraq. Her body was discovered in a Halliburton tent and shipped home in a closed casket. Her parents were told not to open the casket. But her father is a physician (I know him personally). Dr. Johnson opened the casket and examined his daughter. Her brains had been blown out. There were bruises all over her body. Her hands were both badly burned (too badly burned to hold a gun). Acid had been poured on her genitals in an apparent attempt to destroy DNA evidence. The Army has ruled it a suicide.

Listen very closely to what I am saying. A government that honors the truth must uncover the truth … and then tell the truth. And that’s what we’re going to do.

We have at times (including, I think, the last few years) had a government with bad policies. But we are a good people. What we have long needed is a government which reflects the values and goodness of the American people.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which cooperates with big business to export our jobs and import cheap illegal labor, driving down wages for all American workers. They don’t want you to know this, but in spite of soaring productivity, worker pay in this country is now a third of what it was in the 1950s – a third! If worker pay had kept up with executive pay, the typical worker would be making 1.2 million dollars a year … and the minimum wage would be $217 an hour. Now I’m not promising that, but we are taking immediate steps to benefit American workers. I ask Congress to pass legislation indexing the Minimum Wage for inflation, placing tariffs on importation of goods manufactured by corporations who move jobs out of the country, and limiting the corporate income tax deduction for executive compensation to 20 times the salary of their lowest paid worker. [The ratio between CEO pay and worker pay used to be 20 to 1. Now it is over 600 to 1. This is a free country. Corporations can pay their executives whatever they want … but we don’t have to give them a tax deduction for it!]

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which helps corporations despoil God’s creation for profit. True conservatism demands that we preserve the land, the air, and the water for our grandchildren and their grandchildren for generations to come. Fiscal responsibility demands that polluters clean up their messes, not taxpayers.

We will initiate bold programs in solar and wind energy with subsidies and tax breaks to make them not only competitive, but superior in the marketplace. At the same time, the Department of Energy will impose a ban on the construction of new fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. [I have three degrees in nuclear engineering, and theoretically, nuclear power plants can be made very safe. But there is still no safe way to get rid of the radioactive waste, and until there is, there can be no new nuclear power plants.]

I am requesting new CAFÉ standards doubling the gas mileage of cars and light trucks. And that’s just for starters. This will be coordinated by my Secretary of Transportation, Ralph Nader.

There is no industrial free lunch, and there should be no corporate welfare.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which violates international law in its conflicts and denies its own citizens their Constitutional rights. I have therefore ordered the release of all those being detained without charge, the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay (we’ll find somewhere else for Bush and Cheney), and the end of the “rendition” program in which suspects are kidnapped and taken to secret foreign prisons to be tortured. I’ve pardoned a host of political prisoners, including Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal. I’m also pardoning all those incarcerated for possession or use of marijuana. I am directing the Secretary of Agriculture to support the production of industrial hemp. Those addicted to heroin and cocaine should be in treatment, not in jail. The failed “War on Drugs” is over.

All contracts for mercenaries, including all contracts with Blackwater (or Xe, as they call themselves now), are cancelled. This includes contracts with the DoD, the CIA, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security (which, by the way, is being abolished). We do not need an agency whose mission is to protect the government from the American people.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which launches unnecessary wars of aggression. [I could speak for an hour about what we have done to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, but let’s just deal with what we have done to our own. Over 5,000 of our finest have died. The lives of over 30,000 of our injured soldiers will never be the same. Tens of thousands of our young men and women have severe psychological problems because of what they have seen and what they have done.

Hundreds of thousands have been poisoned by depleted uranium, and will suffer lives of pain and disability and will father thousands of children with severe birth defects. Our military services are depleted and demoralized. The VA system is under-funded and overwhelmed. The National Guard and Reserves have been subjected to tour after tour, disrupting lives for even the lucky ones who return unscathed. Jobs have been lost. Homes have been foreclosed. Marriages have been destroyed. Children have been estranged. And for what? We have alienated our friends and made new enemies. We have created thousands of new recruits for Osama bin Laden (whether he’s dead or alive), and further endangered the American people. And the longer we stay, the worse it will get.] You can’t win an occupation.

Within three months we are going to support what’s left of our troops by bringing them home while they are still alive.

I have also ordered a permanent halt to the use of depleted uranium weapons. They will be destroyed and stored as the dangerous radioactive waste they really are.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by creating thousands of disabled veterans in wars of aggression and then refusing to take proper care of them. [The signature wound of the Iraq War has been brain trauma. Yet the Bush Administration slashed the budget for the Brain Trauma Center by 50%.] The cost of caring for the disabled veterans from the Iraq War alone will be in the trillions of dollars, but it is a cost we must bear. The care of our soldiers wounded in action, wracked with PTSD, and poisoned by Depleted Uranium is not a discretionary expenditure to be avoided by delay, denial, and bureaucratic red tape. It is a solemn obligation of this government, and it will be met! Our new Secretary for Veterans’ Affairs, Senator Max Cleland will see to that.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which poisons three million Vietnamese with Agent Orange and two million Iraqis with Depleted Uranium … and then walks away. We are going to provide medical care for these victims. It’s time we took at least some responsibility for our actions. Similarly, we will take care of the World Trade Center first responders and rescue workers suffering from respiratory illnesses because the Bush administration told them the air was safe to breathe when they knew it was not.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which promotes a globalization which depresses living standards at home and allows corporations to destroy the quality of life in banana republics and client states all over the world. NAFTA has not only cost us millions of manufacturing jobs, but has allowed Archer Daniels Midland to undercut the price of corn in Mexico, driving millions of Mexican family farmers off the land and across our border as illegal immigrants. In addition the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank have caused untold suffering around the world. If we can’t reform them, we will abolish them.

With respect to our relations with the government of Mexico, I have ordered the cancellation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership or North American Union, termination of the NAFTA Superhighway which would have cut the US in half and put all our longshoremen and truckers out of work, and the suspension of NAFTA completely until Mexico gives its workers union rights, protections for health, safety, and the environment, and wages at least comparable to our minimum wage. That’s what the European Union did to Spain, Greece, and Turkey when they wanted to join. The EU required them to raise the living standards of their workers. If we had done that before we signed NAFTA, Mexican workers wouldn’t have to come here to feed their families.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a system in which all our personal income taxes go to pay interest on a staggering national debt created out of thin air. The Constitution authorizes Congress to coin our money, not a private cartel. I ask Congress to eliminate the debt-based monetary system and pass legislation abolishing the Federal Reserve. We encourage states to form non-profit state banks like that of North Dakota, and to license not-for-profit community banks like the Common Good Banks.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which uses our money to train death squads in the techniques of torture, intimidation, and assassination. The School of the Americas (by whatever name they choose to call it) is closed.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which gives Most Favored Nation status to the butchers of Tienanmen Square and places an illegal secondary embargo on the impoverished people of Cuba. The embargo of Cuba just ended!

I recognize that we need advance information on the activities of Al Qaeda and those who wish to do us harm. But our values and goodness are not reflected by, and our security is not enhanced by, an organization which promotes instability, insurrection, tyranny, torture, terrorism, murder, and war around the world in our name and with our money. John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter tried to reform the CIA, so it would stick to gathering intelligence. They failed. I’m not going to try. As of this moment, I am abolishing the CIA.

Having said that, I must point out that the CIA was right about Iraq, and they are right about Iran. The many outstanding analysts in the CIA will be transferred to other agencies, including DIA. This will be coordinated by my Director of Intelligence, Ray McGovern. He will also see that the activities of the NSA and NRO follow the law and respect the Constitutional rights of our citizens. The days of warrantless wiretaps and using librarians as snitches is over.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which sends its working-class youth around the world to kill the sons and daughters of working people in other countries. Our values and goodness are not reflected by sending our children to the Middle East to kill Arabs so the oil companies can profit from selling the oil under other people’s sand, making us the target of terrorists.

No more Iraqs. No more Kosovos. No more El Salvadors. These are not isolated incidents of stupidity. They are part of a long, bloody history of foreign policy being conducted for the financial benefit of the wealthy few. It is a new form of colonialism. It violates our Constitution. It endangers our national security. It mortgages our future. It sacrifices our children. And it will never happen again!

We are irreversibly returning to a Constitutional foreign and military policy. As president, I will use the men and women in our Armed Forces to protect our borders and our people (period!), not the financial interests of Bechtel, Folgers, Chiquita Banana, Exxon, and Halliburton. This one change in military mission – eliminating the mission of protecting the global financial interests of multinational corporations – will allow us to greatly enhance our national security … and at the same time reduce the defense budget by 80%. That is a step toward fiscal responsibility.

I have ordered the new Secretary of Defense, Admiral William Fallon, to begin an immediate recall of our forces all around the world. Think of it. After 65 years, the occupation of Germany and Japan has finally come to an end. With the exception of small Marine detachments guarding our embassies, all our military will be home within three months, and all overseas bases will be returned to the host countries.

Needless to say, there will be NO nuclear attack on Iran. My special envoy to the Middle East, Jimmy Carter, will be meeting with them to solve our differences. Once he has finished there, he will straighten out the Israelis and Palestinians. By the way, I have consulted with my Israeli advisors and with the J Street pro-Israel lobby group, and they concur in a new policy essential to Israel’s long-term security. I am withholding all financial aid for the government of Israel until they halt all settlement building and agree to negotiate a final settlement based on withdrawal to pre-1967 borders. A democratic Jewish state in Israel is impossible without an independent, contiguous, free Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which for decades has been in violation of its treaty responsibilities to disarmament. I have ordered a halt to the design, testing, and production of nuclear weapons, and have directed the Secretary of State, Mike Gravel, to open negotiations toward the rapid and total abolition of nuclear weapons.

Finally, I’d like to speak directly to the American people. I am unlikely to last long in this job -- partly because I have terminal cancer from Agent Orange, and partly because there are powerful interests (like insurance companies, oil companies, and bankers) with hundreds of billions of reasons for wanting me assassinated. (By the way, if you hear that I have suddenly committed suicide … by shooting myself in the back … with a shotgun … three times, you might be just a little suspicious. They’ll call you a conspiracy theorist, but be suspicious anyway.) But, you know, it won’t matter. They can kill me, but they can’t kill what we have started. It’s too late for that. My words, heard tonight by a few, will tomorrow reach many. If the corporate media won’t carry it, YouTube will. My faith is that you, the American people, will not let the vision die with me.

I am unlikely to get there with you, but like Brother Martin, I have been to the mountain top, and I have seen the Promised Land.

What I have seen is an America in which every person (regardless of their race, creed, color, age, or sexual orientation) is valued and lives in dignity.

It is an America in which every family can be supported by one wage-earner with one job paying a living wage. It is an America in which health care is provided to all as a right through a single-payer national health program. (As a conservative, I believe that the only fiscally-responsible way to provide health care is to eliminate the profit, overhead, red tape, and interference between doctor and patient of the insurance companies by kicking them out of health care altogether.)

I see an America in which policemen, nurses, poets, firefighters, teachers, and garbage collectors can afford a good house in a nice neighborhood and live in comfort, not just scientists, brain surgeons, CEOs, rock stars, lawyers, and basketball players. It is an America in which faith is respected, culture is preserved, the arts are supported, and the Constitution is actually followed.

It is an America that seeks not to be king of the hill nor subservient to the World Trade Organization, but to be a responsible sovereign member of the family of nations (nothing more, and nothing less) … an America that is free of the threat of terrorism because it is no longer feared and hated (because it no longer does hateful things to people all around the world) … an America that leads the world -- not just with military might, but with its vision, its compassion, its democracy, its productivity, its freedom, its standard of living, its care for the global environment, its treatment of its own people, and its goodness. Above all, it is an America at peace with the world and with its own people. That’s the kind of America I have seen, the America our people deserve, and the America you can build. Together, we WILL preserve this nation and our Constitution.

But I can’t do it alone. It matters not if my presidency is real or fanciful. My part is done. It is finished. The rest is in your hands. The future and the vision and the dream itself depend on you. May God sustain you in your struggles and bless America through your actions. Each of you must do your part. Spread the word. Keep the vision alive. Drop your own pebbles in the pond and make some waves. Run for office. Never settle for anything less than a government which follows the Constitution, honors the truth, and serves the people.

Then free at last of the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us of, free at last of the gross disparities in living standards which have plagued recent decades, free at last of the ravages of unbridled militarism, free at last of the creeping fascism of corporate-controlled government, free at last we can go forward into a bright new day of truth, democracy, prosperity, security, freedom, and peace.

We the people CAN win. We the people MUST win. We the people WILL win. Thank you, and good night.