Take 'Em to Task: Remaking America

[Smiley and West]

		A listener from Wilmington, DE takes Smiley & West to task for not having a specific call to action coming out of the “Remaking America” conversation.

[Tex Wood]

A modest proposal

 

“Only the organized get to play.”   Attributed to David Stockman.

“Sticking with what we’ve got will get us what we’ve got.”   Tex Wood

 

   The current, surprising, active reaction (Occupy Wall Street, the 99%ers, 99ers, the Redneck Party, the generally insulted and enraged) to the status quo and to having permitted (and voted for) the hijacking of our government by huge corporations, bankers, and other silk-suited SOBs serves those participating in the civil actions with some satisfaction…hollow and in-effectual as these actions are in a practical sense.

   Our problem is not in Washington, never has been.  The problem is out here…amongst us, even though some of that us is actually actively protesting, granted, but to no discernible, practical result.

   We also consistently elect Republocrats to Congress, as salient an example of the Stockholm syndrome as can be found.

  Wanna fix it?

   The sole and singular activity that has to be agreed upon is simply stated: replace all the Republocrats in Congress with any people who are not Republocrats, not one of them.

   All other issues are irrelevant hot air.

   We now know who the present Congress serves (i.e., not us).

   Replace ALL of them.  Forget the Presidency; it’s too late for that now.

   But there is time to collect petition signatures to put anyone who is not a Republocrat on the ballot for the U.S. House, even though ballot access laws vary from state to state.

   Your Congresspeople or Senators might act as if they are listening to you, but their consistent actions reveal they work for BIG money even though you (not BIG money) voted them into office.  If you do not feel conned, you should feel conned because you have been conned.

   Putting on the ballot and voting into office anyone who is not a Repubocrat will accomplish an improvement over the status quo.  Venting on the WEB or in the streets is an in-effective waste of time and energy accomplishing nothing practical.  Those thinking that the Republocrats will ever listen only have to see that the Republocrats have never listened, have never listened, have never listened, have never listened, and have never listened.  They aren’t listening now.  Think they ever will?  They will do whatever someone with a more expensive suit on wants them to do.  (So all we have to do is buy a bunch of expensive suits?)

   If you’re not getting signatures on candidate petitions, you’re wasting your time and energy.  If you dither much over who those candidates will be, that time is wasted.  Anybody not a Republocrat will be an improvement.  Your current Representative or Senator, cordial though he or she may be, is one of Them, a functionary for Big Money, which has recently slurped up two or three trillion of our tax money for Them.   …and some people still splutter the word socialism when they cannot even spell fascism, much less know what it is.  A variant of socialism builds our roads and schools…used to build hospitals and public parks for all us tax payers, but such a comment is a digression.

   Ideally, the non-Republocrat candidate will have some age and a bachelor’s degree, not be some slogan-spouting ideologue; however, your pet goldfish would suffice.  First requiring any potential candidate to deliver his or her first 100 VALID petition signatures for him or herself will eliminate most hot airbags.

   Or you can vent on the net or blog or protest in the streets and wind up with the same trash in Congress, which has delivered us this nauseating mess, their having convinced many of us that we went broke caring for our old, our ill, our poor, and our wounded.  For those two-to-three trillion dollar bailouts, we could have put a doctor on every block and built mansions for our homeless, probably cured most cancers, and had change left over for a moon trip.

   In most states, a petition signature is not an endorsement of the candidate, but support of that person’s right to be on the ballot so that person can campaign, stating what he or she will do so the voters can decide.  Campaigning without a place on the ballot is senseless.

   The first step is to contact your state board of elections.  TRIPLE check whatever you’re told, getting everything in writing or on an e-mail.  If you dither and blather, the deadlines will pass, and you can go back to self-indulgence on a blog or on the net and on the streets and splutter away.

   Collecting signatures is an arduous undertaking.  Opening up with asking if a person is a registered voter generally gets a positive response.  Spend no more than a minute getting any signature.  Don’t be de-railed by every gnat and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rail.  If the person signs the petition, fine.  If not, move on, and keep moving.

   Anything except gathering petition signatures is useless hot air.

           Sincerely,

         Tex Wood    Woolwine, Va.                           (The Wood Plan)  

P.S.  Another waste of time would be trying to contact me.  There is nothing to discuss.  If you find yourself in a group that wants to argue and posture, just move on.  Get the signatures; put someone not a Republocrat on the ballot.  That, folks, isn’t easy, and you will have to do it.

   (The actual election should you get a non-Republocrat on the ballot…well, the electorate is in a conditioned trance to vote Republocrat and accustomed to becoming a citizen of a Third World Country.  Good Luck !  God Speed!  Forward this.  Blog it; tweet it [riiiight].  I have no proprietary interest in this essay.)

 

 

[Kevin Potts]

Reposted From “Real Time with Bill Maher” #OWS Forum (Hosted mainly so far by myself, personally, Kevin Potts)

“The most common criticism of the Occupy Wall Street movement and, in some ways, a primary condition for its eventual demise, was the criticism that it could not, at any given moment, provide a clear, well-reasoned articulation of what precisely it proposed was out of order within the current socio-political system and how it was that the government should fix it. This criticism, took the form of countless headlines like “

Can OWS Make Sense of Itself?” “OWS Critics Have Their Say” “Many Claim OWS Lacks Focus” and “OWS Struggles to Make Specific Demands.” This, I argue, is evasive and nonsensical:” -Tyler Gaul http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/occupy-wall-street-movement

 

“For OWS to continue there needs to be a more clearly defined course of action to solve the issues…” -Joe F151

We keep hearing this type of unjustified complaint against the movement -that #OWS lacks a coherent message or that the movement is being too unspecific or too vague in regard to proposing/demanding real viable solutions to the slew of real atrocities and nightmarish issues that continue to plague the underprivileged people and the democracy of this country. I beg to differ with such rhetorical claims and denounce such claims as nonsensical, unjustified and “out of touch“ with reality. Not only is the movement waking America up from our apathetic slumber, not only are we bringing social justice to the forefront once again -we have identified the root of the major problems already. And like good doctors who have collaborated and diagnosed our patient with a curable disease -we have already written prescriptions for the cure. -Kevin Potts

 

“listeners react to the "Remaking America" conversation” From Smiley and West (Speak Out Network Hotline) (transcribed by yours truly):

“I’m a right-wing, far right-wing and yet I can see the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and it’s getting tougher out there. But you guys need to bone (?) up on your economics…” (???) “…and then you might start to grab yourself some power. But until then you’ll just be just as irrelevant (???) as those Occupy jerks. (???) Until you can start to address people on economic terms with things that work rather than just rabble rousing, you’ll always be on the fringes.” (???)

“I guess it’s an interesting idea but I wish you would put on experts (???) and others with informed opinions (???) of a slightly different political view.” (???)

“No one has really offered anything concrete. (???) Umm, yeah, it’s unfair, especially teenagers complaining about their parents…you know…about how life is unfair. We need more concrete solutions because capitalism is clearly not working and it does seem to be rigged, but we need people who are as smart as you guys…who have a voice…to start offering real concrete solutions.” (???)

(Reply to the listener’s reactions from Tavis Smiley:)

“This is a sentiment, Doc, we’ve been hearing since The Poverty Tour last year…a sentiment that we heard in Florida. We hear this from time to time around the country. What are the concrete solutions? What specifically can we do right now? -that sentiment of course was expressed during the Remaking America conversation and indeed by one of the panelists. Let me sound off on that…first thing, your take…to my mind there were any number of specific ideas laid out by you, laid out by Michael Moore, laid out by Barbara Ehrenreich, laid out by Suze Orman. It troubles me sometimes that people can listen to a conversation and throughout the conversation there are panelists offering “specificity” on what needs to be done to get us through this moment. When Michael Moore says “We need to Tax The Rich” -that *is* specificity. When you say that “We need to Get Serious About Campaign Finance Reform” “Get Money Out of Politics” -that’s *specificity*. When we say that “We need Supreme Court Judges Who Are Not Going To Suggest That Corporations Are People And Money Can Flow Unlimited In Campaigns” -that “We Need Congress To Change That Law” -that *is* *specificity*.  When Barbara Ehrenreich says that “We Need Jobs That Don’t Pay Minimum Wage But *A Living Wage* -that’s *specificity*.  When Tavis Smiley then says “It Ought To Be Illegal For Corporations To Post Online ‘If You Are Going To Apply For This Job And You Are Presently Unemployed, Don’t Even Think About It’ -when corporations do that on their websites -That Ought To Be Illegal. When Suze Orman says “We’ve Got To Get Serious About Rethinking How We Compute Fical Scores -that’s a *serious* suggestion. When Roger Clay suggests that there are certain things, there are certain utilities , there are certain resources that this country owns…and like the state of Alaska…where residents get about $3,000 / year in profit sharing because of the pipeline and there are things like that -that we can do for every American -that’s a *specific suggestion*. I can do this all day long…” -Tavis Smiley

　

When we say that “We Need To Seriously Rethink Our Foreign Policy“ -that “We Need To Put An End To The Never-Ending-Trillion Dollar War Machine Perpetuated By The Military Industrial Complex And To Begin Spending That Wasted Tax-Money On The Good People Of This Country -On Things That Matter” -that “We Need To Start Developing Good Relations With The Rest Of The World And To Start Solving Our Problems With Decency, Humanity And Diplomacy Instead Of With Bombs And Machine Guns.” -that’s *specificity* and it’s a very serious suggestion to a very serious evil.

When we say that “Every Single American Deserves A Higher Education Without Being Trapped Into A Lifetime’s Worth Of Debt” -that “A College Education Should Be Guaranteed As A Birthright To Every American“ -that’s *specificity*.

When we say that “We Need To Restore The Integrity Of Our Media By Reinstating The Fairness Doctrine And By Breaking Up The Multi-Media Conglomerates Which Have Become Nothing More Than A Brainwashing Propaganda Machine For The Top 1% And The Social Darwinian Ideology Of The Right Wing To Maintain Their Oppressive, Inhuman Status Quo” -that’s *specificity* and it’s getting to the root of one of the most serious issues that needs to be dealt with in this country.  -Kevin Potts

 

"Education is the passport to the future"

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."

"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."

"You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or who says it." -Malcolm X

[Kevin Potts]

 

Anyone claiming that #OWS lacks coherent solutions and *specificity* is either out of touch with reality (not paying attention) or they are being nothing more than an anti-movement, rhetorical propaganda tool of the status quo.

-Kevin Potts