How to
be a
Citizen instead of just a Consumer:
The
4 key activist focus areas for rescuing the United
States from tyranny and other miseries:
(a.k.a. How to stop
wars and other
disasters, and further advance that which is True, Good and Wise:)
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1. Restoration
and Evolution of
Republic
- Make Participatory Citizenship
fashionable again. This could be the subject of a public
relations campaign by our governments. Our monopolized, corporate
press has been selling disenfranchisement, nihilism and cynicism for a
long time. This has to be undone. We have to teach our
society that it's honestly NOT COOL to "not give a ____." The
"Rebel without a Cause" was Bullshit. It was pre-packaged
apathy. Rather than rebelling against each other, mindful
citizens will reform our corrupt system.
- Forthright, Accounable government
- Defend the Constitution
- Restore the Bill of Rights
- Separation of Church and State
- Freedom of Speech, Freedom of
Privacy, Freedom from Torture, Rights to Fair Trial, etc, etc...
- Abolish "Corporate Personhood" (possibly
by changing 14th Amendment language to say "natural person")
- Impeach Dick
Cheney and
George W. Bush and then try them in court (for
betrayal of the
public trust, war crimes and crimes against humanity)
- Regain
popular representation of one U.S.
House representative per 30,000 people.
- Rescind U.S.A. Patriot Act and Military
Commissions Act.
- Use inherent contempt procedures against
all who ignore congressional subpoenas.
- Strengthen Conflict-of-interest
legislation and enforcement, in order to prevent lobbyists from
becoming lawmakers and vice-versa within 5 years.
- Make Healthcare and Education Free for
all Americans. Make us a Strong and Smart country.
- Make the Internet Free and pass a
Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing neutrality. This falls
under Education as well as the Press.
- Work through the current 2-party system
to move the government to the left (to represent human beings, rather
than corporations), and attain instant-runoff voting to enable better
future candidates and higher participation in the political process.
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2. Media
de-monopolization
- Government without effective press
oversight doesn't work. It isn't working, hasn't worked, and
won't work in the future. A
country that is deaf and blind lacks
the tools to make sound decisions. A
country without an effective press is BRAIN - DAMAGED. America is
BRAIN - DAMAGED.
- Use the Sherman AntiTrust Act
- Introducing Robert McChesney (Nation Article):
- "... antitrust should ...
return to its original populist purpose of breaking up concentrated
wealth as a cancer on democratic governance."
- The media oligarchy imply that their
stance is the
point of view of the majority. It's not. It's a scam and
it's getting people killed, cities flooded, countries destroyed and
towers collapsed.
- Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
- FAIR calls the "mainstream" out on
their misleading propaganda:
- A media that is largely owned by the
death and destruction industry, will encourage death and destruction. When people learn what
imperial war is all about, they don't support it.
- Competitive capitalism
(not the current Corporatist, Corrupt Cronyism that dominates our
markets today) would bring essential information to the populace.
- Air America
Radio, an upstart, populist alternative to the goose-stepping, bigoted
Right:
- Good information to the
people will result in intelligent policy.
- When Americans discover the
nature of tyranny, they dismantle it.
- Injustices
and Atrocities must be exposed
- Whistleblowers
Must be Heard
- Government
Accountability Project
- Make the FCC a true protector of a free
press.
- Bring
back the Fairness Doctrine (in monopolized
markets only)
- Eliminate Censorship. Censorship
is
lying.
- Keep the Internet Neutral
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3. Electoral
and
campaign reform
- Instant Runoff Voting would get better
officials into office and enable more parties.
- Federal
election
standard procedures in every precinct.
- Mandatory
impartial exit-polling and free recounts
- Mandatory
free air time for candidates on commercial airwaves.
- Automatic
voter registration for all citizens
- Enforced
penalties for voter
disenfranchisement and intimidation.
- Publicly-owned and audited,
easily verifiable and recountable voting
machines and software.
- Removal of corporate funding
from election campaigns
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4. Sustainability
Clean Energy
http://www.wecansolveit.org/
Energy
independence.
- Peak
Oil
- SOLAR ENERGY IS PART OF THE
SOLUTION.
- Imagine Clean, abundant
energy, generated at plants, at home, in cars.
- Imagine pulling up to a
"gas-station" and having your car battery changed in less time than it
used to take to fill a tank with gasoline.
- Stirling Energy Systems, Inc. is
becoming a major player in the Clean Energy Revolution.
They use Concentrated Solar heat power to run heat-engines that
generate a LOT of electricity, in both centralized and distributed
solution scenarios. Find out more about Stirling at http://www.stirlingenergy.com/.
- American
Solar Energy Society
Supply
Water
Food
Shelter
Safety
Environment
- To save
our
species from extinction
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- Bring back the EV1
car, or something that good, that doesn't spew poison into our air and
water.
- Disable
corporate polluters
Global Warming
- What, you haven't seen Al
Gore's movie yet?
Localization
Community Gardens
Fewer
cars
Human-scale
cities and towns
Sprawl
Sucks. Learn more about sprawl at www.sprawlcity.org. Even if
we had all the gas in the world and it would last forever, suburban
sprawl is a very bad idea.
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"Never doubt that
a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the
world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
--Margaret Mead
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Do you love America? Do you believe in the freedom and justice
represented by the flag of the United States? Are you concerned about
things that are happening in America today? Want to get involved? Want
to make some changes? Fed up? Take Action! Hold your representative
government accountable! Apathy, resignation and ignorance are the
causes of the problems in the world today. You have the resources to
make a difference.
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Get informed!
Book-mark this site.
Know the
Problems
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Learn what others
have
learned.
Learn about people who have run afoul
of the Power Structure:
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Lynne
Stewart
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Ward
Churchill
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Mumia
Abu Jamal
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Leonard
Peltier
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Sami Al
Arian
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Jose
Padilla
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1lt Ehren K. Watada
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Republic
Under Attack
Hoarders of concentrated Capital have been attacking our
republic since its inception. During the Civil war and ever since
it, their assault vehicle has been in the form of the modern
corporation. Government of, by
and for corporations is Corporatism. Corporatism is Fascism.
All 14
Characteristics of fascism deserve attention, but in my opinion, today
the following issues require immediate action:
- Suppression
of Dissent
- Corporate efforts to restrict Internet
Access
- "Free Speech" pens
- Removal of Citizens from public events
based on their T-Shirts or Bumper-Stickers
- 2006 State of the Union Address
incidents
- Attacks
on Courts
- Dependence
on Fossil Fuels
- Incipient
Theocracy
- Lawless
Officials
 - Runaway
Corruption
- 9/11
- Destruction of the Middle Class
- De-stabilization of the Union
- Threat of Balkanization
- Threat of Revolution and dissolution
of Republic
- It's one thing to continue to
oppress the poor. It's another entirely to strip the affluent of
their lifestyles.
- Incipient Police-State
- Prison-Industrial Complex
- Drug War
- 50% of all U.S. Prisoners
- Mercenary Industry
- Extraordinary Rendition
- Domestic Spying
- www.ccr-ny.org
- Diplomatic,
Fiscal and
Military
Recklessness
- Debt
- Trade Defecit
- Loss of Sovereignty
- Loss of Manufacturing Base
- Belligerence over Diplomacy
- Corporate Personhood
- Monopolized,
Corporatist/Federalist
Press
- Our Republic will
not survive without an
effective, free and un-monopolized marketplace of ideas.
- If Fox News is
interviewing Anne Coulter on
Channel 6, then we need Amy Goodman interviewing Arundhati Roy or Noam
Chomsky on Channel 7.
- In the absence of
that level of market
integrity, we should re-institute the Fairness-Doctrine
(undone by the influence of corporatist interests in 1988) as an
interim
measure. When the Fairness-Doctrine was rescinded, thousands of
broadcast-stations virtually became corporatist soap-boxes in support
of incipient modern-day feudalism.
- Public
Broadcasting (thru tax dollars) and
Community-Supported stations should be broadened immensely. This
is because real news is generally not a profitable enterprise in
comparison with junk entertainment.
- Voter Suppression and Fraud
in Campaigns and elections that favor money over people.
- Popular
Apathy, Resignation and Ignorance
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Take
Action!
What
you
can do right off the bat:
Demand Accountability!
Wrong
is Just Plain Wrong.
Investigate.
Impeach.
Why?
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Tell
your Legislators to support HR635 for
investigations leading to impeachment.
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Re-Open the
9/11 Investigation
Follow the Cheney
/ Libby / Plame scandal and communicate about it.
Watch who's implicated by associations with Jack Abramoff
Join with John
Conyers and Russ Feingold in Censuring
Bush in the leadup to impeachment.
Throw out the Electronic Voting Machines (at least get a paper receipt)
If Canada can
do it, WE can do it.
Speak Out against War!
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Join key
organizations!
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Unions
There
are those who own the shop, and there are those who work in the shop.
Which one are you?
At work, If
you're not in the union, you shouldn't be complaining!
The
chief protector of People against
Fascism is Unions.
When
you
hear the Unions being attacked, when you find your opinion inclined to
be anti-union based on "gut feeling" (generated by persistent,
pervasive corporate media), fascism is at work.
AFL-CIO
AFGE
(American Federation of Government Employees)
Industrial
Workers of the
World IWW
("Wobblies")
National
Education Association NEA
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Support good
leaders!
Bernie Sanders
Russ Feingold
Could clean up our
elections
Patrick
Leahy
Dennis Kucinich
John Conyers
Robert Byrd
Al Gore
Great
Rhetoric.. but
Why did he roll over in 2000? He's DLC
too (Hey.. Maybe THAT's why) and that's not
good. What IS good is his speech on
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday, 16 January 2006, regarding current,
un-constitutional abuse of powers by the executive branch HERE.
Transcript of Al Gore
speech 16 Jan 2006 HERE
and HERE.
Contact your federal legislators.
Talk
to people you know and work with
Post flyers (one about the novel "Just Say NO to Fascism" HERE).
Bulletin Boards
Door to Door
Sign a petition or start your own.
http://www.petitionsonline.com/
Show Up!
Register
to vote and visit the polls. Better
yet, sign up for absentee ballot voting. Register
others to vote.
MAKE
A
SIGN. GO OUTSIDE WITH
IT. HOLD IT UP.
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