PDF2008 - The Declaration for Independence

Talking about a "problem" - a pattern, a pathology - pattern of "4"s
Every four years, we have an explosion of Democratic energy and then "crash"
One night - everything focused on the one night, one year.

Problem: it won't save us. We depend too much, rely too much - on this fourth year.
Something much more fundamental wrong. Need something more than a Thursday night out.

Framers were obsessed with "independence" - not 1776, but 1785 - dream of the republic of America was failing.
That their goal of independence - meaning lack of dependence. They sought non-dependent, they were searching for the "constitutions" to overcome this.

Bribery was not a crime until 1853. In some districts, up to 25% of the voters had their votes purchases.

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But today, the individuals are much better, but the pattern is much worth. Gov't is core to solving our problems - gov't fingers are everywhere. Return of going to Washington has a HIGHER return than simple competition.

Deep public skepticism - 88% in CA believe that money buys access.

This is the dependency of the Founders' fear.

Reagan requoting from others:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.

Crony capitalism - this is deadly in this government.


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What is the cost of this corruption?
Telecoms Bill - Gore suggested revised it to have all of the Internet under Title 7 - Congress says no - how much extortion-enabling legislation would there be?

Not all of the cases that government considers are HARD, they are 2+2=4 cases.
Sonny Bono Copyright action - the act -does it advanced the "public good".

Consensus on nutrition - Daily sugar intake - 10% versus 25%.
Consensus on global warming - 1. GW is real, 2. Humans are responsible, 3. It is very bad, 4. We need to fix it, 5. Not too late. In research, 100% agreed. But in public media - 53% disagreed - because of the junk science.

Not the problem of BIG GOVT, it destroys the conditions of trust. In 1998, altoplace was tested - AHA decided it was "safe". All but one dissented and then the AHA removed the dissenting doctor. Turns out Genetech gave $11M to AHA. Removed conditions of trust.

March 4th - House rejected immunity, June 20th: they passed it. MAPLight reports that 2X the money from telecoms went to people who changed their vote. 88% believe their government is bought.

We need to remove


<4>Need more than Thursdays - need a sustained focus, effort - CHANGE CONGRESS [beta]
google mashup - clusters of issues - money, representation, integrity.

• No money from lobbyists/PACS
• Reform earmarks
• Support public finance of public elections
• Support transparency

Wiki Workers - focusing on a sustainable effort to change the dependency on the system.

http://www.change-congress.org

Need to have you join us.


There is a flaw at the core of the People's House - we will not change the core with Thursdays. Just not enough. Need to break our dependencies on these Thursdays. Need to break their dependency - by breaking ours.

Think of the dependency on alcoholism - might be losing his family, job, liver - needs to solve these problems by solving the alcoholism and then to solve the other problems.

We will not solve these other national problems (copyright, etc) if we do not solve the basic problem of Congress.

Join us. http://change-congress.org