Who is fooling who here?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

[darkangel218]

1. Who/what are you referring to?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. Class warfare.

[DetlefK]

3. They spend most of their workhours fundraising and connecting. (Not kidding!)

I read an article a while ago that detailed the first days of a newly-elected congressman (don't remember whether D or R). He was shocked to learn how many hours (4? 5? 6? don't remember exactly) per day his colleagues spend for fundraising, meetings, conferences with lobbyists... and when he asked whether that's normal, they gave him a strange look.

[pinboy3niner]

4. Probably this story at HuffPo (LINK):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/08/call-time-congressional-fundraising_n_2427291.html

[LuvNewcastle]

6. Just think how much more time they would have for serving us

if we had publicly funded elections. No more fundraising. Less influence from lobbyists. Also, they could be in session for a few months out of the year, get their business done, and spend the rest of their time in their districts. Publicly funded elections would solve a heap of problems.

[Dustlawyer]

8. That is what I have been posting daily for over a year now! Keep it up and in 10 years we

might have most of the people at DU saying the same! Lol. This is the way to attack the ROOT CAUSE of most of our problems, corrupt Congressmen and women controlled by the large donors!

[Jackpine Radical]

10. Yes, you've been entirely consistent on that theme.

And I doubt that anyone here actually doubts that you are right. However, bringing it off is somewhat difficult since it requires people who are deeply embedded in the money-drenched system of American politics to vote against their own financial interests.

Most of the people at the levers of power are totally sold out to the machine that they operate. We can count the few exceptions on our digits without having to remove more than one shoe.

[Dustlawyer]

13. I don't expect the politicians to ever do it (vote to end their money machine), I hope that

some event will spur a much bigger and sustained OWS or American Spring, except this time we focus on only Campaign finance reform. Will it ever happen, who knows, but it is all I can do right now to keep hammering away at this. I just get frustrated that all of these intelligent people here at DU get upset about their personal issues, be they gun control, or immigration, or whatever, and they march and protest those issues without realizing that real change for their issue(s) requires REAL CHANGE in how we elect our so called Representatives.

[Jackpine Radical]

17. There is no doubt that only systemic change will mitigate the corruption in the system.

And I say "mitigate" because I know that unscrupulous people always find a way to subvert every system.

In fact, it was that recognition that caused various Communist theorists to talk about the "permanent revolution," which they envisioned as self-cleaning. But of course nobody ever came up with a way to keep that process of "permanent revolution" from itself being corrupted.

Sometimes I despair of humans, as we are presently constituted, ever building a system that is better than we, in our venal little souls, manage to be. Therefore I think the only path to real change lies in a massive transformation of our values.

While that sounds impossible to attain, I do see some signs of such processes starting to take form. I would point to the Occupy movement as one of those signs. I'm particularly interested in its leaderless nature. However, such an entity is something like an organism in itself, and I imagine that any capacity it has for focusing on a specific goal must arise from the consensus process.

I keep bringing up a fascinating book in this context--Brafman & Beckstrom's The Starfish and the Spider.

http://www.amazon.com/Starfish-Spider-Unstoppable-Leaderless-Organizations/dp/1591841836/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379599679&sr=1-1&keywords=brafman+starfish+spider

If you cut off a spider?s head, it dies; if you cut off a starfish?s leg it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top-down organizations are like spiders, but now starfish organizations are changing the face of business and the world.

What?s the hidden power behind the success of Wikipedia, craigslist, and Skype? What do eBay and General Electric have in common with the abolitionist and women?s rights movements? What fundamental choice put General Motors and Toyota on vastly different paths?

Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom have discovered some unexpected answers, gripping stories, and a tapestry of unlikely connections. The Starfish and the Spider explores what happens when starfish take on spiders and reveals how established companies and institutions, from IBM to Intuit to the U.S. government, are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success.

[Cryptoad]

18. Money is Power

and Politicians do not relinquish power readily !

Never have ~ never will!

[Jackpine Radical]

19. That is correct.

[LiberalLovinLug]

20. The only person who could spearhead it is Obama

He cannot run again. There is no danger of being blacklisted by corporate donors. It would be nice if he'd make a public stand on this issue.

[Half-Century Man]

12. I'll say it again

go to wolf-pac.com
sign the petition, become a member, and help do it.

[Cal33]

15. Yes, but the objective of the GOP is not to solve problems, but to create more of them. Haven't

you noticed? Their objective is to confuse the American people, because confused people
are easier to twist around your finger.

[formercia]

16. Simple Solution:

Take the Money out of Politics.

[irisblue]

5. Sadly, the Republicans manage to consistently

fool more then 45% of Americans. Very sad

[Larry Ogg]

9. And the Democrats manage to fool another 45%...

And it's all made possible because we have a two party pretend democracy that is mostly financed by and for the benefit of the 1%. Or to put it more acuratly... Rich predators tax cuts at work!

.

[bhikkhu]

21. So the democrats secretly want to cuts jobs and pay and trash the economy

for the benefit of the wealthy, while the GOP does it openly? I'd like to see a test where we elect a majority of democrats to the house and test that theory.

Perhaps you haven't been paying attention to the back-and-forth of legislation in the past few years, and the voting records of the two parties.

[1StrongBlackMan]

7. Please add ...

Last edited Fri Sep 20, 2013, 08:05 AM - Edit history (1)

"... seven months a year and earns 550% of the median income of the American worker."

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Ain't that the truth!

The existing system draws for dull-witted, self-serving opportunists, and that's mostly what we have gotten in both parties, sadly. And if by some chance they aren't that way when they hit the corridors of power, the system quickly goes to work to integrate them into the corruption. Few resist it.

[1StrongBlackMan]

22. I'll grant you ...

self serving and opportunist; but to be honest ... very few are dim-witted. The skill set to be a successful politician (especially on the national scene) probably exceeds that of just about any other career field.

BTW ... I noticed right below your comment on the corruptive power of the system, you have a "Warren 2016 thingy ... are you being predictive?

[Jackpine Radical]

23. There are some who resist the corruption.

Feingold was certainly one of them, and I hope Liz is too.

As to the dim-witted part, I may grant you that (with some exceptions), provided we consider terms such as crafty, wily, artful, guileful, devious, sly, scheming, designing, calculating, Machiavellian as antonyms for "dull-witted."

[1StrongBlackMan]

24. LOL ...

As to the dim-witted part, I may grant you that (with some exceptions), provided we consider terms such as crafty, wily, artful, guileful, devious, sly, scheming, designing, calculating, Machiavellian as antonyms for "dull-witted."

Actually, I do ... not that I aspire to any of those terms ... well, maybe "artful", "designing" and maybe even Machiavellian."

[Nuclear Unicorn]

14. heh