Here are some questions for Senators Shelby and Sessions, Representatives Bachus and Sewell, and Alabama Senator Beason:
1. How significant do you think the problem is for the American people of the corrupted system of politics and governance that is centered in Washington DC?
2. Do you think that corruption is a contributing factor to the polarization and gridlock that exists in Washington DC and that impairs the ability of Congress and the President to try to solve in an acceptable way the extremely difficult problems of the economy, healthcare and other problems that we have in the United States?
3. If corruption, polarization and gridlock in Washington DC are significant problems for the American people, what do you propose to do about them?
4. Do you think amending the First Amendment to be applicable only to human beings would significantly reduce the problems of corruption, polarization and gridlock in Washington DC and would result in a better ability of the Congress and President to help the country solve its problems?
1/19/12 -Foregoing questions have been submitted to Senators Shelby (by Senate online email) and Sessions (by Senate online email), Representatives Bachus (by House online email) and Sewell (by campaign email address), and Alabama Senator Scott Beason (by campaign online email).
1/20/12 - Birmingham Occupy event is 11 am to 1 pm today, Friday, January 20, 2012. I will walk around the 20th Street and 5th Ave. area with a sign in the morning before the event. At the event I will have two signs and two leaflet handouts:
My signs will say:
Occupy The Courts Day - January 20, 2012
End Washington DC corruption and gridlock
Amend the First Amendment to be for human beings only
Get info @ retire_Bachus
One leaflet will read:
January 20, 2012 --Occupy the Courts Day
This event at the Hugo Black United States Courthouse in Birmingham is part of a national event sponsored by MovetoAmend.org. We demand that Congress immediately debate and approve an amendment to the First Amendment limiting it to human beings and put the amendment out to the 50 state legislatures for ratification. The goal is to end corruption and gridlock in Washington DC.
For links to more information, go on twitter to: @retire_Bachus.
The below questions have been submitted to Senators Shelby and Sessions, Representatives Bachus and Sewell, and Alabama Senator Beason:
1. How significant do you think the problem is for the American people of the corrupted system of politics and governance that is centered in Washington DC?
2. Do you think that corruption is a contributing factor to the polarization and gridlock that exists in Washington and that impairs the ability of Congress and the President to try to solve in an acceptable way the extremely difficult problems of the economy, healthcare and other problems that we have in the United States?
3. If corruption, polarization and gridlock in Washington are significant problems for the American people, what are you doing about them?
4. Do you think amending the First Amendment to be applicable only to human beings would significantly reduce the problems of corruption, polarization and gridlock in Washington and would result in a better ability of the Congress and President to help the country solve its problems?
The other leaflet will read:
Corruption and gridlock in a nutshell
Whenever government intrudes in the commercial world, businesses naturally exert efforts and spend monies to get an advantage for, or at least protect, their particular business interest That business interest is virtually their only concern, and they do not care much about what the government does outside their narrow business niche (hence the term “special interest”).
American politicians need lots of money to get elected and stay in office, and much of that must come from the special interests. That means politicians exert themselves strenuously to try to do the bidding of their special interests. This, however, must be kept secret from the voters, and that is the corruption.
If an ordinary citizen is employed by a business that receives favorable treatment by the government, that ordinary citizen can get a small benefit from the corruption of the system. The small benefits that ordinary citizens get, however, are outweighed by other greater costs of a corrupted system.
For example, the recent health care law was a product of lawmakers doing the bidding (or making a show of doing the bidding) of hundreds of special interests in the health care field, and tacking on, or tweaking every which way, hundreds of minuscule clauses and subclauses in the bill before it was passed. The result was a monstrously long, complicated and convoluted law that has been jiggered to serve the swarms of special interests and that badly fails as a coherent, understandable and efficient legal and financial framework for addressing the health care needs of the country’s citizens. Needless to say, all the time spent by the politicians raising money and taking care of their special interests detracts from the time and effort they have for taking care of the citizens’ true business.
In the corrupted system in which pursuit of self-interest of the politicians and special interests dominates, it is useful to the politicians to keep the electorate divided into two sides (or more) and keep them constantly battling. This permits the politicians to have their respective supporters continously aroused and motivated to defeat the other side and also keeps the electorate from uniting to end the corrupt system. Thus the politicians endeavor to exploit and exacerbate partisan differences and magnify and distort the differences so that matters of relatively small import are blown all out of proportion. This is the polarization that leads to gridlock. It results in the diversion of unjustified amounts of time, energy and passion by the lawmakers and the country over relatively trivial matters, such as the recent months long brouhaha over the extension of the payroll tax reduction.
This is especially troublesome when it carries over to foreign policy. Unlike the domestic arena where different citizens will be affected differently and will be in competition for favorable treatment by the government, in foreign policy, there is much greater unity of interest of the American people. Yet the politicians will strive to find differences in foreign policy approach that they can use to keep their groups of voters aroused for them and against the politicians and voters on the other side. This can be dangerous for the country.
The politicians, the 1% who sit atop the special interests, and the lobbyists all benefit stupendously from the corrupted system. They want to keep the corrupted system the way it is. The corrupted system, on balance, is very bad for the rest of the country. The only way the citizens can change the corrupted system is to unite for that purpose and stay united against the politicians until the job is done.
Amending the First Amendment to be for human beings only will go a long way towards reducing the corruption of the system.
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