A few weeks ago, I argued that America had become an oligarchy, run by the rich.
I also pointed out that this pretty much started under Reagan.
A recent study by Princeton confirms both of my points — that our government is now run by and for the very rich, and this has been happening since Reagan drastically reduced taxes on the 1% and got rid of regulations that prevented the kind of abuses that have led to the wealth in our country being divided in a way it hasn’t been in a hundred years.
We can fix this. We outnumber them. We can outvote them all.
But this won’t happen until we make it happen. And that means telling both parties that we won’t put up with it any more.
How do we outvote them?
For a bill to be put onto a ballot doesn’t it need one of these ‘well paid’ people to actually put it there for us to vote on it? What person is going to put a ballot out that says “Vote to get me fired and take away my six figure salary I make by attending 20 days of work.”?
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There are ways for the people to get measures on the ballot, but the method varies from state to state. So it can be done. Left to themselves, none of the Congress people will put a measure up that is against their own interest, even if it is in the best interest of the country. We need to find out how to do this. It might be the only way to overturn Citizens United and get term limits instated.
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I’m mostly referring to voting out the bad guys and electing good guys. The bottom line is that there are more of us than them, and if we all just voted, things would be much different. The problem is that people don’t vote — and the ones that do tend to be angrier and more conservative than the population as a whole and then they win.
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I agree with you, Mike. But the other side of the coin is that the bad guys have so much more money to spend on campaigning that the good guys can’t compete. There isn’t a level playing field, and until there is some sort of campaign reform it’s going to be an uphill battle. Although I was just talking about voter apathy the other day, and I really don’t know what can be done to motivate the people that don’t vote. I mean, if things are this bad in our country and that doesn’t motivate them to stand up and be heard, what will?
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All we need is one more Democrat on the Supreme Court and the campaign finance stuff will change; they may also rule on gerrymandering too. And those are the two biggest things standing in our way right now.
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