Can you help me get Un-Rejected?

When I am passionate about something, I don't take rejection well.

I would like to market the idea of pegging Congressional seats to a population number (about 300,000) and not the fixed 435 chips that get spread all over the place. 

Last year I tried to get a slot at Netroots Nation and got rejected.

This year, I have proposed this to the folks at the PA Progressive Summit - again i got stuffed.  I am asking them to reconsider. Check out who they have attending this year and their workshops and such... http://www.paprogressivesummit.org/. I think I belong here.

I need your help with getting them to allow me the space to present.

If you like this idea I need you to contact info@paprogressivesummit.org, telling them you like what you see here and it is worth it hear this idea out.

Some of where this presentation will go.

Q: What does this table show?
(Sorry, you will need to scroll to the far right to see the whole thing here.)

Census	1900	1910	1920	1930	1940	1950	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2010
Pennsylvania Population Since 1900	6,302,115	7,665,111	8,720,017	9,631,350	9,900,180	10,498,012	11,319,366	11,793,909	11,863,895	11,881,643	12,281,054	12,702,379
Change in Population		1,362,996	1,054,906	911,333	268,830	597,832	821,354	474,543	69,986	17,748	399,411	421,325
Congresspeople	32	36	36	34	33	30	27	25	23	21	19	18
People to Congressperson Ratio	196,941	212,920	242,223	283,275	300,005	349,934	419,236	471,756	515,822	565,793	646,371	705,688
Effective Representation	1.00000	0.92495	0.81306	0.69523	0.65646	0.56280	0.46976	0.41746	0.38180	0.34808	0.30469	0.27908

Effective Representation is using the 1900 ratio as a baseline.
Population figures are from the US Census.

Answer:

The Population of Pennsylvania has doubled since 1900 and the representation in Congress has been split in almost half.  We have about ¼ the Congressperson we had in 1900.

Stupid Questions:

• Can you say we have a Representative Democracy or Republic or whatever you want to call it?
• Is fixing this issue by pegging Congressional Seats vital to having a functional system of government?
• How is not having a representative federal government NOT a Progressive Issue?
• Throughout the 19^th Century Congress was increased with population.  Is this a Constitutional Crisis since the framers of the Constitution used the Virginia Compromise to get the Constitution ratified?
• Is it any wonder Congress is broken?

If they do reconsider and accept the idea.  I promise a fun approach to this very dry subject.

Again -if you like this idea I need you to contact info@paprogressivesummit.org, telling them you like what you see here and it is worth it hear this idea out.

I could really use a hand here.  I appreciate it.

Occupy Movement is Animal Farm Herding Cats.

Occupy Whatever has become what they are fighting.

I went to Occupy Philly and found that an individual cannot petition the government system they have installed. This is the story of how this movement is already off the rails.


In my last Huffington Post piece (Link) I proposed the Occupy Movement invite everyone running for office in the next election to speak before them.

Rather than just run my mouth online about this, I went down to Occupy Philly during a down time to find out how to do this. Spent the better part of Tuesday night (from about 9:30 pm to 2 am) speaking to people about this proposal. I found a lot of people liked this idea.

None of the people on the ground I spoke to were associated with the "Working Groups". I am convinced the Occupy Movement has been co-opted by the Legal Industrial Complex.
The "Working Groups" is where I found resistance.

The first wall of resistance was from a "Democracy Outreach Group". What Occupy Philly has done is created a complete bureaucracy for their operations. I had to get through at least 3 people before I got someone to tell me they would not do this because it would jeopardize their IRS 503c Status. "We cannot endorse people, or we would be seen as political and we would be jailed for tax evasion".

My first thoughts - If putting tents up in the City Hall Courtyard cannot be construed as political, then what is political? Do I still speak English?

My second thought was about how folks here are complaining about how the money has co-opted the process. If the leaders of this group (yes there are leaders - it takes time to find them, but they are there) are already more concerned about keeping a tax status rather than doing things to advance Democracy then the Legal Industrial Complex is winning.

The amateur lawyer passed me to the next person who said that we would have to invite everybody? My response was - "Yeah - that is the point. We would need to invite everyone who is stepping up for their communities to see what they have to say."

There is an undercurrent that all politicians are evil. That is a damaging prejudicial statement. Yes - it is a form of bigotry - just like sneering when you say Tea Bagger , Liberal Pinko Commie, Tree hugger, Fascist, Pig or whatever it is that sits across from you on the political spectrum.

Good people step up to run for office. They put their lives on hold. They put the jobs at bay. They sacrifice time with their kids (a sacrifice that I could not make).

To do what - Serve their communities.

To get what - A ration of garbage from people who do not understand the system they are railing against. To get their reputations impugned for even stepping up.

It has to stop. Because the more you denigrate those who serve you the more you will get exactly the people you may not want to step up.

The Occupy Movement would not have to formally endorse anyone, but allowing these folks to present themselves before the Occupy Movement will create the interaction that may allow minds to be changed on both sides of the process. If an individual occupier is sparked by what a particular candidate says, there is nothing wrong with the candidate giving a phone list or other campaign contact material to an Occupier so they can help out. It is a form of political speed dating.

Besides, in this environment, just showing up to an Occupier forum says something about the bravery of the candidate. (I would give bonus points to any GOP candidate that has the stones to present themselves.) The Occupiers can see who may be with them. There is going to be an election on November 8th whether they are Occupying or not. Wouldn't be better to know who may be sympathetic to you.

Being passed from group to group I learned there are not written rules of engagement here. My brain spinning, I went home.

I returned on Thursday during the day with the hopes of getting to speak before the General Assembly. This idea of inviting candidates is now constrained by time. Contact needed to be made with the Boards of elections to get contact information together to reach out to those running. To do this properly, a schedule would need to be set so that a couple of hundred candidates could be evaluated in a reasonable manner while respecting their schedules of the jobs and the campaigns they are running locally. If a candidate wanted to bring some of their people with them to check out the Occupy movement first hand; networking and connections could be made.

It is Thursday night, an OK from the General Assembly would allow me or others to contact the boards of elections in the 5 county Philly area to get the names to start contacting candidates over the weekend. Time is tight, but doable in a sane manner. Losing Friday and the weekend (we are dealing with the county governments here) contacting candidates would not be able to start until at least the middle of next week. You lose the sanity factor and it becomes a half-baked process. Everyone looks bad.

The only way to bring something up for a discussion at a General Assembly - where the work of this "Organization" get done - is to form a working group, get it approved, then present your working group to a at least 2 other committees BEFORE you may speak formally.

Again - Victory to the Legal Industrial Complex - It is Briefs over Boxers.

As I was trying to shepherd this process I was getting resistance and bad information from a number of people within the Occupy Working Groups as to how and when these things may be done.
I was finally told of the "Facilitators Work Group". These are the people really running the show. They are the gatekeepers of the General Assembly. I found where and when they were meeting after being given yet another run around by the Democracy In Action Group (I hope I spelled that right, it may be called the Democracy Inaction Group).

I went to where Facilitators were meeting and prior to the start of their business I attempted to explain the situation. I was told that since I am an individual with an idea - I had no standing to even speak to these people.

It blew me away that this movement about Freedom, had created a rule system so restrictive that an individual could not speak or seek redress.

One of the people who gave me the bum steers approached the group area and irritated, I said that he gave me bad information.
His response was - "I will get Security".
My response was - "Maybe you should get them".
"Are you threatening me?"
"No, but if you feel safer having security, maybe you should go get them."

He took his place among the Facilitators Work Group and stepping away I began to think about how the government at large uses their security forces. Again, an example of how Occupy Philly is replicating the system they are railing against.

Briefs over Boxers once again.

The General Assembly started around 7pm. Evidently, I would be allowed to speak to the General Assembly as part of The Stack. But I was told no one would act on my idea. There were reports from about 20 of the working groups.

Then were the proposals that the Facilitators had approved for presentation. The first proposal was to limit the General Assemblies from twice a day to once a day. After it was approved, I started to think about how the government limits access to their meetings too. Another great comparison to how this "Democracy" is mimicking what they are railing against.

The next 3 hours was a discussion about a letter the City of Philadelphia sent to Occupy Philly. They wanted to meet with leaders of the group to find a place for the protest to go later in November when construction will start around City Hall. The Occupiers had their list of demands too - basically they want some police behaviors to be modified.
The problem is the facilitators do not know how to run a meeting. None of them every bothered to look at Roberts Rules. Roberts Rules is the How-To book on running a meeting - you know facilitation. The General Assembly stacked up with amendment after amendment that could not be managed.
It was very easy for those who do not want to talk to the city to completely gum up the works so that nothing was done. I thought I was looking at Congress - but don't tell the Occupiers because they would get insulted.

Ironically one of the legal team (about to be co-opted by the ACLU and some National Lawyers Guild or something) actually offered up the method to short circuit the entire Occupy Process. So paranoid was this member of the legal team she said that the City could overwhelm a General Assembly with 200 paid city employees and take over.

The Government does not need police with batons and riot gear to make this go away. If City wants to make the Occupy Movement go away the cops, in uniform (I think most of them ARE in the 99%), could form a working group, issue a proposal to decertify and shut down the whole thing. It would not be hard to use the Occupiers own rigid system against them.

BTW, when I got to the stage to speak my peace - I got about a minute to speak before I was pushed out of the way. I get more respect from my all GOP Board of Township Supervisors. (I may have created an opening on the board by giving one of them a heart attack after reading that.)

The last thing I said dropping off the stage was...

"Is this what Democracy really looks like?"

My Charles Bronson Movie

This may be the edgiest piece I have ever written.

As we celebrate – yes celebrate - the execution of Troy Davis I started to think of a neat little movie to write.

What – you don’t think we are celebrating his death in this society.  I am sorry, but was that cheers I heard when it was noted how many people were “put down” in Texas over the last few years?  Or do I have a hearing impediment when I heard “Let him die” at the big GOP debate?

This is the people we have become.  We love violence – we put crosshairs on our leaders and wonder we are so coarse.

Out institutions are so screwed up that punishment of those with ties never quite matches the crimes.   Look at the Lackawanna judges who put kid after kid away for their own profit.  Look at the prosecutor of the Duke Lacrosse case.  Since we are running a for-profit prison system in this country; I wonder how many innocents they placed in jail as they have created their own reasonable doubt?  (BTW, isn’t that for-profit prison business being paid for by taxpayers anyway?)

But I was thinking about writing a movie that picks up today – about Troy Davis.  My movie would open with a fictional Troy Davis being put down.  The facts and the doubts would be roughly the same.  In my fictional version the executed would have a son.  The news people would be all over kid are part of today’s news.  The Nancy Grace-like smarmyness would infect the kid.

The real killer of the cop would be found and would confess of his own volition – to the kid and the authorities who do nothing. The kid grows up with revenge on his mind.  He learns the trade of death by reading mysteries and takes criminal justice courses in college. 

 

He has his targets lined up: the prosecutor who withheld the evidence, the judge who stopped the testimony that would have exonerated the father, the parole board, the governor, the media maven who tried and convicted for fun and profit on TV (she wrote a book after the execution detailing what she knew and did not reveal at the time).  Even AFTER it was obvious that each of these folks lied for their own reasons – they still each had an untaken chance to undo the execution of the innocent man – each let the man die.

The kid hunts each of his targets.  Some show remorse and are grateful for the chance to make it up to the kid.  The revenge here is to assist the kid in the next target.  

Some are already dead with a letter of an apology.

For some – the sight of the kid induces suicide. 

Some show remorse but are useless to his cause.  They are put down the same way the father was, by another target.

He lets the senile go.

Some are so callous and unfeeling they tell the kid they would do it again even WITH the conflicting information.  The kid knows killing this person will do nothing so he kills her family in front of her.

When the kid has meted out his justice he turns himself in.   He is brought before a jury.  He admits his guilt.  He also stands defiant as he lays out the fact no one sought justice for HIS father. 

He gets off.

Why $250,000 as the Cutoff? or WWJD with that Cash?

The big fiscal legislative issue of the lame duck session was the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts. Everyone gets something? Nobody gets anything? Do we go in the middle with some number picked out of the air?

I guess the $250,000 number was a campaign promise from 2008 that needs to be honored.

But seriously, you can't make it on $250,000 PER YEAR?

People actually have the unmitigated gall to complain about this?

Part of the reasoning of the rich and greedy was, "We need to extend the Bush Tax Cuts to keep the Economy Productive!"

If the Bush Tax Cuts were supposed to spur jobs; where are they? We should be up to our ears in job openings right now.

If those who benefited from the Bush Tax Cuts were going to create jobs, they would have by now. They haven't; therefore, we need to make the cuts go away for at least those making more than $250k per year. I don't what to hear the "fairness" whining from the BMW crowd.

The reasoning behind the whining is that you can't raise taxes during:

1. A recession
2. A depression
3. A flush economy
4. A snowstorm
5. A year starting with a "2"

All of these seem to be really valid reasons to stop raising taxes. (Read this as sardonic)

I know I have a hard time wrapping my small wallet around that $250k number. I am sure most of you reading this may feel the same way. But I am not going to make this a class-warfare argument to extend the cuts for those under $250k, but not over the magic number.

I am going to make it a competency issue.

Let's take as a given we live in a capitalist system. That system only works properly when there is a free flow of cash. Money brought into the system is then sent out again in the form of reinvestment. If we stop reinvesting in the system we get a clogged system (kinda like your home plumbing). Yeah some stuff may get through, but we will have an eventual large and smelly problem.

Those people who are making more than $250k per year and are not reinvesting it are the problem. They are the clog. We tarp'ed them; we stimulated them; and still nothing. They are either greedy or incompetent. If they are greedy, tax the hell out of them! None of us have any sympathy for them.

If they are incompetent we need to use the tax laws to make them competent. If you are bringing in that kind of coin and can't figure out how to shelter it to get it under $250K, I don't think you can handle that kind of cash.

Sorry, you need to flush it back into the system. Create a small business entity that will hire somebody to do something. There are plenty of people who would love the opportunity to do something. There are a lot of hard luck cases right now that you can hire. Would you rather a tax bill go to the government or a neighbor down the street who needs a job?

The tax laws are such that you can do this. Incorporate yourself, pay yourself a salary out of the corporation and set the corporation to do other stuff. Talk to an accountant. Get you number under $250k and start producing for the economy. You want to make money - invest it in our people. I want you to make money. Really, I do! The more people you hire the quicker we get the economy back.

Otherwise, if you don't do this, then you don't deserve to have that much money.

This is no different than the Parable of the Talents from the Gospel (Matthew 25:14-30).

If you are unfamiliar with this particular story it is the one where 3 guys walk in to a bar (a rabbi, a priest and a duck) and...

Oh, no, sorry - different parable...

3 guys are given various sums of talents (or cash) by their master. The master goes away and leaves these guys to their own devices. 2 of the guys push the limits with their cash and double their investments. The third guy buries on the cash and didn't get anything for it.

The master comes back and gives big atta-boys to the two guys who tried. The master looks at the third guy and gives him the "What-the-hell-did-you-do-nothing-for" speech.

Moral of the story: Take your Talents (read:Cash) and make them multiply. Bury them and you should get ripped a new one from Jesus Christ (and the IRS).

Pay 2 Play at the Iowa Straw Poll

I like to wait until the smoke clears in the mainstream media and find an unoccupied spot on the chessboard to make a stand.

The Iowa Straw Poll was over the weekend and I became interested when Steven Colbert took his SuperPac Money and started running ads.

The thought of messing with Rick Parry (with an A) instead of Rick Perry (with an E) was a really cool idea. I hope he extends this into other situations.

What I didn't realize until I looked further into it was each of those voters had to pay $30 to vote in the Straw Poll. This blew me away for a couple of reasons.

1. It is not a good thermometer to take the temperature of an electorate that is essentially broke.
2. I cannot believe that Colbert's iteration of Rick Parry gathered no votes. If they were counted in with Rick Perry - then the Colbert Nation did have a significant impact. I hope that the Colbert SuperPac employs a lawyer or two to impound the ballots and demand a recount. If the GOP cannot run a fair election within it's own party - how can anyone expect fairness at a larger level?
3. Based on the results of the Straw Poll - Tim Pawlenty dropped out. I didn't think that his demographics were going to be the frothing-at-the-mouth Republican that would put the family food money on the table to vote for him. I got the impression that he was going for a more moderate and reasonable crowd. He would never get a crowd this intense.
4. Since Michele Bachmann won this poll with a total of 4832 votes, this election could have been had for the paltry sum of $200,000 ( 5000 votes to be bought * ($30 per vote plus $10 lunch money) ). It would have exposed the real nature of this type of polling.

If you think that $200,000 is a staggering amount - think about all the commercials that went into this. Think about all the media time it generated on the news stations. This was a product that was sold to the consumers as content on the national news cable stations. Wrapped around that content were advertisements. $200,000 is a drop in the bucket.

Stepping away from the Iowa Straw Poll makes me think the whole thing was gamed like a sleazy carnival's 11 foot basketball hoop.