The 28th
Amendment: We the people are faced with a government that is gridlocked and
incapable of governing. No matter who we elect, no matter how inspirational the
ideas, no laws will be passed, no problems will be resolved, nothing will get
done. No one believes any longer in the possibility of compromise and good
governance. Our political system has deteriorated into a system of legalized
bribery and extortion. Lincoln famously observed that Republics do not last,
often they break apart under the stress of factionalism. Our Republic is in the
process of breaking apart due to factionalism, political dis-function, and
economic inequality. We have published a list of common sense reforms and laws
to rally around the greatest number of supporters to fix this sad state of
affairs. Our mass movement will force the political system to amend the
Constitution and permanently and forever change how our government functions.
We are not
going to fiddle with the knobs and make adjustments, we are going to flip the
script. Profound and immediate reform. Who is going to make it happen, who is
powerful enough? Women’s rights organizations, Black Lives Matter, Tea Party,
NRA, Gay rights, Occupy Wall Street, these groups and others are going to band
together and force these laws into existence, force the hand of the political
class to action. Why would all these groups work together?
The Platform
consists of a proposed constitutional amendments and over a dozen laws. The 28th
Amendment includes the public funding of elections, gun ownership rights, gay
rights, and revoking birthright citizenship. With the 28th Amendment
the political class will eat out of the public trough and not the corporate
trough, and from that seismic change many more reforms will evolve. Gun rights
will be permanently guaranteed, gay rights will be enshrined, and immigration
reform will take place without delay.
The other
elements of the platform are laws centered upon Tea Party inspired tax reform,
Black Lives Matter civil rights reforms, Occupy Wall Street reinstating the
Glass-Steagall Act, a $15/hr. Minimum Wage, a women’s rights and women’s health
initiative, internet users bill of rights, fair and just immigration reform, a
national energy plan, and a national industrial policy to put America back to
work.
These
reforms and laws are the basis of public demonstration and civil disobedience
against our government. Voting by itself will not fix the problems that
confront us. We intend to bring this government to its knees by our refusal to
participate or cooperate. We publically reject all violence against persons and
property. We declare our movement as peaceful, but do not mistake our intent,
we will bring this system to the very brink if necessary in order to reform and
preserve our Democratic Republic.
This
movement will march in protest, it will engage in work stoppages, in sick outs,
and boycotts. It will obstruct the wheels of the machinery including a boycott,
a tax revolt, to force our government to conform to our will, our just cause. All
of these domestic political
reforms are designed in hope of stopping the collapse of faith in our public
institutions, and breathing new life into our dying Democracy. We feel that a
divide and conquer strategy has been used against all Americans and with that
in mind we have crafted reforms that bring together both liberal and
conservative voters to enshrine an amendment to the Constitution that forever
ends our current system of legalized bribery and extortion that is killing our
Democracy. The 28th Amendment will mandate public funding for all
federal and state elections, and in doing so will permanently remove money as a
negative influence on lawmakers.
The current
state of political parties and the legislative process finds a deadlock that
ensures little or nothing will get done. The term banana republic comes to mind
with their examples of ossification, corruption and dis-function. This cannot
be the future our founders had in mind. Our institutions are in a crisis that
no one seems to be able to answer. It is time again for the Constitution to
evolve.
There is
nothing new under the sun. The historian tells us how great nations and empires
rise and fall, it is no great mystery. Simplified and condensed, the elite take
the opportunity to garner the lions’ share of resources within their society
for themselves. The term used is rent seeking behavior. The Ottoman Empire
decayed because the administrators of the realm changed the rules to allow
their children to inherit their power and wealth. The French kings sold off the
rights to tax the citizenry to an aristocracy that made themselves immune from
taxation, and slowly bled the populace dry. To put the problem in modern terms,
no one can resist the power to print money. Political power confers the right
of financial entities to violate the basic tenants of fairness and common sense
in order to make vast sums of money in schemes that are eventually bound to
fail. The term “Casino Capitalism” is appropriate. Political power purchased
with the wealth earned in this manner allows them to ignore the laws and rules
we all play by. These institutions become much wealthier; they then use that
wealth to purchase more political power that in turn leads to increased wealth.
It is a feedback loop that seems to have no end; however everything must end,
witness the Ottoman Empire and the French Aristocracy.
“Mankind is
born free and everywhere he is in chains.” The rise of transnational
corporations, international financial institutions, and other supranational
entities dwarf our public institutions in their wealth, political power, and
unchecked influence upon our lives. It has been repeatedly stated by many
social scientists for over a generation that transnational institutions would
increasingly control our lives, and that eventually governments would become no
more than a fig leaf for lending legitimacy to their larger designs. In an age
of repeated epic financial fraud and collapse, and wars without end, we
increasingly realize we are no longer in control of our own destiny. African
American and Hispanic working class people have seen all the economic gains of
the last generation wiped out in 2008 in the wake of the largest financial
fraud in history. Economic social justice has been set back twenty years. The
destruction of the working class in America has led to at least half a million
deaths by middle aged white Americans, most of these deaths by suicide. This
mass die off is without precedent in the entire world and is similar to the
demographic catastrophe of HIV. It is clear that this economic violence is just
the beginning. The standard American model of a robust middle class has largely
given way or is in the process of giving way to a South American model of a few
fabulously wealthy families and a population mostly composed of low wage
“slaves”. It is clear under these new circumstances that a Republic cannot
prevail and that authoritarian government is the default setting for the
future. A system of such inequality and basic unfairness can only be sustained
by violence, the kind practiced by a police state upon its own people, similar
to regimes in the south. This probably includes the widespread use of torture
and death squads to intimidate the masses. If the exact form of the South
American model is not used here, it can be sure that some approximation of it
will come to pass.
Democracy
was enshrined on the plains of Marathon in a desperate battle between the
independent city states of Greece and the super power empire that marched to
deliver their destruction and submission. The shared sacrifice of the wealthy
land owners and the poorer citizenry sealed a bargain, and without that social
compact of shared sacrifice this is not a system of government that can long
endure. The social compact has been broken and it must be renewed.
In
summation, these four Amendments are short and to the point. There are no
radical revisions. The 28th Amendment will lead to future reforms in the
interests of the people and not those of the oligarchy. The other reform
proposals are online for all who wish to read them in more detail. Our labor
has value, our lives have value. We refuse to be low wage slaves, we demand
social and economic justice. We demand that this country and its leaders live
out the words and promises of its founding principles. We are coming together
to take back control over our lives and our destiny.
Marshall
Gregory Thomas
01/29/2016
