TAKE  BACK  AMERICA

Elect a Citizens’ Congress To Serve the People

 

by Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret.

based on an idea by 2 Lt. Dennis Morrisseau

 

            For decades now, many of us have concentrated our efforts on electing a president of the United States who we felt would serve the interests of the people.  In 2000, frustrated with the choices available, I even ran for the job myself — most unsuccessfully.  The sad truth is that our political system is rigged to eliminate any competition to the two major political parties.  And at the national level, both those parties are dominated by big money interests.  There are many good Republicans and Democrats, but it is impossible for them to be nominated for the presidency.  The power of big money and the corporate press make sure that any “outsider” doesn’t stand a chance.  To get the nomination, you must be a member of “the club.”  When a truly independent candidate surfaces (like a Jerry Brown or a Heather Anne Harder or a Bob Bowman or a Dennis Kucinich or a Howard Dean), he or she is first ignored by the media.  When (as with Dean) they can’t ignore him any longer, they find a way to destroy him, usually by ridicule.  The video of Dean’s “scream” was a gross distortion of reality produced by the selective use of technology to filter out the boisterous crowd noise over which Dean could barely be heard.

 

            Yes, Democratic candidates tend to be more liberal on social domestic issues than Republican candidates.  But on the big issues of importance to the establishment (war and peace, the defense budget, globalization, foreign policy), those issues which affect the bottom line of the giant multinational corporations, there is no difference.  Bill Clinton, for example, was infinitely better than G.W. Bush in so many ways, but when push came to shove, he served the big money masters also.  He continued the brutal sanctions against Iraq and conducted the rape of Yugoslavia to procure a pipeline through Kosovo to move Caspian Sea oil and gas to the Mediterranean.  Al Gore as vice-president was the hatchet-man who pushed NAFTA through Congress.  As a presidential nominee, he promised a bigger increase in defense spending than Bush did.  There was no discernable difference in their foreign policies.  (Few of us could imagine Bush turning out to be so horrible.  Even old-time Republicans are turning against him now because of his ham-fisted arrogance.)  John Kerry, even after most Americans had come to realize that the Iraq War was a terrible mistake, calmly stated that even knowing what he knew in 2004, he would vote again to authorize the war.  His only difference with Bush was that he thought he could do it better.  Neither Gore nor Kerry provided a real alternative in the international sphere, and both meekly gave up the presidency without a fight when the elections were stolen from them by disenfranchisement and intimidation of Black voters and by rigged electronic voting machines with no paper trail.

 

            The American people must wake up to the fact that issues like abortion, gay rights, school prayer, and gun control are smokescreens to trick us into thinking we have two parties.  These emotional social issues are very important to us ordinary people, but the big money interests don’t care one way or another about them.  They just want to make sure that the nominees of both parties will do their will when it comes to defense policy, foreign policy, and globalization, because these are the issues critical to their enormous profits.

 

            The sad fact is that until the monopolistic corporate media is reregulated (returning us to the pre-Reagan era) and until big money is taken out of campaigns, the American people have little hope of ever electing a president who is not beholden to the billionaires and global robber barons.

 

            So how on earth do we get a government that will serve the needs of the people instead of the multinational corporations?  Dennis Morrisseau of Vermont points out that the answer lies in the Constitution of the United States.

 

The Constitution:  Where Does Power Lie?

 

            The Constitution gives the president very little power.  The real power is given to Congress.  Without the cooperation of Congress, the president can do little.  The “Imperial Presidency” that has developed recently has only come about because Congress has willingly abdicated its powers to the president.  They have done so because they are indebted to the same big money interests.  We now have “the best Congress money can buy.”

 

            Morrisseau (himself an independent Republican candidate for Congress) suggests that the best approach to creating a government that will serve the people is to replace the members of Congress with ordinary citizens obligated only to their constituents.  This is not an easy task, but it’s not impossible, either.  I know, only four incumbents were defeated in 2004, but 2006 will be another matter.  The American people are fed up with Congress.  There was a big turnover in 1994 in the Gingrich revolution, and it can happen again.  Here’s Morrisseau’s idea as he and I have developed it.

 

A Citizens’ Congress

 

            We will recruit citizens to run for Congress.  They can be Democrats or Republicans, Greens or Libertarians, Reformers or independents.  They can be liberal or conservative in political philosophy.  They won’t be asked how they stand on abortion or school prayer or other divisive social issues.  However, they must be committed to serving the people instead of the robber barons.  They must be willing to campaign on the truth.  And they must be devoted to the interests of the working class and what remains of the middle class in America.  We will start with a handful of such candidates (We actually already have two Republicans, a libertarian, and three Democrats lined up.  All oppose the Iraq War and support universal health care, although those are not requirements.)  At the appropriate time, we shall make a joint announcement and build from there.  The goal is to have candidates in every Congressional district in the country.  Incumbents can join with us (people like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul) as long as their voting records indicate their independence from party and lobbyist control and they sign on to our principles.  We will raise money through the internet, the way Howard Dean did, with lots and lots of small contributions from ordinary people.  We do joint advertising.  And we remove every incumbent who sold out our sovereignty to the World Trade Organization, who  sent our sons and daughters to war for the big oil companies, and who mortgaged our grandchildren’s future with corporate welfare and huge tax breaks for the very wealthy.  Our best chance of taking back America is to work through the existing parties to elect members of Congress who will serve the people.  If we fail to get a major party nomination, we run as independents.

 

Artificial Divisions

 

            In order to define who we are as candidates for a Citizens’ Congress, we must first rid ourselves of the artificial divisions that tend to keep us apart.  The first is party.  Not all Republicans in Congress are neo-conservative imperialists.  Many Republicans are now extremely uncomfortable with the way the current administration is leading this nation.  And not all Democrats would be a decided improvement.  The Republican-lite members of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) are just as indebted to the big money interests as are the Republicans.  They offer no real alternative in foreign and military policy or globalization.  They refuse to condemn or even question the Bush administration’s coverup of the truth behind 9/11, the doctored intelligence and outright lies behind the Iraq War, or even the stealing of the 2000 and 2004 elections.  These wishy-washy go-along-to-get-along so-called Democrats are a disgrace to the party of FDR and JFK.  There are more important things than party affiliation, and we welcome those of any party to our ranks.

 

            The other artificial division we must overcome is the one between political liberals and conservatives, or (as it is sometimes framed) between advocates of big government and small government.  The division between liberals and conservatives has been created by the big money interests to give Americans the false impression that they have a real choice in the electoral process.

 

            The terms "Conservative" and "Liberal" are time-honored labels that have unfortunately lost most of their meaning today. The Corporate media portray a Conservative as an Ebenezer Scrooge before his Christmas Eve ghostly visitors, consigning the poor to the prisons and workhouses. Likewise, they show a Liberal as a Fagan, picking the pockets of the deserving wealthy, corrupting the morals of our youth, and exhibiting not the slightest hint of conscience or self-control. Neither of these Dickensian caricatures is true. The corporate ruling class and their media have deviously divided the American people and turned us against each other because they don’t want us to know who our real oppressors are. Well, no more. It’s time we the people came together and took back our country.  Conservatives and liberals have BOTH been alienated, manipulated, ridiculed, and ignored by the ruling elite (I call them the radical centrists) whose only ideology is to serve money and power.  What I learned from my 2000 campaign was that conservatives and liberals agree on the vast majority of the issues.   They just use different words.  Both want a government that follows the Constitution and serves the interests of the average American.  Both want an end to wars of conquest and empire on behalf of multinational corporations.  Both love their country but fear and distrust their government.   Both are correct.  Both will have their interests served by a new American government freed from the control of big-money interests.

 

            The question isn’t “Should we have big government or small government?”  The real question is “Whom does government serve?”  We need a government committed to serving the people and big enough and strong enough to do the job.  One of the legitimate functions given the federal government by the Constitution is to provide for the common defense.  Americans are now under attack, along with the several States and the nation itself, not by other nations, but by transnational corporations and banks and their stooges — in particular the World Trade Organization. It can overrule laws made by the American people and confiscate our property. We need a federal government big enough and strong enough to protect us from these enemies.  Currently, our government is much too big and powerful when it comes to dealing with individual citizens.  The Patriot Act has eroded the protections of the Bill of Rights and moved us toward a police state.  At the same time, our government has chosen to surrender its sovereignty over the multinationals, and indeed has given the WTO veto power over all our laws and regulations — even those of states and municipalities.  The government has also handed over its regulatory power to the lobbyists representing the corporations supposedly being regulated.  We now have the biggest government we have ever had, but one that is totally ineffectual in protecting us from the big money interests exploiting us.

 

            It wasn’t always thus. The two Roosevelts (one from each party) both used the government to protect people from the power of big business. We need such a government again. Recently, presidents of both parties have waged unconstitutional wars on behalf of giant corporate interests. They have used America’s youth as cannon fodder for corporate profits, committing impeachable offenses by violating our founding document.

            It’s time for genuine liberals and true conservatives to come together and work toward a government that serves and protects the American people, a constitutional government respectful of the Bill of Rights and robust enough to tame the robber barons of the 21st century.  It’s time to end the artificial divisions separating us from each other.  It’s time for the left and right to come together in common cause to form a government committed to serving the legitimate needs of all Americans, including the working class and what’s left of the middle class in this country. There will be plenty of time later for a reasoned debate over social issues on which we may differ.

 

Our Common Commitment

            Having rid ourselves of the artificial divisions of political party and political philosophy, we must state just what it is that we require of those wishing to be a part of a Citizens’ Congress.  I believe in the end it comes down to just three principles: (1) support for the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, (2) commitment to honesty and openness in government, and (3) independence to serve the needs of the people according to their individual judgment and conscience.  That’s it.  Everything else flows from those three.  Foreign policy, military policy, trade policy, tax policy, health care, social security, education, the environment, electoral reform — it all derives from a commitment to honestly serve the needs of the people within the framework of our Constitution.  Some would add term limits, limitations on campaign contributions, and support for campaign finance reform and electoral reform, and there is some merit to these, but I think the fewer requirements the better.

            Each candidate will interpret these basic commitments a little differently, and each will develop their own policies on specific issues.  And that’s OK.  We’re not trying to create another lock-step party.  We’re attempting to build a Congress of citizens who are responsible only to their constituents, not to big money interests, and not even to us.  We are quite confident that the result will be far superior to anything we’ve seen in the recent past.  Let’s take a look at some specific issues and see how the members of a Citizens’ Congress might translate our Commitment into policy. (The specific policy positions are my own.)

Electoral Reform

            The current electoral system gives enormous power to the two major political parties and to the big money interests that control them at the national level.  The needs of the people will be better served by a more open system in which third party candidates and independents stand a better chance.  The first and most important requirement is to outlaw all means of voting which do not result in a paper ballot which can be counted, recounted, and audited as necessary.  The second is implementation of some sort of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), Preference Voting (PV), or Single Transferable Vote (STV).  These give voters a chance to rank their choices for a given office, eliminating the danger of “throwing one’s vote away.”  According to exit polls, Ross Perot would have been elected president if there had been IRV in his first campaign.  He was preferred by a majority of voters, but only 19% voted for him because they were told he couldn’t win and they didn’t want to “throw their vote away.”  Ballot access laws need reforming to eliminate expensive and burdensome petition requirements which serve to shut out third party and independent candidates in many states.  Proportional Representation (PR) should also be considered.  Real campaign finance reform is needed which will slash the cost of running for office.  At present, only multimillionaires and those willing to sell themselves to those who are can compete.  If we can’t reform the electoral system, we’d be better off dumping it altogether and adopting H. L. Mencken’s 1926 proposal to choose legislators the way we choose juries — pick their names at random.  This idea (proposed independently by Dennis Morrisseau in 2004) is certainly radical, but couldn’t possibly result in a Congress as bad as the one we now have.

Military Policy and Defense Spending

            As a career military officer, I support a military strong enough to protect our borders and the people of this country. But I oppose using the military to protect the worldwide financial interests of multinational corporations and banks. After 60 years, there is no reason for us to still be occupying Germany and Japan and stationing troops in over 150 countries. I would bring home our troops. This change in mission and deployment would allow the defense budget to be reduced substantially. We now have a trillion dollars in new weapons on the books for future procurement -- useless nukes and unneeded cold war weapons. At the same time, we have over thirteen thousand soldiers and their families subsisting on food stamps. Our priorities must change. The defense budget no longer bears any relationship to our national security. It has become little more than corporate welfare for the weapons manufacturers Eisenhower warned us about and a subsidy for the transnational financial interests our military protects. I believe defense spending can be cut by more than 50% while increasing our national security, protecting our borders, and providing real homeland security.  Once again, the key is respect for the Constitution, honesty and openness in government, and policy in the interest of the American people, not the billionaire robber barons.

The Iraq War

            The current Iraq War is a perfect example of war being conducted solely for the financial interests of multinational corporations.  It has absolutely nothing to do with national security or protecting the American people.  It is also a perfect example of policy based on deceit.  It was not caused by faulty intelligence.  It was caused by manipulated intelligence and deliberate deception.  It has nothing to do with freedom or democracy or human rights or protecting our allies or weapons of mass destruction or defeating terrorism or disarming Iraq or ousting a dictator.  It has to do with money.  It has to do with oil.  And it has to do with raw imperial power.  It was based on lies, and most of us knew it before the war even started.  [Those few readers for whom all this is a surprise and who are unaware of PNAC and the Downing Street Memo are referred to our web site www.rmbowman.com/ssn .]  Those who forced this war on an unwilling world are guilty of violating the U.S. Constitution, the UN Charter, the Nuremberg principles, and international law.  What they have done is illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, and treason.  Those in Congress who supported it are accomplices.  Most of them knew better too, but voted the way the big money interests wanted instead of voting their consciences. Many Democrats voted to authorize the war out of fear of appearing “soft on defense.”  The members of a Citizens’ Congress would never abdicate their constitutional responsibility and give a president a blank check to spill the blood of our sons and daughters to secure profits for big oil.

Moral Issues

            Let's get one thing straight. Morality has very little to do with sex and a great deal to do with money and power. It has to do with how we treat one another. It is immoral for the big money interests to force government to serve their greed instead of serving the people's need. I do agree that servants of the public are role models and need to set a high moral standard for themselves.  I favored the impeachment of Bill Clinton — but for the right reason. Not over poor Monica. I would have impeached him for the bombing of Baghdad and the rape of Yugoslavia.  There are indeed huge moral issues facing us today.  Waging wars of aggression is a moral issue.  Poverty in the midst of wealth is a moral issue.  The treatment of widows and orphans is a moral issue.  (It was in Jesus' day, and it still is.)   Health care is a moral issue.  Let the fundamentalist churches worry about who is sleeping with whom if they want to (although that was never a major concern of Jesus).  The government has bigger fish to fry.  Government should concern itself with morality in the board room and the war room, not the bedroom.

            Having said that, we should recognize that issues like abortion are very important to most Americans.  And most want the number of abortions drastically reduced.  The federal government can play a role by eliminating the social conditions that drive women to seek abortions in the first place — lack of financial security, lack of health care, and irresponsible men who get women pregnant and then disappear.  The government can also make sure women have real choices and are aware of them.  Then having done that, the government must respect the choices women make.  There can be no return to the back alley.  The left and right must work together to make sure abortion is safe, legal, and rare.  The left must stop opposing common sense legal restrictions on unnecessary late term abortions.  And the right must stop trying to criminalize women who choose to prevent pregnancy through the morning-after pill.  All sides must respect those who are pro-life, especially if their pro-life positions also apply to those who have already been born.  (Pope John Paul II said that the death penalty is no longer necessary to protect society and so is not justifiable.  That too is a moral issue.)  Members of a Citizens’ Congress may disagree with my take on these moral issues, and that’s OK.  We can have a respectful debate once we have taken power for the people.

Social Security

            There's a very simple way to make the Social Security system solvent forever -- do away with the cap on earnings subject to the FICA tax. Right now, this is by far our most regressive tax. It is a heavy burden on workers and small businesses; but it is a free ride for the wealthy.  (Wages above $90,000/year are not taxed.  Capital gains and investment income are not taxed at all.)  Tax all income at the same rate. Make FICA a flat tax. That will bring in so much money the government won't know what to do with it. The current ceiling could be replaced with a floor. Nobody would have to pay FICA tax on the first $40,000 per year, but they would get credit as if they had. All income above that would be taxed at the current rate. Benefits could be raised, and there would still be more than enough to handle the baby boomers.  Conversely, privatizing social security would be a huge windfall for Wall Street while jeopardizing the livelihood of those who depend on Social Security.  Put people first.

Globalization and International Trade

            I support trade; but it should be fair trade, not free trade. I oppose NAFTA and the World Trade Organization (WTO). They are not really about free trade, but free investment. Everything about them favors the billionaire investors. NAFTA created 20 new billionaires in Mexico (and quite a few in the US), but it decreased the standard of living for workers on BOTH sides of the Rio Grande. Rather than raise the standard of living in the third world to match ours, these agreements are decreasing our standards to match those in poor countries. The newly created transnational organizations (like the WTO) are operated by and for the giant multinationals, with no accountability, no minutes of their meetings, no explanations for their decisions, no input from workers or their elected representatives, and no loyalty to any nation. They overrule our laws, ignore our courts, and force our workers to compete with Chinese slave labor. They destroy the quality of life everywhere except on Wall Street.  Now we have CAFTA, too.  Enough is enough.  All trade agreements must include protection for workers and the environment.

The Economy

            Since the 1950s, productivity has doubled over and over and over again.  Yet family income in this country is roughly the same as it was in the 1950s.  The difference is that in the 1950s there was one wage earner per family, and one 40 hour per week job.  Today there are two wage earners per family and three jobs, one of which usually requires 60-70 hours per week.  The real hourly wage in this country for workers is about a third what it was in the 1950s.  This is largely due to free investment agreements which put American workers in competition with workers in the third world.  If American workers received the same proportion of the wealth they create with their labor as they did in the 1950s, a worker today could support his or her family with one job … working two days a week.  If worker pay had kept up with CEO pay, the average worker would be making a million dollars a year and the minimum wage would be $140 per hour!  The economy may be very good for the billionaires, but it is lousy for workers and what’s left of the middle class.  A Citizens’ Congress will ally itself with working Americans, stop subsidizing the outsourcing of American jobs, and promote full employment at a living wage.

Tax Policy 

            Corporations "tax" workers 70 times as much as the government does. The average worker creates about $150 worth of new wealth each hour. But his take home pay is only $8. The government takes $2 in taxes, and the corporation takes $140 for overhead and profit, including obscene CEO salaries. This is the "tax" we need to reduce. Even failed CEOs are given hundreds of millions of dollars when they are fired. CEO salaries now exceed 600 times the salary of their workers. And these huge compensation packages are tax-deductible expenses for the corporation. We taxpayers are subsidizing their salaries! We should limit the corporate tax deduction for executive compensation to 20 times the salary of their lowest paid worker.  A corporation could still pay their executives whatever they want, but we don’t have to give them a tax deduction for it.  That way the excess executive compensation would come out of after-tax profits.  If that made stockholders limit executive pay to what is deductible, we would see worker pay rise dramatically, for every time the boss gave his workers an extra dollar an hour, he could pay himself an extra twenty.

            We must also close the loopholes that allow the multinationals to avoid taxation altogether.  We could probably eliminate income taxes for workers and small businesses making less than $50,000 per year if we told the multinationals who use foreign suppliers, foreign slave labor, and offshore bank accounts, "If you want to sell your stuff in this country, you're going to pay your fair share of taxes."  We should also consider a small tax on financial transactions.  Currency speculation and day-trading are not investment, but gambling. Tax them.  The objective of tax policy should be to allow the economy to function while slowing the enormous transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the obscenely wealthy

Health Care

            The people of this country need a doctor-run single-payer national health system which takes control away from the HMOs, the for-profit hospital conglomerates, the giant pharmaceutical companies, and the insurance industry.  One simple way to achieve this is by expanding Medicare to cover all Americans of all ages, and to include prescription drugs, dental care, and long-term care.  President Clinton had a chance to bring about such a system in 1993, but sold out to the insurance companies, resulting in a bastardized scheme which pleased no one and failed to pass Congress.  Both conservatives and liberals are tired of their relatives being bounced back and forth between the sorely underfunded VA and Medicaid systems.  All too often our loved ones fall through the crack because no government agency steps forward to pay the bill.  So people go untreated and languish in pain until they die.  Those 40 million Americans without health insurance?  They don’t NEED insurance.  They need CARE.

The Environment

            Ever since Jimmy Carter’s presidency, this nation’s environmental policy has been based more on what is best for General Motors and Exxon/Mobil than on what is best for America and its people.  With the exception of a few in the “rapture cult,” the American people want to leave their grandchildren clean air, clean water, and a livable planet.

            As a scientist, I find overwhelming evidence for global warming and other hazards of unfettered human activity like the burning of fossil fuels. I also see ways to protect the environment while spurring the economy, like the development of electric, hydrogen-powered, fuel cell, or hybrid automobiles, nonpolluting mass transit and intercity transportation, and renewable power sources like solar and wind. I support the Kyoto accords. Complying with them will not damage the economy -- only the financial interests of some of the old, entrenched corporations. Like the blacksmiths and buggy makers of a century ago, they must change or disappear. We cannot afford to rape our environment to keep them in business.

            CAFÉ auto mileage standards must be sharply increased, and applied to light trucks and SUVs as well.  The public must be given tax credits big enough to make hybrid vehicles, renewable residential power, and more efficient appliances truly competitive.  The government must also invest in free non-polluting mass transit.  Do away with toll gates and ticket machines altogether.  If rapid transit systems could be ridden for free, we would cut down on auto usage, rush-hour traffic, parking woes, and smog in our cities.  Why not free rapid transit?

            A Citizens’ Congress will also make sure that industrial polluters clean up their own messes, instead of making taxpayers foot the bill.

The Last Word

Dr. Robert M. Bowman            www.rmbowman.com                 isss@rmbowman.com

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