Occupy Protest: The Demands – Roger Ingalls

Mainstream media is finally starting to cover the Occupy Protests but their reporting follows a common theme, “it’s a protest without a real purpose or demand”.

Well…here are the demands:

1)      Create a nationalized commercial bank to fund small businesses based on the prime lending rate plus overhead costs. Bank personnel wages and salaries must be similar to government or military pay grades. Most jobs in America are created by small business (70 to 80%). This will create jobs by providing affordable money to small business. The current Wall Street Institutions benefits from selling financial products back and forth to each other and therefore have little interest in small business lending.

2)      Reinstate the business and personal tax rates and codes (including write-offs and loopholes) used in the 1960s. This was a period of prosperity for both the general population and the business community. These tax rates will balance the budget without compromising public services and will stop the transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich that has taken place since the early 1980s.

3)      Create a nationalized commercial bank for home ownership based on the prime lending rate plus overhead costs. This will revive the American dream, bring affordable money back to the housing market and separate housing finance from the risky investment banking practiced by Wall Street.

4)      Allow Medicare buy-in for all people regardless of age. This will provide affordable health care for more Americans. It will also bring needed funds to Medicare because the young and healthy will be participating along with the elderly (costs are spread).

5)      No individual person (real or artificial), company, corporation, PAC, Union or special interest group can donate more than $1000 to a political candidate. Organizations cannot be created for the purpose of funding candidates. Organization with multiple business units or multiple businesses owned by an individual or common group of individuals can only make one collective political donation of $1000 per candidate. This will remove the influence big business and special interests have on politicians.

6)      No artificial person, company or corporation can advertise in support or opposition to a candidate (directly or indirectly). This will remove the influence big business and special interests have on politicians.

7)      Political advertisements, candidates, PACs, special interest groups, supporters and opposition groups of ballot issues must maintain an easy-access website that clearly identifies financial contributors. This will remove the influence big business and special interests have on politicians.

8)      No lobbyist can aid a member of congress unless they have not lobbied in the preceding six years. This will remove the influence big business and special interests have on politicians.

Keep the faith, spread the word and keep fighting…it’s a good fight!

-Roger Ingalls

————————————————————————-

Roger Ingalls is well-traveled and has seen the good and bad of many foreign governments. He hopes his blogging will encourage readers to think more deeply about the American political system and its impact on US citizens and the international community.

 

American Revolution 2.0 – A Blood Bath (Roger Ingalls)

The following iconic phrases are no longer valid.

“…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”, Declaration of Independence.

“…government of the people, by the people, for the people…”, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

It is painfully clear to half the American population that we are now governed by corporations.

Yes, we can still vote but our political choice ultimately goes to the one who can buy the most media sound bites via funds received from corporations, political action committees, and the rich. When the chosen ascend to their thrones, the big funders get their rewards and we, the people, are forgotten.

The American Middle-Class is becoming a thing of the past. Men, women and children are suffering. With all the hurt and pain inflicted on Main Street by the irresponsible actions of Wall Street and the Big Banks, conservative politicians are still accelerating the transfer of our remaining wealth to the rich and big corporations by providing them with unprecedented lower tax rates and loop-holes.

Options to stop Middle-Class genocide are limited. The law no longer sides with real people due to recent decision by the conservative members of the Supreme Court. Artificial persons (corporations) have been granted the same rights as real people. These recent decisions have, essentially, created a super artificial person with constitutional rights, big influential corporate wealth and the players behind these corporations have the added bonus of being protected against legal action.

Out of options and desperate, Americans may be forced into a second revolution.

Listening to the political sound bites of the day, I wondered what an American Revolution 2.0 would be like. Then it hit me, this would be a very bloody affair. This would be American against American. Upon further thought, I realize a new revolution would be unlike the original war against the British and more like the French and Russian revolutions where the desperate targeted the wealthy ruling class.

I’m inclined to believe that a real and bloody revolution is unlikely but the escalating chatter on social media is worrisome.

Big time CEOs, Wall Street executives and their political cronies may want to think long and hard before driving the stake further into the heart of Main Street America.

Who would be first in line to face the guillotine?

——————————————-

Roger Ingalls is well travelled and has seen the good and bad of many foreign governments. He hopes his blogging will encourage readers to think more deeply about the American political system and its impact on US citizens and the international community.