MannyGoldstein: My 11 rules for fixing America

[dutch508]

Manuel is on a roll:

MannyGoldstein (27,263 posts) http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025119317

My 11 rules for fixing America
Last edited Wed Jun 18, 2014, 10:53 PM - Edit history (2)

1. Bring back the draft. Every man and woman for a couple of years, say starting at 18. No deferments. Don't send my kid into an insane war while your kid goes to Wall Street, #%^* you.
2. Politicians must recuse themselves from decisions, votes, or statements on military action unless they have a close family member in the military, in a role that's likely to see combat in a conflict
3. Politicians may not become lobbyists, nor may they earn more than $250,000 per year after leaving office. Ever.
4. Reinstate Glass-Steagall. Because it worked fine for more than half a century, until it was repealed. Then everything started to suck.
5. Unions, unions, unions. Make unions mandatory for all non-managerial positions, unless employees vote to not unionize. Or something like that. The 99% will never have power without unions.
6. Tariffs. It should be no cheaper to manufacture in corrupt, polluting microwage countries than to manufacture in the US.
7. Reinstate the tax structure of the 1950s. Compared to today, the wealthiest paid 3x, the middle class paid half. It worked great.
8. Socialized medicine, or at least single payer. An extra 8 cents of every dollar we spend on anything in the US goes to the excessive costs of our failed medical system. It's sick.
9. Bring back the old personal bankruptcy law that Joe Biden and his buddies #%^*ed with to make some more shekels for their banker patrons.
10. Make food, housing, and medical care basic rights guaranteed by our government.
11. End dependence on fossil fuels in a decade. We can do it.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. They're probably not quite right, but not so far off.

I'm sick, utterly sick, of the total corruption, dysfunction and bull#%^* in our country. We used to be a great country. Now, between the bankers, the Third Way and rightwing loons, we've turned into a steaming load of manure, and it has to stop.

sabrina 1 (44,514 posts)
9. Before doing any of that we have to remove the major obstacles to this country's remaining

a democracy. So I am adding a couple of new rules:

1. Prosecute all those who lied to get this country into a war for profit in Iraq.

2. Prosecute all those who helped to collapse the World's economies and retrieve all their offshore accounts, the bailout money taken from the people to protect them, THEN we can restore Glass Steagal.

3. Once we clean up this mess, pass laws that make it clear that lying to the people about WAR is TREASON, in case the current laws can be interpreted not to include that crime.

4. Paper Ballots, ban all private corporations from coming anywhere close to our elections, and have a sort of Boston Tea Party with the machines.

5. Campaign Finance Reform, this time REAL reform.

6. Overturn Citizens United. Corporations are NOT people and money ISN'T speech no matter how often Fox and Limbaugh say it is.

7. Propaganda should be forbidden by law.

8. Think Tanks and other shadowy organizations that currently influence our government, should be forbidden by law from doing so and any non-profit status they have should be removed.

9. Education, National Security, the Prison System, Social Security, Health Care also, should be forbidden by law from Privatization.

We have so much to clean up I don't really know where to start, but this country is way out of control, and certainly isn't being run by our elected officials, they appear to be just rubber stampers for all these shadowy Corps who need to be dragged out into the sunshine and kept far, far away from our government. 

Warren Stupidity (37,521 posts)
3. **** the draft.

seriously **** that shit. This alleged barrier to military adventurism has always been just the opposite, always, but don't let that fact get in the way of proposing a seriously ****ed non-remedy.

BrotherIvan (2,114 posts)
6. A couple I might add is

Free education from preschool to college to be paid back by 1-2 years work in civil service. Fully paid teaching credentials and when we have socialized medicine, free medical degrees. The civilized world does it already. Free trade programs as well.

War profiteers will be executed as they were historically. Environmental pollution will also carry stiff penalties.

No civil servant shall profit from his position.

All publicly financed elections that last no more that 4-6 weeks.

Break up media monopolies. Stop building monopolies in other business as well.

Tax incentives for hiring US workers. Very stiff penalties for outsourcing.

Go after offshore tax dodgers.

Gee, this list could go on and on. Chance of any of these happening between .00000001% and 0%

 

ErikJ (4,278 posts)
17. Its all possible if we get 28th Amendment first

sign petition: https://movetoamend.org/wethepeopleamendment


Move to Amend's Proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution

House Joint Resolution 29 introduced February 14, 2013

Section 1.

The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only.

Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.

The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.

Section 2.

Federal, State, and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate's own contributions and expenditures, to ensure that all citizens, regardless of their economic status, have access to the political process, and that no person gains, as a result of their money, substantially more access or ability to influence in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure.

Federal, State, and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.

The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment. 

jobendorfer (447 posts)
20. two questions

If everybody, starting at age 18, serves for two years in the armed forces,
then you've just created an 5-million-plus-person standing army (which will
grow linearly with the U.S. population).

That's bigger than the one we used to lay waste to Europe and Japan,
back in the day.

1. How are you going to pay for it? (That mass of people has to be housed,
clothed, fed, and trained.)

2. What do you think future governments will find for this very large armed force to do?

I'm adamantly opposed to the draft, any draft.
If this society is worth saving, people will step up to deal with real threats.
Emphasis on *real* threats, that is; Al Qaeda is about half the size of the L.A. crips.

I never get any serious answer to these two questions, but perhaps you're different.

J.

Cali_Democrat (20,660 posts)
25. Your list, while good, makes no mention of issues that specifically affect minorities and women

Specifically I'm referring to things like countering institutionalized racism and misogyny which is deeply rooted in our culture and institutions.

That your list doesn't include these issues, is telling.

This is about fixing America, right?

cali (93,463 posts)
27. Disagree with quite a bit- and some of it is unconstitutional anyway, so you'd have to start

with amending the constitution. And some of it is just so dictatorial in nature.

EVERY man and woman to be drafted? Impossible and **** the ****ing draft.

Bull to #2. Many excellent, thoughtful pols who, for example, voted against the IWR do not have close family in the military- though if your number 1 were instituted, you wouldn't have a need for #2 anyway.

3) I'd prefer a 5 year ban to a lifetime one and of course the can't make more than $250,000 a year ever after serving is unconstitutional and absurd- in part because many if not most of those elected- at least in the Congress, were already millionaires before they were elected.

4) I'm pro reinstating Glass-Steagal, but don't forget that the topography of politics and the radical changes in technology have shifted things considerably. It's not a panacea and it never was.

5) Pro-Union as I am, I'm not convinced that making it mandatory is the answer.

6) I don't know quite how that would work, but theoretically I'm for it.

7) Yes. Do it. But don't forget that wealthy people of that era found and used loopholes too.

I'll just add that you're seeing the past through awfully rosy lenses. The past was not so great for minorities or women, or for most of our history, the poor.

8) Single payer is clearly the best from any perspective.

9) Agree.

10) Pie in the sky. Strengthen the social safety net and undo much of the onerous welfare "reforms" of the past 2 decades.

11) I don't know if we can end fossil fuel dependence in a decade. I do know that we need a Manhattan type project with that as the goal.

 

HooptieWagon (9,500 posts)
29. Good ones.

Here's a few more:
A) No Corporate personhood.
B) Any corporation moving HQ offshore is immediately delisted from the NYSE.
C) CEO pay is tied to worker pay. Want a raise?... pay your employees more.
D) Dividend and interest income taxed same rate as other income. Capital gains adjusted for length of time asset is held, and taxed as other income.
E) $1 increase in gas tax. Tax used for mass transit subsidies, infrastructure repair/replacement, and renewables research.
F) Politicians required to wear sponsor's patches on their suits, like NASCAR drivers.
G) Politicians may not exempt themselves from laws and regulations imposed on others.
H) Long jail sentences for political corruption.
I) Long jail sentences for fraud and other white-collar crime.
J) Abolish death penalty, except...
M) "Death" Penalty for corporations found guilty of more than one major crime.
O) Long jail sentences for police convicted of crimes, including but not limited to: corruption, brutality, falsifying evidence, and perjury.

OK, enough. I could roll all night.
 

Would we even recognize the nation under the rule of DUmpmoniez? Can we recognize it now under Barry?

[diesel driver]

DUmbasses aren't asking for much, are they?   

Since socialism/communism has f**ked up every other country in the world to some extent or another, why not US, right? 

Hey, Manny, you're #1, DUmbass!   

[ChuckJ]

sabrina 1 (44,514 posts)
9. Before doing any of that we have to remove the major obstacles to this country's remaining

a democracy. So I am adding a couple of new rules:

Sabrina seems to be coming down hard of the democrats. Probably doesn't realize it.

1. Prosecute all those who lied to get this country into a war for profit in Iraq.

2. Prosecute all those who helped to collapse the World's economies and retrieve all their offshore accounts, the bailout money taken from the people to protect them, THEN we can restore Glass Steagal.

3. Once we clean up this mess, pass laws that make it clear that lying to the people about WAR is TREASON, in case the current laws can be interpreted not to include that crime. 

5. Campaign Finance Reform, this time REAL reform.

7. Propaganda should be forbidden by law.

8. Think Tanks and other shadowy organizations that currently influence our government, should be forbidden by law from doing so and any non-profit status they have should be removed.

If implemented, the above would basically wipe out the democrat party. Considering how special and important DU views itself, number 8 would also wipe out DU.

[franksolich]

Ah, my good pal Manny being Manny.

He's such a komiker, Manny is.

[Big Dog]

Ah, my good pal Manny being Manny.

He's such a komiker, Manny is.

Skins' Island has three camps:

1. Totalitarian collectivist primitives (viz. the Ku Klux Klams and Poor, Poor, Pitiful Pitt), "Those Who Must Be Obeyed, For Your Own Good";
2. Burned-out hippy anarcho-socialist primitives (viz. Taverner and Cal/Peg), the "Free Pot and Cheeto" commune; and
3. Delusional barking crazy primitives (viz. Subway Cat and the Tucson Tart), the "The Voices In Our Heads Promised Us That Obama Would Legalize LSD" moonbat squadron.

Some primitives wander from camp to camp (viz. Taverner and the Tucson Tart, again).

Your good friend Manny certainly did flush out the totalitarian DUmmies with this one.

As King Putt likes to say, "Don't call it benevolent dictatorship. We never said anything about being benevolent."

[JohnnyReb]

My one rule for fixing America....kill the DUmmies. Hey, it's what they would do to us and a few more if they got control. It's from the DUmmie bible, "Do unto others before they do unto you."

[Carl]

For people that loudly proclaim themselves to be the smartest among us they have an astounding ignorance of history.

[Tucker]

Shout out.

Response to joshcryer (Reply #10)

Thu Jun 19, 2014, 06:53 AM

Star Member MannyGoldstein (27,264 posts)
34. But not bad, coming from the proprietor of Conservative Cave, no?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4356130

[USA4ME]

Further evidence of why liberalism won't work. The players on the liberal/progressive collective economy can't even agree on the rules among themselves, whereas in a conservative free market there is no such conflict with those who embrace that type of economy.

.

[vesta111]

Bring back DDT , the Silent Spring has killed millions of people world wide.

Have drug testing for everyone in control of your live.  Your kids teachers,  the Judges in the courts, the policemen and woman --spot checks, never know when someone shows up with a cup in their hand and tells you to pee in this.

Now this is awful----I do not want to go here but perhaps I will..

I have read of some society's that solved their problems with child molesters and the run of the mill killers.

These people were ---GASP--- given a whole castration.   Yup all gone.    Then sent on their way, no death decry, or years behind bars paid for by the people they harmed.

[Wineslob]

It only takes one thing to fix this country, eliminate Liberals.

[franksolich]

Shout out.

 

The joshing primitive's sure there's something between my good pal Manny and myself.

 

[67 Rover]

G) Politicians may not exempt themselves from laws and regulations imposed on others.

Agreed! Obumercare anyone?

[CollectivismMustDie]

Every time I see the word "Democracy", I throw up in my mouth a little bit.

You can't fix what you never had in the first place (our democracy). And expressing the want to instate something which we never had and was never intended to be in the first place (our democracy), is just a deceitful and/or ignorant way of stating that you want break that which was originally intended (a constitutional representative republic) and replace it with something which wasn't.

The only question in my mind, is which of two groups you DUmmies fall into. The gimme gimme gimme group that doesn't know any better whos loyalty was bought and paid for with handouts and the promise of power, or the collectivist true believers who know exactly what they're doing.




CMD