I have thousands of allies who want to defeat the money monster. You can find many of them at MAYDAY.US, MoveToAmend, Represent.Us, WolfPac, Stamp Stampede, and NHRebellion and their Twitter accounts @MAYDAY.US, @MoveToAmend, @RepresentDotUs, @WolfPAChq, @StampStampede and @NHRebellion.
Yesterday, Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig announced the launch of stage 2 of MAYDAY's plan "to build a government of, by and for the people." Professor Lessig articulates as well as anyone why the money monster in politics needs to be defeated for the American people.
He gave an hour long speech yesterday, and when a link to it is on the Internet, the link will be placed here, and you should listen to what Professor Lessig said yesterday. In the meantime, read about the MAYDAY plan at MAYDAY.US and watch this earlier video:
There is ostensibly a stark partisan divide about "campaign finance reform." See Soul searching re: Gov't by People Act. Professor Lessig is adamant there has to be a non-partisan assault on the money monster, and I agree.
Professor Lessig says the small sliver of funders effectively controls the policies of the country, that small sliver has a bias, and the general public interest is ill served in the status quo.
I emphasize the following about why the money monster in politics needs to be defeated:
With willful culpability or not, the political class in Washington DC profits enormously from the status quo, and it would not profit so much from the campaign finance reform Professor Lessig seeks. The DC political class does not want to change and will oppose change.
The status quo results in poor laws being passed from the perspective of the general public, and there is an explanation why. This is because, as to most matters of governmental action (legislation and regulation), in each niche, the interest of a small number of persons is greatly affected, and they are willing to spend large amounts to protect their interest in that niche, and the interest of the general public, on an individual basis, is affected only a little and that does not get translated into campaign contributions and appropriate Congressional support for the public interest in the niche.
The "money monster" in politics results in the lawmakers scrambling to show their donors that the lawmakers did their best to look after the donors' particular interests, and this impedes the enactment of "good" laws that serve the general public interest.
Additionally, the political class in Washington benefits from, and foments, hyper-partisanship in the country because that keeps the American people divided and keeps them from getting their Republic back.
The Washington DC political class, including Congress, has a great aversion to acknowledging the truth of the foregoing. If you ask them a question about it, most of them won't talk about it.
You can see this exemplified if you track through this link: Just answer the question, Gary Palmer. (Gary Palmer is the recently elected Congressman in the Alabama 6th Congressional district.)
On any list of who to tweet to to defeat the money monster in politics, there should be your Senators and Representative in Washington. You should make an inquiry of them in the nature of "Is something fundamentally wrong with Congress?" For ideas about what you might say, see Open letter to Alabama legislation in Washington.
If you write to a Democrat, and the Democrat says, "I am a supporter of campaign finance reform legislation, and it is my Republican colleagues who are obstructionist," you should reply to your Democrat, "If you are in agreement that Congress has failed the American people, you need to say so expressly, and go into Republican districts to enunciate the same. If you don't do that, I am going to think you are just playing party politics." [Listen to the Lessig speech, and Q&A, related to this.]
On the matter of Democrats, please note that Democratic Representative Terri Sewell, in the Alabama 7th Congressional district, would not respond to this letter Dear Representative Sewell, and Professor Mark Lester, the Democratic candidate in the Alabama 6th Congressional district last year, would not respond to this Open letter to Professor Mark Lester.
The starting point in tweeting to defeat the money monster is to show that the political class in Washington DC cares more about its interests than it cares about the interests of the American people, and one way of showing this is Senators and Representatives refusing to talk about the matter or playing political games with it.
I have started my tweeting to defeat the money monster in politics by tweeting links to this webpage.
You should do the same.
If you receive a tweet with a link to this webpage, you have the Twitter name of who tweeted to you.
Those who tweet links to this webpage may elect to put their names on this webpage.
If you read this webpage, please join in yourself by tweeting links to this webpage. Tweet the link to your friends. Tweet the link to your Senators and Representative and their Twitter followers. Once you get started, you will come up with many more persons to tweet links to.
If you wish, provide your name for putting on this webpage as someone who is tweeting to defeat the money monster.
If you would like a different entry than this entry for tweeting links to, please submit what you would like, and that will probably be accommodated.
Update 3/16: Please see Supplement to "I tweet to defeat"
Update 3/17: See Links I am tweeting in Alabama
Update 3/17: Join the "Tweet to Defeat the Money Monster in Politics" Community Page on Facebook
Update 3/19: See MAYDAY's 2015 plan and public mobilization
Update 3/23: See #TweetToDefeatMoney, Tweet Sheet 1
Update 3/23: Discussion commenced on MAYDAY Reddit page
Update 3/27: Report on #TweetToDefeatMoney
The below persons are tweeting to defeat the money monster in politics:
1. Rob Shattuck
2. Autumn Rainwater @autumnrainwater
ReplyDelete3. Mike Dalena @mikedalena
ReplyDelete