American Middle

My brother Bob Blain, retired Sociology Professor at Southern Illinois University who has specialized for the last 35 years in studying economies and how they impact on societies has just published a new ebook that is available online.  Just type in “The American Iceberg” and it will pop up in Google and other search engines.  It is down-loadable and FREE.   After a recent conversation on the telephone Bob agreed that getting his message out is so important that he reduced the price of the book from $4.99 to FREE!!!  ”The American Iceberg” starts with a discussion of America’s debt government, corporate and personal.  In an unpublished paper written in 1976 (yes 35 years ago!) he prophesied we would have the debt we now have in 2012.  He explains and documents the history of how we got where we are and how it was inevitable.  You should read this book.  Some of the early document quotes, discussions by the Founding Fathers and early Congressional speeches use wording that is now considered archaic but he carefully explains the quotes that may at first seem a little obtuse because of the wording.  But as he documents in the book, he is not the first to say that the course settled on by Congress in 1790 to finance the America way of life was from the start doomed to lead to the growth of a huge American Iceberg of debt.  Read for yourself.  The book is FREE.

Not only should this history be of interest to Americans but at least to all Europeans and any other peoples whose government have and are financing their economies in a similar manner by creating debt.  The mechanism he elucidates explains how the current collapse of Greek economy, the difficulties in Portugal, and Spain and the impending disasters in America, England and any other country that continues to finance its economy with interest bearing debt and fiat money issued by national financial institutions such as the Federal Reserve Bank in the USA.

As he and the predecessors he mentions try to point out to the citizens of countries using such a system countries like ours are not really controlled by the government or the people but by the financial institutions and wealthy that control the flow of money.  If you don’t believe me read the book!  Its FREE.  What have you got to loose but a little time reading.  What have you got to gain?  Knowledge and knowledge is the foundation for change and the power to change.

Professor Blain believes that American debt has reached a ceiling through which it can not penetrate.  I believe that there may be a little bit of room left to increase our debt since not all of the Middle Class is yet destitute. Not ALL of the wealth has been sucked to the top.  But as Bob points out in “The American Iceberg” the data of our economic history is ominous and disaster is eminent.  If you don’t believe him read the book.  Its FREE!

In our conversation a few days ago Bob explained to me that the Great Recession was the hand writing on the wall, the recent financial collapse of many in the American Middle Class, the past two decades of corporate failures, and the recent $9 billion loss of JP Morgan-Chase, the deepening crisis here in my home state of California are all related to the fact that America has hit the limit of its borrowing power.  To put it another way “The financial ship of the US, its governments and its people has hit The American debt Iceberg which has been growing beneath the surface even faster than what we have been perceiving above the water line.  Not just mortgages are below water, our entire economy is in horrific trouble.  While our Congressional band plays on our American Economic Ship has hit The American Debt Iceberg.

The second half of “The American Iceberg” is a discussion of the lifeboat Bob offers.  Bob wants to change how our money is valued.  Its a very interesting concept.  He and I have had many conversations regarding how to fix the problems. (I prefer the word conversations to debates because they have been an open honest presentation of our difference of opinions and why we disagree.)  For Bob’s solutions you have to read the book because the best way to understand his ideas is to read them as he explains them.  It isn’t difficult, he has been a very popular university professor because of his practical approach to problems.  How many times do I have to urge you to read the book!  Many conservatives will want to put the book down before they have read it through.  I feel sorry for these people because they have closed their minds.  Don’t confuse me with the facts, I will believe what I want to  believe or the propaganda I have been fed since childhood because its a lot of work to get the facts and think them through for myself.  But you not only owe it to yourself, it has become vital for your economic survival!

Do I agree that Bob has the answer?  To be quite frank, No.  I DO BELIEVE THAT IT IS PART OF THE ANSWER.  His concept for re-valuing money based on labor has many merits,  Read the book to understand why.

I just don’t feel that by itself, changing how we value money will cure all the evils in our current system.  As he agrees, there will always be the need for different pay for different work, rewards for better ideas, rewards for better work, rewards for better management and incentives to be innovative.  The issue here is how great those difference should be.  Even if we can develop a fair system for determining those differences, and I think we can, there is still a fundamental evil that will always exist or that will eventually reemerge if it is eliminated and that is interest. And interest is the Satan of any economic system.  Can this Devil really ever be permanently eliminated. No, no more than evil  in general can be eliminated from Mankind.

Here’s the problem I see eventually emerging even with Bob’s system and how it must be controlled for ANY economic system to work fairly.  Difference in ability, differences in creativity, differences in motivation, differences in hedonistic or altruistic desires will always exist.  It is the nature of Man and all animals because of our physical ability to feel pleasure and pain.  Also some people are more motivated to prepare for the future by using delayed gratification.  Put another way some people will save for the future and some will not.  The non-frugal will always want access to more to spend.  Any currency based on labor will limit the absolute amount anyone can earn by labor because there are only 24 hours in a day.  So the imprudent will never be able to earn enough to constantly have more pleasure.  So they will eventually turn to the frugal to “borrow” more resources.  The Frugal by nature not being stupid will know that there is increase risk in loaning resources be they called Hour money or fiat dollars with no intrinsic value like we have currently.    So the Frugal person and those earning higher hourly wages will eventually have saved resources and will want some increased return if he/she loans out those saved resources because of the increased risk that they may not even be repaid.  Nobody wants to work hard so that someone else can enjoy the fruit of that labor.  Yet we do that currently when the a capitalist takes an unreasonable return for resources invested, or a worker (CEO for example) demands excessive reward for services rendered or to be rendered.  (By the way the woman executive primarily responsible for the $9 billion loss of JPMorgan-Chase stockholder investment is still going to get paid $37,000,000!!).  So there will always or eventually be the existence of return for risk and increased return for increased risk or what is commonly called interest.  Even if a society were to outlaw all forms of compound interest ( the greatest Devil of them all) , even simple interest will result in the most frugal and the greatest risk takers eventually accumulating more “wealth” to reinvest and we are then off to the races of wealth accumulating in the hands of fewer and fewer people just as we have now.  So what is the answer?

In its early days Usury or the collection of ANY interest for loaning resources was a MORTAL sin for Christians but not for Jews, and mortal since were the worse kind.  Between the Late Middle Ages and the beginning of the Industrial revolution, this stricture was relaxed and eventually vanished for Christians. Today just as it did from the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution, no return for risk (or no interest) would mean no capitalism and no ability to borrow in an emergency.  Some would say absolutely no capitalism would be wonderful.  But would it?  Without capitalism how would private enterprises get started or grow?  How would we provide for the future when we are old or disabled and unable to earn labor based money?

I believe that the evil is not interest per say or capitalism per say but excessive accumulation of wealth which means excess power, excess control, disproportionate luxury, disproportionate remuneration for services and productivity.  Hour money as proposed by Bob would help highlight when wage demands or earnings are out of proportion to services or risk.  Hour based money would make it easy to adjust currency values in an equitable manner.  Hour based money  valuation has real merits compared to the arbitrary and capricious manner now imposed by bankers and financiers were are based on subjective fears.

So how can we have interest without re-evolving to our current debt and wealth accumulation abuses?

1) Limit the total amount of wealth that can be accumulated by any one individual or household.  Such a limit must be reasonable encourage innovation and risk taking.  How can this be done?  By a truly graduated income tax with a 100% tax above a certain income.  Unfair you say? How I answer?  Accumulation of assets by one individual means loss by someone else.  The greater the wealth of a few the greater the poverty of others.  Look around you if you doubt the truth of this statement.  If you believe that the housing collapse only happened to lazy people you are more cynical or stupid than I thought.  Of course you don’t.  So why did it happen?  Earning and taxes disproportionally favor the rich. Everyone knows that especially the wealthy.  That’s why they are spending so much to block real change towards equity and hiding behind terms like conservatism and smaller government.

2) The current horrendous maldistribution of wealth needs to be corrected.  YES I’m talking about wealth redistribution via taxes.  Do you really think Mitt Romney needs 4 luxury cars while a hard working mother of 3 has no health insurance?  Do you really think the founder of Facebook should be a Billionaire for 1 yes 1 idea while thousands of veterans can’t find jobs because our consumer economy is starved for Middle Class and Working people with the discretionary income to buy what they produce?  Do you really think we should be making so many of our products overseas so that capitalists can have extra profit by using cheap, desperate foreign labor?  Do you really think that corporate investors should get richer by removing benefits for laborers and forcing them to abandon their labor unions?  Do you really think American executives should be receiving 500 times the wages of their workers when European executive make 30-50 times their average workers?

We will not outgrow our debt and economic crisis, the last 100 years shows that we “outgrow it by increasing debt” and debt is our coffin.  More debt just means burying the coffin sooner and deeper.  We must redefine our money in meaning terms that are defined not in any material commodity but in the real commodity that creates wealth: human labor per hour.  But this is not enough.

We must outlaw compound interest.

We must institute a real graduated income tax with a cap on total income and wealth that is adjustable with inflation or deflation should they occur.

We must redistribute the current horrific maldistribution of wealth putting more money into the hands of the average consumer.

We must insure than labor’s wage reflects labors productivity.

Do these and there will be more money in circulation in the economy.  More money in the economy means more jobs.  More jobs means a healthier economy and greater prosperity for all.

So what about the debt ceiling?  The first step is to do away with the ability of non-elected people to incur more debt and issue more fiat money.  That means eliminate the Federal Reserve system.  Next authorize the federal government to issue money.

We must forbid government at ALL levels from acquiring debt real or by “phantom” accounting.  Accounting tricks and borrowing from future obligations by postponing their payment to a future date must be forbidden (That’s how California got into trouble in spite of a Constitutional provision requiring a balanced state budget).  Legislatures also overestimate income in order to make a budget look balanced.  This practice must be curtailed and a better method found to estimate future income. A balanced budget amendment as proposed by the Republicans and other conservatives won’t work by itself as California and many other states and local governments have demonstrated.

We will NEVER pay our national debt by cutting services for the poor.  We owe tens of thousands of dollars for ever man woman and child in America.  If we spent $0 for 3 years and starved everyone to death we still could not pay even our federal debt.  So Conservatives and Republicans, let’s get real.  Cuts ain’t going to solve the problem.  Fundamental change in the system is vital.

In today’s political climate these will only come about if WE THE PEOPLE DEMAND A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION TO FIX AND UPDATE OUTR SYSTEM TO THE 21ST CENTURY.

DOC

For some time I had hoped that the Occupy Movement would follow the example of the TEA Party movement:

1) Elect a leadership;

2) Develop an agenda that would catch on with the general public;

3) Grow by attracting new members with a program for improving American government and society in general;

4) Register party members in various states;

5) Become politically viable and recognized;

6) Propose political candidates on ballots;

7) Get Representatives and Senators elected to Congress and to state legislatures;

Become a peaceful political force dedicated to improving the status of American workers, Middle class and small business.

What have we seen so far:

1) A leaderless mob resorting to violence, property destruction, confrontations with police, arrests and lawlessness;

2) Self proclaimed leaders walking around carrying red flags with black silhouettes of Che Guiverra the Cuban Communist.  Now one thing I know for sure, carry symbols of Communists and your movement will never gain enough traction to go anywhere in America.  Communism has FAILED EVERYWHERE  it has been tried even in the early Christian church.  If you want to alienate the American Rich, American Small Business owners, the American Middle Class and even most of the American labor movement all you have to do is start preaching communism.  I don’t see how the Occupy movement will ever be able to shed a communist aura now that they have let these economic radicals with their repeatedly failed economic policies become such a visible part of their group.  The communist agenda is the antithesis of what the American public wants.

3) The Occupy movement will not gain members now that it has been linked to Che Guiverra and his ilk, it will become anathema to the Middle Class and Independents both of which are essential for any movement to succeed,  Just ask the TEA party organizers if you doubt what I say.

4) State governments are going to be reluctant to recognize any political party with communist members.

5) Without at least 10% of the registered voters in any state few if any states will recognize a party as being viable.

6) Few if any viable political candidates will be willing to represent a political party espousing the political agenda of Che Guiverra.

7) There will probably be snowballs in Hell before a Communist candidate gets elected to an American legislative body.  Who wants representatives for a defunct failed philosophy of government ownership of the means of production?  Who wants totalitarianism  in America?  Not me!

I think that the Occupy movement is in the beginning of its death throes:

a) I see no effective, unifying leadership;

b) I see no agenda for correcting the ills against which they protest.  Protest without offering solutions is like protesting starvation without planting crops.  Nothing will grow and the hunger for change will continue.

c) Change can only come through legislation, not wishful thinking and not from protesting in front of banks and Wall street.  They not only don’t want change, they will fight change.  These protests are in the location least likely to effect change.

d) Legislation can only come via election of candidates that will push the desired agenda.

e) Legislative change comes with new political philosophy from an existing (very unlikely) or a new political party.

f) If the American Middle Class and Working people really want legislation that will improve wages and benefits, create a fairer tax system, provide for retirement, bring full employment and renew upward mobility for the poor and lower Middle class, than they need a new political party devoted to the Middle Class and working people: an American Middle Party.  I get frequent emails from the Progressive Party.  I agree with many of their goals.  However, most people associate “progressive” with liberal and socialistic so the Progressive Party name is well intentioned but likely never to draw the large membership needed to effect real change.  It’s why I have never joined their party.

I feel sorry for those who have participated in the Occupy movement.  They feel disenfranchised; they have been.  They feel condemned to increasing poverty; they have been.  They feel exploited:;they have been.  They feel helpless; they are NOT.  In desperation they strike out blindly and ineffectively at the institutions they blame:the banks and Wall Street.   The real power is in the political system.  The rich know that and that’s why they have always controlled the political system.  But the Constitution gives the People the power to change all that peacefully while maintaining a viable and fair mix of capitalism and socialism.  The two can live together as long as one does not abuse the other.  So far capitalism has been dominant and the abuser.  It is time for the People to assert their right to political and economic dominance but NOT through a failed communist philosophy, social or political structure.

A large and powerful Middle class is essential to the survival of democracy, social and cultural stability, the economic well-being of everyone and for us to continue to be an example to the world of different cultures, religions, races and economic beliefs living in peace and prosperity.  What we need is a strong political party of Middle Class and Working Class voters.

DOC

The field of Republican Candidates seems to have narrowed to four: Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and Paul, or has it?

In order to win the Republican nomination, the candidate will not only have to be attractive to the Republican conservative base which has been the emphasis so far, but also to the Republican moderates.  But the Republicans and Democrats have to also appeal to the Independents which number almost as many as the Republicans (even with their TEA Party allies) or the Democrats can muster on their own ilk.

The problem the Independents have is that no matter how large their numbers become they are not even a political party so can never nominate a candidate of their own. Furthermore, they are very diverse in their views and wishes possessing a mixture of conservative, moderate, progressive and liberal desires on their wish list.

The Republicans can not win without a large percentage of Independent voters.  So any Republican or Democratic Presidential hopeful will have to come up with enough Republican convention delegates without alienating the conservatives or moderates and at the same time cobble together enough Independents of very diverse views to win enough popular votes and Electoral College votes to win the Presidency.

There is also the problem of gaining enough votes for Republican Senate and House candidates to have enough Congressional votes to actually get an agenda not just promised but passed so that it can be signed into law. The biggest problem for President Obama was not winning the election it was trying to get anything introduced and enacted by a divided Congress (Republican House/ Democratic Senate).  Obama tried to use diplomacy and compromise and came across as weak when the Republicans stonewalled and refused to budge.  Of course the Republicans also had problems because they could not be seen by their conservative and TEA Party base as being willing to compromise and since they would not compromise or work with the President and Democrats in Congress, they froze themselves out of any opportunity for accomplishing any of their agenda.

Bottom line:  WHO EVEN GETS ELECTED PRESIDENT IN 2012 WILL HAVE TO HAVE ENOUGH “SYMPATHETIC” VOTES EITHER FROM HIS OWN PARTY OR FROM HIS OWN PARTY AND ENOUGH OF THE “OPPOSITION” TO GET LEGISLATION PASSED.  This is a very tall order.  First lets look at the four current Republican Candidates chances of winning the nomination, the general election, and winning enough congressional support to enact a legislative agenda as promised during the upcoming campaign.  We’ll look at the candidates in alphabetical order.

Newgt Gingrich has Congressional experience.  But he has “baggage’.  Not the silly multiple affairs and wives baggage that some major print and broadcast media has been blown out of proportion in their scandalous attempt to outdo the National Enquirer and Gerry Springer shameful coverage.  The real baggage he carries is his style in dealing with fellow politicians.  While a Congressional majority leader he is purported to have been about as diplomatic as Barbara Boxer during our most recent Congress.  With the degree of Congressional gridlock that has plagued Congress for the last few decades, arm twisting, threats and “pork” promises have often been necessary to get things done, but they don’t win friends, make powerful and long remembering enemies.  The Leopard can claim to have changed spots but most prudent observers will enter the cage with great caution, if at all, when the leopard is hungry (to accomplish an agenda and guarantee reelection or a legacy).  Many Conservatives and TEA Party members are not convinced.   Independents don’t seem to be rallying to his banner in states with “open” primaries.  Florida’s primary was a Gingrich disaster and could spell the beginning of the end.  Will he have enough delegate votes to win the Republican nomination win the convention starts?  Very doubtful.

Ron Paul is honest enough to admit that he is very unlikely to win enough delegate votes to win the Republican nomination.  In fact he ran as an Independent in the past.  So why doesn’t he bow out?  Simple.  If Ron Paul can win enough delegate votes to prevent any of the other candidates from getting enough delegate votes on the first or second or even third convention balloting,he will become a power broker able to trade his delegates in exchange for setting some of the Republican platform and agenda for the next Congress.  Ending the Fed, one of his pet projects, closing many overseas military bases, ending overseas wars, minimizing our foreign aid subsidizing of our fair weather foreign allies, balancing the budget and an end to under the table federal borrowing by the Federal Reserve could become real possibilities.  Ron Paul is in the race to broker some of the policies he believes would strengthen American, not because Ron Paul really thinks he can when (not that he wouldn’t like to).

Mitt Romney, the Republican Big Business and Wealthy American Republican candidate is obviously popular with big business (the Super PAC owners) but with the most conservative of Conservatives.  Many American conservatives like him because he preaches running government like a business.  He preaches this as a campaign slogan but he has held public office and should realize that such language and goals is dishonest.  I worked in the private sector for 20 years, had my own business in the private sector for 20 more years and worked in state government for 15 years.  There are many fundamental differences between running a government and running a business:

1) Business must show a profit or the stockholders will show you the road; government must engage in many activities where a profit is impossible:  prisons, law enforcement, courts, wars, border security, military protection, foreign diplomacy, court ordered “benefits” for criminals, the poor, the homeless, foster children, orphans, disabled, etc, building and maintaining infrastructure for the benefit of the public and business, oversight of business and financial institutions to prevent abuse of the public trust, public safety including medications, food, toys, chemical production and usage, and the list goes on and on.  Could and should government be run more efficiently, perhaps but even here there are problems.  let me give a few examples.  Let’s say a program gets started to monitor drug safety and effectiveness.  You do want save and effective medicines.  Do you think you can r=trust the manufacturers to be honest without government oversight?  Just turn on your T,V, and count the number of adds for chemical, plant and animal products that are being advertised by the maker as not being medicines or for the treatment of disease but they will cure blemishes from your skin, remove wrinkles, make you look younger, cure or prevent constipation, make your cholesterol go down, lower your blood pressure, prevent diabetes, reduce your appetite, reduce your weight, reduce your “cellulite”, etc.  Need I go on?  Yet under current law NO ONE is checking to see if these claims are true, these products are really effective or safe because they are not rated currently as drugs.  But listen to the screaming directed toward the FDA and Department of Agriculture when apple juice from China is found to have higher levels of Arsenic than is allowed in the US or when foreign paints has harmful chemicals/.  And how about the opposite when European countries ban chemicals in plastic baby bottles that are allowed in the US because of powerful US lobbies.  And what about the FDA trying to ensure the safety and efficacy of drugs by demanding adequate testing before they are licensed for sale but then the AIDS community complains that it is taking too long for drugs to get to market.  The public wants it both ways.  How often do private businesses have to make policy decisions based on public demand.  The banks sure didn’t during the recent housing collapse.  And what about Mitt Romney’s anti-abortion beliefs in the face of political pressure and compromise when the Massachusetts passed it’s state medical care program.  Why wasn’t Mr. Romney able to run Massachusetts like a business and just do what he wanted as Governor.  Because Governor is not the same as CEO and the legislature is not like a Board of Directors and Massachusetts is not a business, it is a government with the mechanisms and legal and public constraints of a representative republican form of government.  So let’s stop pretending:  GOVERNMENTS ARE NOT LIKE BUSINESSES AND CAN NOT BE RUN LIKE BUSINESSES; GOVERNMENTS ARE GOVERNMENTS AND MUST BE RUN LIKE GOVERNMENTS!

Can Mr. Romney win enough delegates to walk into the Republican Convention with all the votes he needs to win the nomination on the first ballot?  Gingrich, Santorum and Ron Paul are working hard to prevent that possibility.  Why?  Obviously because they thing they have a better chance of beating President Obama.  It will be interesting to see who wins. Mr. Romney seems to be having a hard time convincing moderate republicans and Independents that he can win the Presidency.

Rick Santorum is an interesting candidate summed up best by the label the SWEETHEART of the RELIGIOUS RIGHT.  Can you just see the pro-abortion, pro-birth control, women’s right advocates shoving each other aside to rush into the poles to vote for him?  Beside the religious right what large voter groups are likely to vote for him.  Recently the talking heads on TV made a big think out of the fact that he won in three state caucuses but made little of the fact that these three VICTORIES got him exactly ZERO convention delegates.  Way to go Rick!  Keep winning these kinds of votes and you will soon be broke and have no chance at victory.  He has very few delegate votes, a very small campaign fund, no Super-PAC and no broad supporter base among Republican or Independents.  Do your really think he can win?  Sorry Rick you need to wish upon another star.

With all the negative campaigning of Romney’s Super-PAC, the Republican candidates are all starting to look like Rocky Balboa in Rocky I.  Comebacks like Mr. Balboa’s are usually fictional and only seen in the movies.  In addition the Republicans are not only beating each other up, they are feeding the Democrats a huge arsenal of information to use in the general election.  Bad blood is bound to develop when so much negativism abound in the primaries.  In addition, the American public wants discussion of how each candidate plans to REBUILD AMERICA NOT HOW EACH PLANS TO DENIGRATE HIS OPPONENTS.

If the Republican primaries are any indicate what we can expect in the general elections, American is in trouble.  We want to hear POSITIVE CONSTRUCTIVE agendas not NEGATIVE CHARACTER ASSASSINATIONS.

So who will be the Republican Presidential Candidate?  As far as I am concerned, the best thing that could happen at the Republican convention is three or four ballots without any candidate getting enough vote to win the nomination.  Then the Republicans can look for a fresh unbloodied candidate with a good political track record of effective government.  If they want a Conservative they should look at the New Jersey Governor and if necessary beg him to reconsider and become the Presidential candidate.  Can he win.  Who knows, but I’m not putting my money on any of the current Republican hopefuls.  For the first time in years i may vote for the Democrat for the second election in a row and vote against all incumbents in Congress they have been useless for the last four years why give them four more.  Let’s elect  Congress where both parties have a majority in the same party as the President like they do in Parliamentary governments like Great Britain which seems to function more effectively than we do.

DOC

In the beginning I, like many other Americans in the 99% hoped that the Occupy movement would take steps similar to those of the earlier TEA Party movement and organize along peaceful protest lines, with moderate, reasonable leadership and achieve political changes that would result in greater political and economic equity in America.  Thoreau wrote about the obligation and power of peaceful civil protest in bringing about political and economic justice.  Ghandi proved beyond a doubt the power of peaceful protest by winning independence for England’s biggest colony, India, the second largest population in the world.  Multi-lingual, mu;ti-ethnic and multi-religious India achieved independence and a thriving democracy without firing a shot.

America is in need of political and economic reform for greater justice and fairness but the Occupy movement which as recently as last Thanksgiving was gathering momentum, public notoriety and sympathy has now deteriorated as a group of lawbreakers including violent individuals, looters, polluters, property destroyers, police assaulters, that includes communist, neo-nazis and other thugs which have been anathema for generations to law-abiding, moral, middle class and working poor.

The Occupy movement appears to be without effective leadership, rudderless, without defined goals, a defined program or the means to accomplish any positive goals.  Any group of protestors without positive leadership and a program of positive clear goals can rapidly deteriorate into gang of lawless, destructive self-seekers.  Such groups not only have no popular they rapidly become the target of popular requests for their suppression and destruction by legal means.

Instead of establishing groups with defined leaders and goals before organizing their protests, Occupy seems to have had disorganized protests before they had leaders and goals.  Belatedly people tried to organize the protests and define the goals.  Meanwhile fringe groups such as the communists and neo-nazis have tried to gain attention by calling attention to themselves.  The “media” in the meantime seized on the participation of these very small groups of rabble rousing fringe groups which ultimately oppose and suppress the fundamental founding principles and supporting pillars of American Freedom (individual equal rights, free speech, fair courts, fair distribution of wealth based on work, creativity and innovation) and give these very small minority groups undeserved publicity and mislead the public into believing  by innuendo that these small minorities are important parts of the Occupy movement which they are not.

To add fuel to the fire of public mistrust of the Occupy movement the repeated violence, arson, confrontations with policy, episodes of public urination and looting have irrevocably destroyed any chance that the Occupy movement can now win enough public support to achieve any meaningful positive goals.

My suggestion to those who would espouse to lead any movement to social. political and economic justice is to start over.

1) Those who would be leaders for a peaceful and positive movement need to step forward.

2) These leaders need to join together and hold a leadership convention to define goals, create organized peaceful protests like the TEA party organizers did.

3) They need to organize a political party like the American Middle Party with defined principals and goals.

4) They need to target their protests to venues that count.  Protesting in front of Wall street in order to gain reforms of the financial system is about as useful as diabetics protesting in front of a candy store hoping the owner will close up shop.  The vehicles of power in America are state legislatures, Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court.  This is where PEACEFUL PROTESTS must occur if you wish to get attention and results.

5) Political candidates must be found and financially, by votes and by publicity helped to gain elective office.  Only politicians who can vote on legislation can effect change (that will benefit the 99%) on Wall street, in corporate board rooms, in the courts and in financial institutions.

6) Most of all Constitutional changes must be enacted for the public to regain control of the courts, Congress, the Executive Branch, the election processes and ultimately the political, judicial and economic systems in America.  (read some of my other blogs to understand why).

IT’S TIME FOR THE 99% TO ST