7 Key Ideas

By Brooke Clarke

for a pdf version of 7 Key Ideas with active links see: http://www.end2partygovernment.com/7KeyIdeasV1.pdf

http://www.end2partygovernment.com/

It only takes a small number of independent Congress persons to make a very big change in policy.

Constructing Public Opinion: How Politicians and the Media Misrepresent the Public a documentary by Media Education Fund

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvodhsMc2QM ,- short preview

http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=106 <- full length video

2. Many of the Current Problems are the unintended result of prior laws still on the Books. The key problems are not happening randomly. Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it. Once you see this the solution is easy. Passing new laws without fixing the old ones is like building on quicksand.

2a. Wall Street

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 that started the Great Depression was the reason for the Glass+Steagall Act s (`32 & `33).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act_of_1933 + Banking regulations But then it was undone by things like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Institutions_Deregulation_and_Monetary_Control_Act (1980) - rates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bliley_Act (1999) - financial supermarkets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000 - Enron loophole, Banks gambling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd%E2%8093Frank_Wall_Street_Reform_and_Consumer_Protection_Act (2005) T9-StB-S929 exempts SEC from FOIA +

2b. Prison

The U.S. is the No. 1 country for prison population with 730 prisoners/100,000 population, 2X Denmark and 10X other Scandinavian countries. This came about because of the crime wave that peaked about 1990 and the "Tough on Crime" laws. But the laws did not stop the crime wave and are still on the books resulting in far harsher punishment than is fair. The solution is changing the bad laws and releasing prisoners who have already served more time than would be fair. The answer is NOT building more prisons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics

2c. Teen Pregnancy

The U.S. is No. 1 of the industrial countries in teen pregnancy. Joycelyn Elders (Wiki) was the U.S. Surgeon General who Democrat Bill Clinton fired for honestly answering a UN question about masturbation. At that time the official U.S. policy was that teenagers should abstain from all sex. Even today under Obama the surgeon general's advice dances around contraception in education, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joycelyn_Elders#Comments_on_human_sexuality_and_termination

The Surgeon General's Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior - from their web site as of May 2012 but is dated 2001. It's an eleven year old policy that hasn't been updated.

3. Single Payer (Medicare for All) Health Care is the only viable option Every industrialized country in the world has a single payer health care system. The U.S. spends more and has a much lower percentage of its population covered and gets much poorer results. But some canidates (following the party line) are clearly saying they back Obama Care (See 1. above) which is a huge financial gift to the insurance companies.

http://www.mendo.ca.lwvnet.org/files/voter_may_2012_election_extra.pdf

4. The U.S. has a two tier justice system where the 1% is immune from prosecution. Starting with Ford's pardon of Nixon each successive president has been pardoned for criminal activities. This has now extended down to the corporations, for example Retroactive Telecom Immunity. Due to Regulatory Capture the federal agencies who are supposed to regulate various segment s of business now work to protect them from criminal prosecution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_Capture Thus it's the job of the SEC to protect Wall Street from criminal prosecution. Dodd-Frank Title IX subtitle B section 929 helps with that. With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful by Glenn Greenwald

http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog

5. Capitalism is a failed economic system. The year 1776 is notable for (1) the 4th of July and (2) the publication of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, the basis of Capitalism. Prior to this there was Feudalism. At the time products were made by craftsmen one at a time, and there was no manufacturing, electricity, plumbing, etc. A high technology business was making cast iron cookware. So the philosophy of doing what's in your own self interest (greed) and an invisible hand will guide you for the good of society might have worked then. But greed is no longer working and we need to move on to a better idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Hand

90 years later in 1867 Carl Marx published Das Kapital and said Capitalism could not work and socialism was the answer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Capital The U.S.S.R. tried socialism and it failed in 1989.

John F. Nash won the 1994 Nobel Prize in economics for his theory of Governing Dynamics. In the movie A Beautiful Mind the bar scene is an example of his two part idea that starts with Adam Smith's Capitalism and adds a second idea: "doing what is in the best interest of the group".

http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html#ASvJN <- the 3 minute bar scene We need to move to Capitalism version 2.0.

6. Tax Rates G.H.W. Bush called Reagan's idea of cutting taxes to bring in more tax money "Voodoo Economics". Politicians still don't understand the Laffer Curve which now says that the tax rates are way too low.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

But the maximum marginal rate should be no higher than 50% or we will be back to buying Tax Shelters.

7. Sustainability If anything grows in a fixed environment it will run into natural limits to its growth. This has implications far beyond global warming and into many other areas like water, the monetary system, etc. See:

http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html#Sustain

The 35 minute video: There is No Tomorrow is based on the 80 minute video: The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See by Dr. Albert A. Bartlett Vote for Brooke Clarke for Congress on 5 June to make a real change.