TAKING BACK GOVERNMENT

December 18, 2006

Watchdog and some other political activist are in the midst of a project to put the contributions to local politicians on a data base so the public can see who has contributed to our local pols. You may not be aware that at the state level, this information on contributors is required to be in electronic form so that it is easy to see who the contributors are. However on the local level, there is no such requirement and therefore to get the information on an electronic database the following is necessary.

• Go to the election commission and buy the records in sheet form. They obviously came from a spreadsheet but the electronic form is not voluntarily available.
• Once you get the sheets on contributors, you must enter the information in a data base which is very labor intensive.

It is obvious that the politicians do not want the public to easily have this information. We must demand that the Tennessee legislature force local politicians to furnish this information in electronic form as they are required to do at the state level so that the public can see easily who is paying for influence. You could say that they are contributing for good government but in light of local corruption that would be hard to believe.
I have shown below an outstanding article that I recently found that states the facts as I believe them to be. The local situation is a reflection of what is going on at the national level. We must pull together as the only thing politicians understand is money and votes. We have the votes if we will only organize and use the leverage that these votes reflect. I ask for your input.

Title: The next "Conservative" movement and the next "Liberal" movement starts here.
Source: None
URL Source: None
Published: Dec 5, 2006
Author: John Q Caucus
Post Date: 2006-12-05 11:50:53 by John Q Caucus
7 Comments

An open letter to ALL conservatives and ALL liberals, and everyone in between:
It pains us to report that the “Conservative” movement in this country is dead. Its expiration coincided with the simultaneous death of the country’s “Liberal” movement.
As evidence of their demise, let us present the myth of the “sweeping change” of the 2006 elections.
True, the control of the House and Senate switched from the Republicans to the Democrats. But when the dust settles and the next Congress is called into session, most of the "sweeping changes" will merely be that when the big money special interests write out their next round of checks they will merely change a few of the names in the “Payable To” section.
Consider this:
* 93% of all federal campaign money raised and spent in 2006 went to Congressional Incumbents, and 95.3% of those Incumbents were re-elected.
* This is the 6th straight election where more than 94% of Congressional incumbents have won.
* Campaign spending in 2002 before the McCain-Feingold "campaign finance reforms" was $1.59 billion. AFTER McCain-Feingold was implemented, campaign spending jumped to $1.9 billion in 2004 and now total reported spending in 2006 is already over $2 billion and is expected to hit $2.6 billion when final reporting is in. (For those of you keeping score at home, this means that AFTER these supposed campaign finance reforms were implemented, actual campaign spending has risen over 63% in just the last 4 years.) Campaign finance reform is NOT the answer and will never work.
* While you and I (the general public) seem locked into endless public debates about the merits of “liberal vs. conservative’ or “Republican vs. Democrat”, the majority of special interest groups just give their money to members of BOTH parties…with the only selection criteria being that you must be an incumbent who has demonstrated that you have “played along” and rewarded your special interest benefactors with public money and/or favorable tax treatment.
Net effect?
No matter which party has controlled Congress, the special interest groups that fund the perpetual re-election of the Incumbents have received a staggering return on their “investment”. That return on investment continues to grow every year…and that growth is in direct proportion to the simultaneous reduction in influence that you and I (the general public) have in deciding who can be elected to Congress.
How much has our influence been diminished? In 2004, less than 1/10th of 1% of Americans gave 83% of ALL campaign contributions.
Stop and think about that for a minute: When the other 99.9% of us can only chip in 17% of the money our Congressmen need to get re-elected, how much do you think they care about what we think?
Now that our influence over who can be elected to Congress is co-opted, the “Big Money” special interests have become the de facto 4th Branch of Government.
The demise of the Conservative and Liberal movement is both the cause and the result of our national surrender to this 4th branch of government.
Both movements were successful enough to pay the same price for success. Originally true to their respective agendas, both movements found their agendas were politically inconvenient once they were in power. The agenda got in the way of making deals, gaining more power and collecting money. In time, both ceased to be real movements and became a single “Establishment”, perpetuated by special interest money.
This single “Establishment” is now known as the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, which provides access, influence and resources to those who will play along. While perpetuating the myth that in theory they are different, in the practical day to day business of running a government both parties are one and the same.
The result has been a "conservatism" and “liberalism” in Congress that bears little resemblance to what most of America thought they were fighting for. Is it any surprise that the majority of Americans choose not to vote?
So it is now time for a new movement, and here is what the next movement has to look like:
* PRINCIPLES: The next movement cannot be about being a Democrat or a Republican. It cannot be about Conservatism or Liberalism. Instead, the next movement has to be about uniting simply as Americans with common principles.
* INTEGRITY: The next movement cannot be about raising money and “fighting in Washington”. Big Money has already won that battle. Instead, the next movement has to be about using OUR combined integrity to trump THEIR money.
* PRAGMATISM: The next movement cannot be about political actions like “writing your congressman” or “signing a petition”. Those traditional outlets might have worked in the past but today they only result in a form letter from your congressman thanking you “for your input”. Instead, the next movement has to be singly devoted to the pragmatism of delivering actual votes on election day.
* LEVERAGE: The next movement can not be about forming a 3rd party or forming yet another traditional grass roots organization, as neither approach would succeed. Instead, the next movement has to be about leveraging the size and power of the existing parties into returning control of government back to the general public.
The question then becomes, how do we build this new movement based on PRINCIPLES, INTEGRITY, PRAGMATISM, and LEVERAGE?
In future open letter posts we will explore how this new movement will be accomplished. For now, the good news is this: We see a way to pull this off that doesn't require us to have to contribute money to political candidates.
We welcome your input.
Sincerely, John Q. Caucus
(John Q. Caucus is the public voice of the combined steering committee of The Independence Caucus, which defines itself as "A citizens movement to take our Government back from the "Big Money" Special Interest groups...using our Integrity instead of our Money." More information about the Independence Caucus can be found at http://uscaucus.com/)