To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Root-Strikers Unite to Take Back our Democracy
Demand that the President and your Congress people sign this three part pledge:
I. I pledge to support the effort to amend the Constitution to state unequivocally that corporations are not persons with respect to political processes AND that the expenditure of money is not equivalent to free speech as covered by the First Amendment. I will make this effort a prominent part of my campaign, and if elected I will sponsor legislation to that effect and will work hard to see that the legislation passes;
II. I pledge to support Campaign Finance Reform that includes some form of public financing of federal elections. I will make this reform a prominent part of my campaign, and if elected I will sponsor legislation to that effect and will work hard to see that the legislation passes;
III. I understand that in the current political environment, I have to spend significant time and effort to raise money to compete effectively. As proof of my commitment to the first two pledges, I pledge to post on my web site and to keep it updated a list of the top five percent of contributors to my campaign so that my constituents know to whom I will be beholden if elected.
Why is this important?
I AM A ROOT-STRIKER. ARE YOU?
What you may ask is a root striker? Henry David Thoreau in Walden said: “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root” For me the root cause of the dysfunction we see in Congress and our Federal Government comes from all the money from wealthy individuals and companies that corrupt our democracy.
Why did the bankers who crashed the economy in 2008 and got bailed out with our money manage to continue to get huge bonuses and not go to jail? Why haven’t the crooks who “robo-signed” foreclosure documents gone to jail? Why do large companies keep getting tax breaks as do the 1%. How could Jack Abramoff buy off so many Congressmen? Could it be that large campaign contributions and K Street lobbying have something to do with the dysfunction in our government and why the rich keep getting richer and the rest of us struggle?
Lawrence Lessig said “nobody likes crony capitalism that has corrupted this system of government and given us the misregulation that led to the collapse on Wall Street.”
“We don’t need to destroy wealth. We need to destroy the ability of wealth to corrupt our politics. We don’t need to kill capitalism. We need to kill that form of capitalism–crony capitalism–that uses its power to corrupt our politics.”