How We Can Save America: Summary

This page can be found at: http://benfrank.net/patriots/how_we_can_save_america2

The Concept:
435 Patriots to Take Back America

The Premise:
1. Politicians of Both Parties have failed We the People.
2. Most of America knows this.

VIA the unConstitutional Spying on political enemies, Bush is assuming dictatorial powers, and Congress is allowing him to proceed. We the People that see this, must act. Too many Americans have been waiting for the DC Democrats to actually do something - now it's almost too late.

It's not up to the Bush Believers, or the lazy Democrats, it's up to US, those of us that KNOW the depth of their Lies- to act. To realize that the People Have the Power, and that united, 435 of us can run for Congress on a simple, common sense platform (exit iraq, rescind tax cuts, impeach bush-cheney, etc) This CAN win in every state because everyone is fed up with the Lies & Corruption.

What kind of person sits back and allows fake opposition leaders like Nancy Pelosi to "have no plan" on Iraq- allowing our teenagers to be recruited, shot up with Anthrax, given Lariam, breathe Depleted Uranium... to kill and die for the corporations.

How can we allow this to continue, only to write another article, to sell another book.

Screw capitalism- do it for the love of humanity- dammit!

Why should True (under-funded) Patriots run in 435 isolated races? If a few beat the Big $$ odds, big deal, we get a few out of 435, but if We ran united, taking the bold truth to the American people, we could wake the 50% non-voters. With intelligent, logical plans, like ending the "drug war" (who benefits), ending prisons for profit, hell I'd even suggest we end war for profit.

If we made a law that said corporations would pay a 120% war tax, and Halliburton and The Carlyle Group were going to lose money in the next war... I think that would stop the war- literally. Why should these corporations make a profit when we attack another country? Logically, it's just a bad equation- like prisons for profit.

The American people would understand this common sense, if presented with the choice.

There is still time to get on the ballot as Rep or Dem in 47 states, the other three we'd have to run independents.

To be clear, what I'm suggesting is a network of 435 regular Americans run for Congress, to pool our resources. Each candidate should not need to re-invent the wheel in their district, but via the web, we could harness the power of volunteers nationwide, to make and distrtibute videos, flyers, cds, email news, etc. With $8,000 we could buy a week of blogads and get nationwide exposure on all the "progressive blogs". Remember Cindy Sheehan in Crawford... people are ready to explode- they just don't know what to do.

This plan is what we can do.

So far, nobody has contacted me with interest in this plan to reclaim our government. All the official Dem blogs won't touch it. They'll run adds for trinkets and cash, but they won't talk about actually doing anything to stop the killing and looting.

To Stop the War, we must stop reading the phlogs and the Flood of diversion news, it's time to Act Now.

A more elaborate description of the plan.

What do you think of running our candidates as independents, because the Republicans and the Democrats have let us down? This is not really a partisan issue, but an American issue. If we run as independents, we automatically invite support from all patriots everywhere and signify our dedication to the Constitution and the American people, not a particular party or cast of personalities. Whereas currently we are seeing more abuses in the Republican Party, we have seen the Democrats capitulating to the Republican agenda, and against the best interests of the American people, time and time again. If we run as patriotic Americans, not as partisans, we will take a stand against the old order and send a message that the people reject the failed and corrupt policies currently strangling our democracy. It's clearly time to clean house and take back our country now.

It's been my opinion for years that the two-party system is destroying America, and I've voted for the Independent in the several elections. Not because I believed they would win, but because eventually, one vote and one election at a time, we might have a chance to make some in-roads.

Either run as Independents, or we start a new party, a Patriot's Party or something similar. Give people an option to join something new, something bold and something so inherently American that it would find widespread support.

I think it'd be wise to demand a 50% majority to win rule, then I'm all for it. Without a runoff vote- a third candidate would only serve to divide the masses, helping the Republicans once again.

There's no reason not to have the 50% rule, other than to keep us down.

Good point, Ben. How do we make that happen?

I would seriously like to run. However I know nothing of how. I am very, very serious, I can do whatever you need I just need the guidance, that is what I ask of you. I am in New York City. Please, please contact me at carlo@carlomontagnino.com

This sounds all good, BUT, our votes are not counted- the last two "elections" were rigged by Diebold and I have seen nothing new to stop this.
Correct the voting procedure, demand
paper counts and do not use the rigged machines, otherwise, we are all doomed.
Thanks
PW

If we had 435 real Americans running, we could make enough noise to demand a return to common sense: paper ballots counted in public.

It makes ZERO common sense that private machines with secret software are allowed to count the vote. People buy it because, "surely if it was that bad the Dems would raise hell about it."

The only way to have a fair vote is to have candidates willing to fight for it. Remember John Kerry- he was personally handed Bev Harris' book Blackboxvoting repeatedly, yet he did nothing. No more posers like that.

I'm all for Patriotism, but to me that means following the Constitution when it comes to the federal government's powers. With me so far? Thought so, but where does it say in the Constitution that the Federal government should be in charge of health care? (I'm referring to the "health care for all" banner I see at the top of the page as I write this) I don't see anything about our borders here, which is one of the few powers the federal gov. is supposed to have, but has given up on. For you Libertarians out there who believe in open borders, check the part of the Constitution that says Congress may create laws of naturalization. If an American citizen were to move to Mexico or most other countries without asking permission they would promptly be arrested, so an open borders policy is rather one-sided. And stupid. I ran for Federal office in CO as a Libertarian in 2002 against Marilyn Musgrave, and I wish any true Patriots out there the best of luck. As far as repealing tax cuts and instituting national health care, these ideas are more socialist than patriotic, and that's not just my opinion, it's a fact. Don't make the mistake of confusing George Washington with Adolph Hitler. (Yes, A.H. WAS a socialist, no matter what the major media would have you believe) If anyone wants to argue that the Constitution is flawed and we need to incorporate these "new" ideas to bring it up to date, I submit that our form of government is the "new" idea as far as the history of the world goes, and all that tired old socialist stuff stems from European Monarchial governments that felt an overpowering need to coddle the populace, always in exchange for large sums of tax money. Good luck to all of you, but don't you dare call yourself a patriot if your ideas more closely parallel Karl Marx than Thomas Jefferson.

First, to clump all socialists into one 'Adolf Hitler' group is a tad unfair. Yes, Hitler was a socialist, but he was also a self aggrandizing, murdering, dictator. Socialism was NOT the cause of that. Second, rescinding tax cuts that shouldn't have been made in the first place is common sense. The country is running its largest deficit EVER. Tax cuts have no place in our current economical state. The math is simple, if you don't have enough money, you can't cut taxes. Third, socialized healthcare does not make a society 'socialist'. Fact: 45 million Americans do not have health insurance. [US Census Bureau - http://www.cbpp.org/8-26-04health.htm] Do you think these people are lazy, jobless, scum? Or are they less fortunate Americans every bit as deserving of decent healthcare as you or me? Some of the biggest criticisms of socialized healthcare are

1) "You have to be put on a waiting list for treatment." And this is different from America how? In Canada there is no waiting lists for people with a cold or sprained ankle. It may take some time for you to get in to a specialist, but I have Multiple Sclerosis and it took me 6 weeks to see my neurologist the last time I relapsed. The 'waiting list' propaganda is crap.

Moving on, 2) "You can't get the same calibre healthcare as you can in America. You get what you pay for." Bull. Let's take Japan as an example here. The infant mortality rate in Japan is half that of the US, and the average life expectancy is 5.2% better. Japanese pay 44% less than Americans for their care.

Care to elaborate on why the American healthcare system is so great? At 18 years old, I had no insurance, no money to pay medical bills, and as a fresh new MS patient, racked up $18,000 in medical bills.

About the only thing I can agree with you on is the border policy, but I haven't read anywhere here anything about opening our borders. But building a wall from Texas to California isn't going to solve the problem. Maybe we should assist Mexico in making a better country for their people, instead of exploiting them for cheap labor. Maybe then those people wouldn't hop the border in search of a better life. American companies take advantage of Mexico's suffering economy constantly, and we do nothing.

Socialism doesn't work on a large scale, but we've taken democracy to frightening places by continuously pushing the gap between rich and poor and developing systems so that the rich stay rich, and the poor stay poor. The American dream is in the toilet. Should we continue to flush until it finally disappears altogether?

Yeah, but why should American Tax payers pay for people who won't take care of themselves? Smokers, heavy drinkers, obesity, lazziness, drug addicts and so on. Health insurance should be like cars: If you work hard and get a great job, nice car/nice insurance. If you kinda work hard, decent car/insurance. If you are a lazy slob, no car/ or insurance.

I'll take of myself, you take care of yourself.

heck, the Feds couldn't even handle Katrina, and you think the can handle health care?

Yeah, but why should American Tax payers pay for people who won't take care of themselves?

I hear Rush Limbaugh use this argument frequently. The issue that is not discussed is the price of health care... a reader letter to WRH:

Just wanted to tell you something crazy. I was sick, and I passed out on the street, someone called 911, and I was taken via the ambulance to the hospital. Well, my bill for four days came out to 35,000 dollars, insurance knocked it down to 16,000 dollars!!!! How crazy is that.

Is that reasonable?

Imagine you're walking down the street, a bus spews out a nasty cloud of exhaust, aggravating your asthma and you pass out. The next thing you know you're in debt for $35,000 - is that the greatest nation on earth?

Why is the cost of health care so absurd? To me it seems a lot like modern day slavery... you can work your whole life, then at 60 your spouse gets sick, and after six months your life savings is drained and you can't qualify for medicare unless you sell you house. You'll have nothing to pass on to your kids. It didn't used to be that way...

And you start to wonder... why does a bed in a long-term care unit cost $1,000 a day anyway?

That greedy insurance CEO took home a $150 million in one year- the fat pig Exxon exec took home a $500 million golden parachute- while every single working family in America is being squeezed by the price of gas...

what's going on here.... is this 'the will of the people at work?'