Resigning Candidacy

Below is a verbatim copy of an email, that  I have just sent to The 99 Declaration.

"This email is sent to serve as my official notice that effective as of March 5, 2012 , that I, Jon Corbett, a person who registered as a candidate to represent the State of Alaska at the 99 Declaration Convention, am withdrawing myself as such.
I would like to be able to say that I could pinpoint one particular reason, but I cannot. However, I can say that I hope that the 99Declaration Convention goes over well and you all leave feeling as if something positive is accomplished for our nation as a whole. For myself, I feel that my efforts are best spent refocusing upon issues affecting me and mine here in Alaska.
Sincerely,

Jon Corbett "

The general idea of this blogpage was to promote my own ideas about the 21 grievances listed by the 99 Declaration.  Since I am no longer a candidate for a delegate seat. I will be shutting this blog down.  Perhaps I will just open one without tying it to any effort other than my own ideas.

5 Rights UpFront...

"Half a loaf is better than no bread.

If we cannot secure all our rights,

let us secure what we can." 

Thomas Jefferson

Please Wait In The Lobby...

The US Constitution is extremely clear in stating that the elected representatives in America are employed by the people and for the people.  In fact, the salaries and benefits that Congress-members and the President receive are drawn directly from the taxes paid by the citizens on these United States.  To me this equates to the plain and simple fact that, once elected, these persons work for US; We The People.  Every choice and decision they make is to be made with the best interests of the constituents, first and foremost. However this is not the case at all.

    Influence peddling in the various representative offices all across the country has become big business.  OpenSecrets.Org shows that lobbyists spent over $3Billion each year in 2009, 2010 and 2011 to further the agendas of their clients, just in Washington DC.  This of course doesn't include PAC and SuperPAC contributions to campaigns, which would push this number to over $5Billion per year for the last 3 years. With a population over about 312Million in the United States, this averages out to about $150.00 per constituent.  Personally I know that I haven't donated that much money to any candidates, but how does that number look when compared to the number of congressmen serving? $1MILLION each is the average expense per congressperson for lobbyists to operate in Washington DC...WOW!

Total Lobbying Spending
1998 $1.44 Billion 1999 $1.44 Billion 2000 $1.56 Billion 2001 $1.65 Billion 2002 $1.82 Billion 2003 $2.04 Billion 2004 $2.18 Billion 2005 $2.42 Billion 2006 $2.62 Billion 2007 $2.85 Billion 2008 $3.30 Billion 2009 $3.50 Billion 2010 $3.51 Billion 2011 $3.30 Billion

    However, suggested grievance number three is about what is called the "Revolving Door", or how former elected representatives and staffers move between private and public employment.  This is really where the crux of the corruption issue in our government lies.  The influence of these corporate dollars coupled with personal expertise in the halls of Congress has become a quagmire that is as complicated as it is wrong.

In researching the various aspects of revolving door influence peddling in DC, I ran across an incredible amount of information regarding who is involved and how they make things happen for private, often corporate interests.  Below is a graph that shows just a few of the aforementioned revolvers and which large corporate interests they represent.  Some of the data maybe outdated, but is relevant to the topic.

    It is clear that the representative government as described in the US Constitution is not what we have now.  It has morphed into some plethora of corruption. We The People are paying for this to be done to us and now is the time to redress this issue with OUR government. If our government was truly representative of We The People, the graph below shows in comparison how the US Congress would really look.

Sources...
http//www.opensecrets.org
http://www.good.is
http://www.herinst.org/BusinessManagedDemocracy/government/national/revolving.html
http://www.wikipedia.com
http://governmentspro.blogspot.com/
http://politics.usnews.com/congress
http://www.the99declaration.org/eliminate_private_benefits_to_public_servances
http://dirtyenergymoney.org/view.php?type=congress

Elections By the People . . .

"The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it.
It is the creature of their will, and lives only by their will." - Chief Justice John Marshall, 1821

    The influence of unlimited and almost unaccountable spending by unknown entities in American elections is an abhorrent condition that was approved by The Supreme Court of the United States.  This landmark case, Citizens United v. The Federal Elections Commission immediately provided for unlimited campaign related spending in regards to advertising, event sponsoring and influence peddling all across our nation. in the last several months of the GOP's primary season, tens of millions of dollars, if not more, have been spent on negative advertising by "SuperPACs" supporting the various Republican candidates and President Obama has reversed his standing on this electioneering to accept aid from these entities as well.



    "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." - The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

    Quite clearly, these expenditures are aimed at putting forth undue influence upon our broken electorate system.  The use of widespread media avenues to promote or denounce a particular candidate or initiative at the behest of interests that may not necessarily hold the best interests of Americans above private gains is despicable.  This manipulation of public awareness and opinion is the antithesis of the founding principals of The United States of America.  We The People are charged as citizens to stand up against this, we are due a fair and equal status in our political system to ensure that the government is "...Of The People, By The People and For The People"

    The 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights clearly states:
    "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

    The status of persons is not to be shared with made-up entities, such as corporations and SuperPACs. 8 USC § 1401 - Nationals and citizens of United States at birth clearly defines who is a US Citizen. The term used is "person(s), which is most commonly defined as; a natural being.  The 14th amendment of the US Constitution does allow for the status of "person" to be applied to corporations, but only as related to how that entity relates to other entities in contracts for goods or services and that entity's rights to "equal protection under the law of the land.", not necessarily all the rights established by the 1st Amendment.  The decision to expand this definition to include how a non-human entity is allowed to participate in the the functioning of the electorate system is an aberration of the basic ideals of the US Constitution.

    The ruling by the US Supreme Court makes a mockery of the founding principals of our great nation.  Every justice of that court should hang their head low in utter shame for essentially abandoning We The People in favor of their ultra-wealthy friends and benefactors.  Their decision to allow this political foolery is treasonous to the ideals of America and should be punished with removal from the bench and abrogation of the ruling through a constitution amendment defining "We The People" as actual persons, not paper entities.

President Theodore Roosevelt on the campaign trail. When it was revealed that railroad and oil companies provided 75 percent of Roosevelt's campaign funds during the 1904 presidential election, the voter backlash prompted Congress to pass the first major campaign-finance reform law, the Tillman Act of 1907. The law banned corporate donations to federal candidates.

   
    As a redress to the "Citizens United" decision, I propose that We The People put forth a constitutional amendment akin to the Tillman Act of 1907.  This action by Congress was proposed by President Theodore Roosevelt following the criticism he received after his election in 1904. In his address to Congress in 1905, President Roosevelt said this...

    "All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law; directors should not be permitted to use stockholders' money for such purposes; and, moreover, a prohibition of this kind would be, as far as it went, an effective method of stopping the evils aimed at in corrupt practices acts. Not only should both the National and the several State Legislatures forbid any officer of a corporation from using the money of the corporation in or about any election, but they should also forbid such use of money in connection with any legislation save by the employment of counsel in public manner for distinctly legal services."

Corportocracy in America

Many of the founding fathers of America recognized early that commercial interests would attempt to control the government of We The People.  This is why when they framed and wrote out the US Constitution, they were specific in defining that the rights put forth were for "people', not made-up entities.  We The People are the citizens of our nation, not the companies and corporations.

In the past 40 years, corporate interests have slowly gained control of the elections and regulatory functions of Our governments, both state and federal.  These entities have invested billions in lobbying elected officials to pass laws and such that are for the benefit of the bottom lines of these corporations.  These corporate entities have also spent billions in election advertising to influence the opinion of the electorate, ensuring that the candidates that best represent their interests are elected.  More recently, the Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed these actions, by ruling that the corporations and "SuperPACs" are sovereign entities entitled to participate in electioneering by granting them almost limitless permission to spend unlimited amounts of money.

This current state of affairs in America is despicable and sad.  For, We The People have been relegated to being second class citizens in the electorate process.  The right and duty to participate in open government has been diminished to something akin to a joke.  Even some elected officials have jumped on the corporate bandwagons by stating that elections cannot be participated in by "regular" voters.  Both of the major political parties in our nation have embraced this environment of corruption by courting the various corporations and PACs that are the root of the American electoral process.  They have essentially nullified the "one Person-One Vote" ideal put forth by the US Constitution.

The spending by lobbyists and influence peddlers in Washington DC and state capitols has become a multi-billion dollar a year industry.  Elected representatives and executives all across America have thumbed their noses to the American voters and citizens in perpetuating this plague of corruption.  This is something that is fundamentally wrong with the American political process and must be fixed, or our great democracy will soon become but a mere page in the history books of tomorrow.

Candidacy Declaration

I am declaring my candidacy to represent the State of Alaska at the 99% Declaration General Assembly on July 4, 2012. This is an effort that I have been indirectly involved in since July 2011 through my association with Anonymous and Occupy Wall Street. It is high time that the citizens of the United States come together to 'take back' OUR government and the future of our great nation.

I will be going through the  99% Declaration and addressing the 21 separate issues as identified by the 99% Declaration Working Group.  Granted that my own personal opinions on these issues may vary from those of the readers, the intent is to show my personal commitment to this effort by We The People.

http://www.the-99-declaration.org/