And congrats to all that run the place as well as to all that participate. Gotta be one of the most intelligent and informed group of people ever assembled.

Thanks to your efforts JtC, I have a home after being bojo'd from TOP.
Best thing that ever could have happened to me.

Still swirling the drain in California, I can't believe I'm not D-dead yet. Not yet ready for the ever-growing pile of bodies beneath the constant crush of capitalist greed, c99 allows us lower class types to speak our truth to power freely. Thank you.

First OT comment here by me was called "Mind Blowing Memberlist" on March 6th 2016, about the people who joined from TOP. I really appreciate every one who contributes, some of you have saved my life with kindness over the years, literally. That life preserver graphic was real for me. What mimi said resonates out here on the edge of solitude, "an odd isolated foreign person in the US". Alone in a room full of people. wah keep flushing

I think The Proposed List of Demands is one of the best things joe shikspack ever put together, beside the EB. Thanks a lot. I am ready! Rise up from coast to coast, take from the robber barons what is due the masses that created their obscene wealth. Eat the rich! Solidarity.
Demands - A Second Pass

Refined Proposed List of Demands

General principles (unchanged)

From time to time, a people creates a government to perform functions that no other institution is able to. It is vested by the people with significant powers to promote their common interests and the people retain the right to have that government respond without favoritism to the governed. A government should be judged by the quality of life that all of the governed experience, especially those at the bottom of the economic order. Government officials should be ashamed to find that there are citizens that are hungry, homeless, poorly-educated, without means to support themselves, lacking access to healthcare or other necessities of life - and such a government and its officials should be held accountable. Such conditions in a wealthy country are inexcusable.

Demands

1) Fair elections Public financing of elections/return to a reliable, transparent voting audit trail. In any election where a candidate elects to privately finance, all candidates relying on public finance will be granted equal financing. All licensees that occupy the public airwaves are to be required as a condition of their licenses to provide a certain amount of free airtime to candidates that meet a threshold of signatures, as well as free airtime for a set number of debates in the month prior to the election. Faith in elections is slipping; voting processes need to be transparent, verifiable and reliable, even at the cost of slower result reporting. (reworded)

2) Universal health care Single-payer health insurance/Medicare for all. The marketplace has failed. There has never been adequate healthcare for all Americans despite the vast sums of money spent and the decades that the private sector has had to accomplish this task. It is time for US citizens to have what is available in virtually all other first world nations. (unchanged)

3) Fix Social Security Fix Social Security the right way. Index the Income Cap on the OASDI tax rate such that it applies to 90% of all income every year in perpetuity. This should create full funding for Social Security benefits going forward. (reworded)

4) Regulate banking Break up the big banks/re-impose Glass-Steagall and regulate derivatives by repealing Gramm-Leach-Bliley and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. End the revolving door between government service and Wall Street banks. Since the vast greed and corruption of Wall Street bankers crashed the economy in 2007, no serious re-regulation of the banks has occurred, no penalty has been imposed on those who created the failure and Americans are still at risk of another crash. (reworded)

5) Living minimum wage Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. Implement it now, not incrementally or in full after a period of years. Index it for inflation going forward based on 2012 dollars to diminish the premium for foot-dragging. (reworded)

6) End harmful free trade deals Withdraw from or renegotiate all free trade agreements that include an Investor-State Dispute Settlement "feature." Remove this unconstitutional, anti-democratic, illegitimate legal system dodge. Remove all other, anti-worker, anti-environment provisions or scrap the agreements. (unchanged)

7) Address climate change Address climate change on an emergency basis, it is both a survival issue and a matter of national security - you choose which matters more. End all subsidies for fossil fuel extraction and production, freeze the permitting process for new fossil fuel infrastructure and expedite the conversion to renewable energy sources. Retrain and deploy workers from affected industries to support an expedited national program to manufacture, install, maintain new renewable infrastructure and mitigate the effects of climate events. (reworded)

8) End wars End the war in Afghanistan and all other current wars and actions for regime change/repeal the 2001 AUMF/close Guantanamo/require the President to respect the con stitutional role of Congress in declaration of war. The primary remaining adversary in Afghanistan, the Taliban, are a local movement and have not exhibited ambitions to attack the US in its "homeland." Continuing this war serves no purpose that is greater than the recruiting value it creates for jihadi movements. Guantanamo is similarly a recruiting bonanaza for jihadis, the military commission trials system should be abandoned and those remaining in Guantanamo should be tried in US courts or released. During the so-called "war on terror," the executive branch has failed to respect the limits of the War Powers Act and international law. (unchanged)

9) End militarization of police End the practice of using military methods and equipment on the domestic civilian population. Stop providing surplus military equipment, surveillance equipment and military training to domestic police forces and peace officers. Stop the practice of spreading military propaganda through domestic US media, repeal the portion of the 2013 NDAA that allows this practice to continue. Repeal the Patriot Act and end all warrantless surveillance of US persons (including by the NSA). (reworded)

10) Open media Reverse media consolidation/Repeal Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012/maintain net neutrality. Media ownership is concentrated into far too few hands with just 5 companies controlling 90% of all US media. This is too much power in too few hands, which facilitates the spread of fake news through a system with too few competitors presenting challenges to the narrative of consolidated media. (reworded)

four more years
peace