It's hard in some cases to treat the issues separately. I voted for climate change as well, but I doubt we can get anywhere on it without addressing campaign finance first.

Submitted by Deja on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 8:12pm

Climate change for same reason as Martha P-S

Rich people are 100% equal to poor people when we've all fried, suffocated, or drowned. Voting won't matter. Rights of any kind won't matter to a species no longer alive. I have never really thought about it like this before, as stupid as that is.

Gotta be climate change.

Submitted by MsGrin on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 2:33am

Campaign finance: we don't get any of what we need until

we get that fixed. Until we reverse what we've got going on, we have no democracy and everything is skewed.

—

'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member

Submitted by Bollox Ref on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 7:55pm

Is it possible to have top four/five choices ....

Climate change is the ultimate, but others are important also

—

Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Submitted by non-prophet jim on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 9:03pm

I tried

to set it up where you could vote for three issues. Didn't work. So for now, vote for your top issue, and there may be subsequent polls.

—

"The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles. -- Bob Dylan"

Submitted by Bollox Ref on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 8:57pm

Okay, I gave it a go.

—

Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Submitted by Pat K California on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 8:10pm

In a perfect world ...

... campaign finance reform should probably come first. But unfortunately, we are OUT OF TIME regarding climate change. We need to start on that NOW as best we can.

P.S. I tried voting three separate times in the poll, but each time I did it, it negated my last vote! So I'm sticking with just climate change.

—

"Long term: first the rich get mean, then the poor get mean, and the rest is history." My brother Rob.

Submitted by non-prophet jim on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 8:46pm

Yeah

I noticed that, too. So vote for your top, and we'll do subsequent polls with the top/bottom vote-getters removed. Hopefully we'll end with a handful of issues that matter the most.

—

"The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles. -- Bob Dylan"

Submitted by Shahryar on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 8:28pm

income/wealth inequality

as in this money system is messed up, man! When one's value as a person is defined by how much one can spend there's something very wrong. If we were on a desert island with just 1000 of us I don't think we'd bother with money. We'd just take care of each other. That's how it should be with 315 million....or 7 billion.

Submitted by Dallasdoc on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 9:52pm

That's my vote too

Climate change is the most important issue, but I voted for income inequality because I think it's the central issue to build a new political movement around. People are scared and desperate and don't see politics as pertaining to them. Building a political movement on the self-interest of the 99% is probably the firmest foundation we have right now. Climate change, campaign finance reform and all the other vitally important issues fit naturally into such a movement, and I don't think we get any of them without that movement.

—

Please help support caucus99percent!

Submitted by MinuteMan on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 10:31pm

Maybe, maybe not

Maybe it would go the Lord of the Flies instead, especially if some of the GOP zealots were marooned with you. Money wouldn't count for much; look at that poor Mr. Howell.

Submitted by randtntx on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 8:38pm

Climate change for me

But to deal with climate change we will have to have campaign finance reform then voting rights, financial industry reform and then we can address income inequality by renegotiating trade deals and insuring we have good paying green jobs in the U.S.

Submitted by non-prophet jim on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 8:48pm

Agreed.

There's a lot of interconnectedness. So I'm hoping that through a series of polls, we can arrive at a handful of issues that most agree are the most vital.

—

"The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles. -- Bob Dylan"

Submitted by ngant17 on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 8:44pm

climate change appears to be the ultimate

issue if you believe the real science out there, and I do.

There's so much bogus crap to try to fight it, and it's amazing how much is taken as serious research. When if you examine the sources, it turns out to be someone with inflated or phony credentials and pidgeonholing examples of some natural activity.

It's really sobering to consider what's happening at 400ppm CO2 now.

Submitted by janis b on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 9:07pm

I always feel unsettled and conflicted

by the choice we must make. I see it is a question of what do you do first with the resources available, and can they be divided sufficiently to resolve both the climate and global human rights? As much as I identify intimately with the earth, I always seem to come back to the feeling we need to provide for its inhabitants first. I know that our survival depends on the survival of the earth, but sometimes I feel the immediate needs of the needy must be provided for first. It is perpetually puzzling to me.

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 9:26pm

Well, climate change seems like a gimmie, for if

we either don't survive, or barely do so, under horrible conditions, then the rest matter much less. After that, Human Rights is a gimmie, heck, a lot of the others like education, police and criminal justice reform, health care, housing, etc are really, at the primordial level, human rights issues.

Having gone with those two, I tossed in financial industry reform. The world economy, and the nation state economies, right down to the city and county (or equivalent) levels are controlled and manipulated to a serious degree by a relatively small handful of entities run by a small handful of crooks and con men. They have created a whole universe of legal fictions to use as investment and payment vehicles, things with no substance and no rational way to set or determine value and they are doing all they can to impose a neoliberal agenda upon all of humanity by sheer control of currencies, finances, investments and economies.

—

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Submitted by Deja on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 10:10pm

enhydra l, you were able to vote more than once?

I could only vote on one.

Are you using a laptop, desktop, or mobile device, if I might ask?

Also, what operating system, and browser/version are you using?

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 10:56pm

Desktop PC, Ubuntu, Firefox. After each vote I

went to the Recent Essays sidebar and clicked on the Post, loading a new copy, which I then voted in.

—

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Submitted by non-prophet jim on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 11:45pm

When you did that

are you sure it didn't nullify your previous vote? That's what happened to me, and at least one other user.

—

"The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles. -- Bob Dylan"

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 7:32pm

I didn't think to check, since the post said it was

intended to support 3 votes.

—

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Submitted by mimi on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 9:27pm

I don't like the formulation of this category:

free post-secondary education/student loan reform

I want tuition free post-secondary education. I don't want to reform any kind of student loans. I don't want incrementalism in this. That's what HRC is offering. They should be bold and find ways to end tuition costs as of 2017. Existing student loans should be for the most part forgiven.

—

https://www.euronews.com/live

Submitted by non-prophet jim on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 11:47pm

What I had in mind

was free post-secondary education and student loan reform for those already on the hook. Stop the problem with one, clean up already existing problems with the other.

—

"The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles. -- Bob Dylan"

Submitted by mimi on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 9:33pm

I voted three times, always for specific categories

leaving out the "general ones" everyone with a right mind would support.

—

https://www.euronews.com/live

Submitted by dennis1958 on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 9:57pm

3 votes isn't enough for such a long list options

the first 2 choices are easy but it's impossible to pick one of the remaining options over the others for your 3rd vote. It's basically a coin flip. More votes per person would flesh out the 'hot' issues better.

—

With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU

Submitted by Deja on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 10:15pm

WAIT! Why can some vote 3x?

Are y'all talking about voting once, then seeing results, then voting again, etc.?

Or, voting for 3 choices at once?

Lol, I think I know the answer. But I'll wait to see if I get any answers.

Submitted by dennis1958 on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 10:46pm

I picked a box hit vote, then refreshed after the page came back

and repeated until 3 votes were completed. it seemed to work but I didn't actually keep track of the vote totals well enough to know if the last 2 votes were counted

—

With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU

Submitted by SnappleBC on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 10:23pm

Many of those things are important

But I couldn't really respond to the poll because honestly there's only thing that matters right now and that's wresting control of our government out of the hands of the oligarchy. If we don't do that, then it really doesn't make any difference whatsoever what else we do because nobody cares about our opinions.

—

A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

Submitted by MinuteMan on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 10:40pm

Need to treat the cause not the symptoms

If we don't pry control of the country away from the greedheads, we pretty much are not going to be able to do anything that would cost them money or power. That means we can make progress in some of the civil rights issues (we're all serfs to them, anyway, so they don't care), etc., but bigger things like education, health care, workers rights, climate change etc., are going to die on the vine until we regain control of our government at all levels.

Submitted by Shahryar on Sat, 04/23/2016 - 10:32pm

for my 2nd choice, I went with affordable housing

next time around it'll be single payer.

In order that'd be:
income inequality, i.e. ending poverty
affordable housing, i.e. a roof over everyone's head, ending homelessness
single payer, i.e. real health care for all

Submitted by dancingrabbit on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 2:06am

Is it too late to add an issue?

If not, I'd like to suggest:

Peace

Alternatively:

Peace through cooperation

—

Only connect. - E.M. Forster

Submitted by jorogo on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 8:20am

Peace

Peace, yes.
Alternately....dismantling the MIC. The largest energy consumer and polluter on the planet directly or indirectly effects nearly all the issues on this list. It robs our tax dollars from everything we should be doing, and we even get to pay for its insider lobbyists - our Congress.

(And it's really what "they" hate us for.)

—

"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh

Submitted by non-prophet jim on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 10:55am

I guess I'd consider

both "peace" and "dismantling MIC" as foreign affairs reform.

—

"The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles. -- Bob Dylan"

Submitted by dancingrabbit on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 1:28pm

Would not "Peace (through cooperation)"

encompass not only "Foreign affairs reform"
but also "Law enforcement reform" and
"Criminal justice reform"?

For me, Peace is not only an international
issue but also a domestic one, i.e., Peace
(through cooperation not militarization) is
a global issue. How much good is Peace in
foreign affairs if we don't have Peace
within the borders of the US and vice versa?

—

Only connect. - E.M. Forster

Submitted by Phuq Yew on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 2:52am

My votes...

If I remember...

I started with Social Security.

Yes, climate crisis is the main issue, but I want campaign finance reform pretty much first. After that, I would choose disability rights and Deaf Bill of Rights. Yes, deaf goes under the general disability label, but we defies are so much more than our alleged disability (oh, there are communication and social barriers, yes...) - we are a culture with our language. Then there's affordable housing for low income people. And then, everything else on the list.

Currently, I am registered Democrat so's I can vote in Oregon's closed primary on May 17 (actually, before then - thanks to vote by mail for Bernie and Kevin Stiles. After that I switch back to Non Partisan.

Submitted by riverlover on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 4:35am

I went with Climate change. And then thought some more.

Many of the other "items" are to me, North American concerns. Or even just US concerns. Less expensive college is not a big deal, in much of the First world countries. Many or most of these points may be true world over, but from different starting points of inequities and local-ish concerns. War being a bigger problem in some countries, and others, like the US, supplying the means to terrorize and displace (but offer no sanctuary).

Climate change is global, by definition. The US can't mitigate or reverse it worldwide, unless you're thinking Snowpiercer. And screw it up for all. Somehow a majority of people must see that as a global initiative, to be done chop-chop.

—

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Submitted by Citizen Of Earth on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 7:12am

Endless Pointless Wars!

Please add to the list so I can vote.

—

Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

Submitted by non-prophet jim on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 10:59am

Foreign affairs reform. eom

—

"The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles. -- Bob Dylan"

Submitted by jorogo on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 8:30am

There is one point

Reply to COE:
I know what you mean, and agree fully. But being the greatest self-sustaining business model ever developed is the point....the very selfish, evil point.....the neo-con (and that includes Hillary) point.

—

"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh

Submitted by michelewln on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 10:25am

My Three

I don't know if it took all 3 of my votes but I did Human Rights, Climate Change, and Single Payer.

—

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. Oscar Wilde