Waking Up From the American Dream

Yesterday MoveOn sponsored a forum in Port Townsend entitled "Waking Up From the American Dream". It was on target. 200 people attended and told moving stories about health care and the food we eat being controlled to their detriment by big corporations. It was a good rally.

Unfortunately, however, MoveOn has yet to come up with a realistic way to support candidates who are not in the corporations' pocket - they all are - or find a way to fund an effort by the People to take back our government by taxing the corporations and publicly funding elections.

So let me repeat a proposed solution I made earlier:

Since our elected officials can't or won't do it, we the people should mount a referendum - here in Washington and across the nation - proposing a simple progressive income tax on both corporations and individuals - something like 30% on all income above $200,000, 50% on that above $500,000 and 75% above that - no loopholes. Make it expensive to be "too big to fail". Give the local hardware store a chance to compete with Home Depo. End insurance and drug company control of the health care system. Promote competition, favor American enterprise. Put a dent in corruption and corporate control of our government at all levels.

And pay for it, $10 at a time, by clicking on our cell phones - like we were able to help with the relief effort in Haiti a couple of months ago. We the people have the votes and the power to control our own lives, even if the corporations and political parties they own don't like it.