Proposal = The Eye-On-The-Ball Movement

[johnkarls]

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Non-Traditional Discussion Outline = PROPOSAL -- THE EYE-ON-THE-BALL MOVEMENT (AKA, EYEBALL MOVEMENT OR EBM)

Barack Obama in 2008 often complained about "taking your eye off the ball" by ignoring Afghanistan. However, he has taken his "eye off the ball" by failing to focus on Al Qaeda which long since relocated to Yemen and the autonomous Tribal Regions of Pakistan.

Meanwhile, he has gone even further afield by ignoring our 4/8/2009 Citizens' Petition (aka, Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaign) to rely on human intelligence instead of waging costly wars -- even going so far as we have seen this month that he is ordering capital punishment for U.S. citizens without trial and by "cruel and unusual punishment" (aka, death by drone aircraft which can certainly be cruel, especially if it results in maiming rather than death).

Accordingly, rather than stand by idly while Barack Obama destroys the Democratic Party, I am proposing for Wed Eve a Discussion Outline which is slightly different from traditional. It proposes a counter-weight to the Tea Party Movement which would be, like the Tea Party, issues-based ["A Plague On Both Your Houses"!!! - quoting the dying Mercutio in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet] starting with our Citizens' Petitions (aka, Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns, of which there have been 9 on 11 different topics) which are still in full force and effect.

Re the preceding paragraph's comment about Barack Obama destroying the Democratic Party, just think how different last month's elections would have been if Barack Obama had merely adopted our 4/8/2009 and 12/9/2009 Citizens' Petitions (Items A and B below) to pull out of Afghanistan and eliminate unemployment!!!


THE EYE-ON-THE-BALL MOVEMENT (AKA, SINCE EVERY CONCEPT NEEDS A CATCHY PHRASE AND ACRONYM, THE EYEBALL MOVEMENT or EBM)

A grass-roots issues-based political movement that supports political parties and/or candidates only insofar as they, in turn, support The Eye-On-The-Ball Movement's positions which could include, for example:

(A) Stop wasting $80 billion/year on the War in Afghanistan and concentrate, instead, on human intelligence regarding Al Qaeda which has long since re-located to Yemen and the autonomous Tribal Areas of Pakistan. [4/8/2009 RL Meeting]

(B) Eliminate unemployment with an FDR-style "National Security Work Force" pursuant to which (1) unemployment compensation is conditioned on working in simple U.S. government facilities that produce solar panels, (2) the compensation for the unemployed now producing solar panels is extended indefinitely, and (3) unlimited time off is given for job interviews to re-join the regular economy. [12/9/2009 RL Meeting] NB: The revenue from the solar panels might exceed the cost of extending unemployment benefits indefinitely!!!

(C) Instead of waging class warfare over whether to raise the "millionaire's tax" by a few paltry percentage points, kill four birds with one stone by financing social security and universal health care with a European-style (that is, dramatically higher) gasoline tax. The four birds = adequate financing for social security and universal health care, reducing carbon emissions, reducing the international balance-of-payments deficit, and increasing national security by reducing the reliance of the U.S. and its allies on foreign oil. [4/14/2010 RL Meeting*]

(D) Instead of wasting time with a paltry $5 billion (1.6% of the cost of the Afghanistan War) "race to the top" program disingenuously disguised as an experiment to ascertain what is effective vis-à-vis K-12 public education when every community organizer already knows the only thing that is effective is to fund programs that provide individual tutors and mentors (who are volunteer to the extent possible) for inner-city children who will naturally come to view them as surrogate parents -- "cut to the chase" and provide robust funding immediately for programs that do feature such tutors and mentors!!! [1/13/2010 - 5/13/2009 - 1/14/2009 RL Meetings]

(E) Solve the 60-year Palestinian refugee problem with a cost-effective (just a few billion dollars/year vs. what we are already spending) on giving Palestinians a life -- providing education to all Palestinians, especially the young, so that real economic development occurs. [10/14/2009 RL Meeting]

(F) Ban electric cars until the last U.S. coal-fired electric-generation plant is shut down, unless the car is sold with solar panels and designed so that it can obtain its electricity only from the solar panels. Otherwise electric cars are an environmental disaster because the loss of the coal's energy content in converting it to electricity makes electric cars, on an all-in basis, a significant contributor to greenhouse gases when compared to conventional gasoline-powered cars. (NB: this is not true of hybrid cars such as the Prius, because they convert a gasoline engine's waste heat to electricity). [11/18/2009 RL Meeting]

(G) Effectively eliminate corporate campaign contributions with legally/constitutionally sound I.R.S. regulations for the Internal Revenue Code's "ordinary and necessary business expense" provision for corporate tax deductions that already requires that to be deductible an expenditure must relate to the corporation's business. The new regulations would specify: (1) that any expenditure that does not relate directly to the corporation's business must be submitted to the shareholders for a vote with each dissenter receiving her/his portion of the expenditure as a cash dividend and each remaining shareholder being reported to the IRS as having received a non-cash taxable dividend for her/his portion of the expenditure; (2) that any expenditure aimed at affecting the policy of any governmental organization or agency is subject to the shareholder-vote requirement unless it finances a message that is confined to the merits of an issue affecting the corporation's business (rather than comprising an unrelated attack on an organization or individual whose policies may affect the corporation's business); and (3) that a penalty will be imposed on the corporate officer who authorized such an expenditure without a shareholder vote (or the chief financial officer if the expenditure was not authorized by any other officer) equal to three times the amount of the expenditure. These new provisions providing for penalties and non-cash taxable dividend treatment for shareholders would be in addition to non-deductibility of the expenditure for the corporation – just like any other dividend. [3/10/2010 RL Meeting]


* Editorial Note = the RL meetings at which these Citizens' Petitions (aka, Six-Degrees-of-Separation E-mail Campaigns) were adopted appear in brackets after each position -- however, Item C has an asterisk following the date of the meeting because we lost our quorum 5 minutes before we reached a position that could then be official.