Secession has been tried once. It did not go well. I repeat - not so easy to actually suggest a solution to the problem.

If your house was infested with flies because you had honey smeared all over, what would be the most sensible thing to do to keep the flies out? Remove the honey of course! Money is not flowing into politics out of the goodness of people's hearts. Money is attracted by the power wielded by politicians. People with money hope to harness that power for their own ends. So, money can never be removed from politics until the power is first removed.

Trying to keep money out of today's politics with laws is an exercise in futility akin to swatting at swarms of flies entering a honey smeared home. Forget the money and concentrate on ways to remove the power.

I think his idea is not only wrong, but the exact opposite of the solution to the problem (hat tip to Doug Casey for the phrase). The correct solution is to get PUBLIC money out of politics. The better ways to do this would be to return the election of Senators to the state legislatures; end all public financing of political campaigns; end the control of the two branches of the Big Government party over the electoral process; and limit voting to citizens who contribute financially to the nation.

Even if you could get the money out of politics through some sort of legislation, the system of Government requires it to find another method of issuing graft, even if those involved are required to resort to illegal methods. Thye monetary influence on government cannot be stopped as long as it maintained it's legitimacy of authority. The ability of government to do what is in the best interest of the majority is a myth. The best example is the U.S. itself. Except for the abolition of slavery in 1865 and the right to vote in 1913, we have continuously lost rights throught our relatively short history. Today, most have Citizens have been placed into financial slavery with no understanding of how they got there; hence the misguided protests of Occupy Wall Street when it should be "fire 98% of government, reestablish Citizens Militias and abolish the Federal Reserve".

The well off fear losing their property rights and the less well of fear losing their civil rights as the well off buys government and every other market they can dominate.

Until the well off are willing to cede using their money power to buy government in exchange for guaranteeing their property rights, the less well off will be trying to use government to strip property rights.

We are going to have to address this problem rather than just bear the excesses of the extremes because the extremes are becoming catastrophic. I submit that preventing more than one term of any kind (elected or appointed) would be a good start. Additionally, property rights and individual rights must be protected from government control in all cases except where the government can demonstrate actual harm done, in which case the government may sue for damages for the benefit of the damaged only, not for edicts, controls, prohibitions, or mandates.

To restore one man one vote, all political contributions must be confined to those from individuals only and limited to a low maximum of $200 or so. If the well off feel their opinions are worth more than the common man, let them convince the common man to spend his contribution their way. No PACS, no corporate or government financing of any kind.

I submit that these few changes would eliminate 90% of the nonsense that goes on in Washington. That's why we need a national referendum system because Congress and the financial elite will never allow such a diminution of their illicit power without it.

Reply from The Daily Bell

There is likely no legislative fix. If you want to stop the rot, start by shutting down the Federal Reserve.

Von, of course you are absolutely right. The problem is, the central bankers and those who directly benefit from fiat money, are generally considered very capable of buying control of any "movement". So, if whomever is offering some partial solution to a problem, is not openly hostile toward central banking, they are automatically suspect. I think that's the general theme here at DB. Central banking is indeed the cause of most of our problems, but maybe we need to accept and support some peripheral solutions in order to get to the root of the problem.

@Kenn Space

"when a bunch of 'anarchists' started busting windows with crowbars. I tried to get the 'Seattle police' to come arrest "these anarchists', that were only fifty feet away and threatening violence and breaking windows… The 'Seattle police' would not budge from their 'police line', making all of 'us' the 'enemy'"

The notion of "Seattle's Finest" agent provocateurs posing as crazy Anarchists to gin up support for a bigger police state sure seems scary.

I'd like to see corporate and union money out of politics. Neither are people and they don't vote. Warren Buffet could give his personal money to a campaign but not give Berkshire-Hathaway's money (which really belongs to stockholders anyway). OK with me if Warren runs and spends his money on himself, too.

That would be a good start. I wouldn't really mind a limit on the amount, either. High enough that rich people could give more but not so high that it bought influence, i.e. my congressman would be just as willing to take my phone call as he would Warren's. The campaign finance law was bad in ways leading to the Citizen's United decision. One mess replaced with another. And I don't want government financing the campaigns, either. Keep government out of deciding who runs and who gets money.

Our politicians are so clearly bought and paid for by the rich, the corporations, the unions, and themselves. They clearly aren't working for the everyday citizens.

It is easy to tear apart proposals to reign in the absurd level of campaign spending. Try coming up with one to solve the problem(s).

And if you are going to say "What problem?" I think you have your head in the sand.

Reply from The Daily Bell

"Try coming up with one to solve the problem(s)."

Here's one: Secession.

Dear Human Being,

I hope you will pay attention to this event on January 20th, 2012.
I hope you will participate in it!

thanks,
Kenn.

There is a very large demonstration being planned for January 20th, 2012 at the Federal Courthouse at 700 Stewart street in Seattle, - and at every Federal Courthouse in the United States.. There are many groups organizing and "gearing up" for this demonstration. I will be promoting and advertising it. This "occupy movement" has only just begun. I suggest you figure out your plan of action and response; The rules of engagement; - Need a way better understanding of what is going on; - than during WTO in Seattle. Treat the people like they are the enemy, and they will become it
I feel the occupy movement does have a basic underlying message; Stop letting money decide political elections; And regulate corporate lobbying (and all lobbying) making it a public forum. Right now lobbying is mostly two old white guys sitting across from each other in an office. "They" have probably worked with each other or went to the same school; And "they" have promised you a job when you get out of politics, -- tripling your present salary!. The "lobbyist" used to be a "politician", it worked for him!. Who owns who? - That's a "Person-hood".

"I" was at the WTO protests in Seattle Washington, (with thousands of "other" really awesome "people", and a few "freaks") when a bunch of "anarchists" started busting windows with crowbars. We surrounded them, and they got in a circle with their crowbars. I tried to get the "Seattle police" to come arrest "these anarchists', that were only fifty feet away and threatening violence and breaking windows… The "Seattle police" would not budge from their 'police line', making all of "us" the "enemy"... . (There were thousands of "union" and "other" people sitting and standing in the street, - it was a relatively peaceful protest until the windows started breaking…). " I" am not the "enemy".

January 20, 2012 - Move to Amend Occupies the Courts!

Move To Amend is planning bold action to mark this date - Occupy the Courts - a one day occupation on Friday January 20, 2012, of the Federal Courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States and as many of the 89 U.S. District Court Buildings as we can. (I am inspired by Doctor Martin Luther King who said; "a true revolution of values", ... "there comes a time when silence is betrayal"., "people are not gonna be silenced".). Move to Amend will lead the charge on the judiciary which created - and continues to expand - corporate personhood rights.

Please Sign the petition to amend the Constitution for revoking corporate personhood at:

Click to view link
It's Time to GET MONEY OUT of politics
Bailouts. War. Unemployment. Our government is bought, and we're angry. Now, we're turning our anger into positive action. By signing this petition, you are joining our campaign to get money out of politics. Our politicians won't do this. But we will. We will become an unrelenting, massive organized wave advocating a Constitutional amendment to get money out of politics.
Please sign the petition!

Click to view link

Click to view link

"Luke Rudkowski... says that the protesters there are a very mixed bunch and not nearly as socialist dominated as many commentators seem to think or as the MSM tries to make out."

Scousekraut, my guess is this situation of a lack of tight control over the kinds of ideas OWS participants are being exposed to is the primary reason DHS mobilized their police goon squads.

One wonders how many of the OWS protesters know about the large number of FEMA internment camps spread around the country.

We are due for several mass scale epiphanies.

"Luke Rudkowski... says that the protesters there are a very mixed bunch and not nearly as socialist dominated as many commentators seem to think or as the MSM tries to make out."

Scousekraut, my guess is this situation of a lack of tight control over the kinds of ideas OWS participants are being exposed to is the primary reason DHS mobilized their police goon squads.

One wonders how many of the OWS protesters know about the large number of FEMA internment camps spread around the country.

We are due for several mass scale epiphanies.

is it wretch or retch? oh-me too to your comment!:)

there seem to be mostly 'no-government' proponents debating the merit of their ideas on this site. i agree that government has become the problem. however, can anyone give an example of a country that is successfully operating that way? or a scenario where this country would function so much better and how,as many of you seem to believe?

Reply from The Daily Bell

We are likely living at the end of an era, Josejoe. The most controlled, intensively monitored era of all time, one full of directed history. Perhaps it is hard to imagine, or even to argue, (for the Remnant, anyway) that it can go on much longer within the parameters of this Internet Reformation. Perhaps these are cusp times. Perhaps the "tides of history" have been reversed.

Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change has been down at the park in New York every day since it began and in this live interveiw in New York with David Icke says that the protesters there are a very mixed bunch and not nearly as socialist dominated as many commentators seem to think or as the MSM tries to make out:

Click to view link

Reply from The Daily Bell

This is great. Almost exactly what we've been arguing. It's going to spin out of control sooner or later. "They" may have made "another" mistake.

I generally agree with the central thesis of this site. ie:

At the highest level, anglo-sphere elites - the central banking families chief among them - are using the central banking system, fiat currencies, and fractional reserve banking to consolidate power and push toward one world technocratic control.

This is why Daily Bell is on my short list of daily essential sites. I read almost every article.

However:

There seems to be a tendency on this site, to always lean toward assuming that *most* efforts to reform the U.S. back toward the original intent of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, toward a true Republic are elite false flag memes.

Also, that every attempt at this - that is anything *other* than directly attacking central banking, fiat currency, and fractional reserve banking is a false flag, or dominant social theme that comes from the top.

It's a necessary condition (essential). However, I don't believe that it is:

a) Sufficient by itself, and

b) I don't believe it is feasible to expect it ... right away.

I do agree that any attempts to restore our Republic that does *not* address the monetary system and central banking is doomed to failure.

But I disagree that all of these efforts are elite memes. Some probably are, no doubt. Or they are attempts. Or are susceptible to being hijacked.

And it seems to me that a fundamental change of the central banking monetary system can probably only happen after a partial or complete collapse of the current one. This system (no matter how obviously corrupt, illogical, and insane) is so fundamentally deep in this planet, and the money powers so tenacious in their sociopathy and control of the institutions and mass media, they they will not let go short of a worldwide revolution.

So:

In an ideal world, the entire worlds population would be aware of the root causes. They would rise up against it, peacefully. And we would get sound money, decentralized power, and true prosperity on earth.

But this isn't that world. Bet you a Continental it aint gonna happen that way.

Therefore other efforts to reform America back to a Constitutional Republic are worthy, and necessary.

Getting money out of politics - in a way that is not giving power to the State to determine campaign funding - is a worthy, and - because of the reason I have given - a necessary one.

Organizations are moving in this direction and I don't believe all of them are moving in the wrong directions, and I provisionally support where they are headed:

Click to view link

Much respect to the Daily Bell. Keep doing what you are doing, it is courageous and vital!

along with all the humans :)

@asparagui

Bless you asparagui for bringing up yesterday's literary topic and thus providing me with an entree to extol the virtues of F. Paul Wilson's "An Enemy of the State." At a brand spanking new threadtop, no less! For lowbrows such as me, probable pedestrian pulp fiction "An Enemy of the State" seems almost Orffian Click to view link in "rousing primitive, unreflective enthusiasm" for "holy hatred" Click to view link of the State. LOL. Set in a space faring future that retains City of London influences, the story simply pounds home the message of Anarchy's superiority to Statism over and over again. Click to view link . ROTFL. Simple fare for simple minds weary of thinking for food at their day job.

Poltical "campaigns" which are restricted and governed by the people themselves via laws is not such a dreadful idea. Remove the financial cornerstone of the process and you will remove a huge percentage of the problem itself, in the same way normalizing drug laws will mimick the repeal of Prohibition: undercut the financial reason for the problem in the first place.

Just make it an utterly even playing field: no advertising allowed. Representing the interests of people of a given area is too important a job to be sold like car insurance and scented soap. No advertising, period. No TV ads with the sunsets and waving flags... no billboard with jutting-jaw photos... no misleading paid radio spots. Bingo: you've just eliminated the cost factors in electioneering by about 85%.

And by extension, you eliminate the Sword of Damocles which lobbyists hold over politicians' heads: do good by us, and we'll give you a crapload of money to get re-elected.

If there is essentially no re-election cost factor, it's an empty threat. As Sam Spade said when Gutman threatened him with violent persuaion other than flat-out murder, "None of them is any good without the threat of death behind it."

We have far and away more options to understand a candidate than these deceptive, sound-byte-sized commercials. Let the people who think they're good enough to "lead" a group show themselves, like the crop of goofy debates of the current crop of GOP bozos. Hold town hall meetings (and let real questions be asked.) Let them start a website. Let them go door to door... not with the object of taking graft to pay for their TV time, but to be questioned and grilled by the people whose votes they crave.

The major objection the PE would have to this drastic "election reform" is that it is somehow curtailing "freedom of expression." Bul--hit: there's nothing in the Constitution about the Right to Sell Soap. There is nothing in the Bill of Rights guaranteeing the right to buy an election.

Reply from The Daily Bell

Where do people like you ever draw the line? It is discouraging to see that for a vast number of people, every problem is a nail and every law is a hammer waiting to be grasped. Eventually in the US and generally in the West there shall be more laws than people, as all the people will be either incarcerated or will have left the country. More and more are trying to do so.

RE: "Those who claim that the plans of the power elite are unstoppable seem to us to be making an analysis that runs counter to natural law."

There is "natural law" and there are "natural elites."

Étienne de La Boétie, the 16th century French judge, writer and anarchist describes this elite and its role:

"There are always a few, better endowed than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot restrain themselves from attempting to shake it off: these men who never become tamed under subjection and who always, like Ulysses on land and sea constantly seeking the smoke of his chimney, cannot prevent themselves from peering about for their natural privileges and from remembering their ancestors and their former ways. These are in fact men who, possessed of clear minds and farsighted spirit, are not satisfied, like the brutish mass, to see only what is at their feet, but rather look about them, behind and before, and even recall the things of the past in order to judge those of the future, and compare both with their present condition. These are the ones who, having good minds of their own, have further trained them by study and learning. Even if liberty had entirely perished from earth, such men would invent it. For them slavery has no satisfaction, no matter how well disguised."

Here is to the elves who seek the smoke of their chimney and use the internet to spot the plumes.

Here's my amendment to the Constitution:

Anyone making more money than they need should shut-up and stop speaking for everyone else.

This is a view into the psyche of the average person who idolizes the "successful". I find it interesting, in a sad way, that somehow... . because a person figured out how to amass a great sum of Federal Reserve Notes in their fractional-reserve bank, that SOMEHOW... they have an answer to societies ills and should be videoed and listened to.

The whole thing makes me want to wretch.