Charlie Rose

tannermccarthy  12/13/2011 05:47 AM Report

Wow-Another openly covert(501c4 orginization) looking to usurp the 2012 election. Apparently conservatives feel if the tough new voter restriction laws fail, this could certainly be a fall back to have it their way. This is truley amazing.

up2uamerica  12/13/2011 02:10 AM Report

These are two of the slickest snake oil salesmen I have ever seen. Pay very close attention to their statement at 18:41 "Their board will decide who gets the electoral votes not the house of reps" Who is on the board? Hedge fund managers and billionairs. They are supported by the Cato institute who is backed by who else, The Koch Brothers. That is why they will not answer Charlie Rose when he asks who is funding them. BEWARE of Americans Elect, they are out to steal an election!

anHonestWorker  12/12/2011 07:50 PM Report

Both of these fellows seem to have all the answers which frankly bothers me. They don't even come up for air and I can't see them entertaining an opposing idea.

I agree with the comment that this kind of change should come from the bottom up. Their scenario reminds me of the common management practice of semi-pretending to listen to see what the employees think and then ignoring all but what they like and preparing strategies for what they don't like.

Also, they may have some dubious connections:

Americans Elect's web site (retrieved 2011-09-24) lists Kellen Arno as National Field Director and Michael Arno as Ballot Access Advisor for Americans Elect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Political_Consultants

Gelles  11/30/2011 01:32 AM Report

I have read and watched video at http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2011/11/23/americans-elect-voting-system-still-broken-wi th/

without much result in my slow brain.

I still hope AE is on to something. I hope it slims down its "AE for Dummies" (actually not yet written) to where I will know how to elect independent electors to the Electoral College (in accordance with our legal system).

Of course this would be a necessary bit of knowledge they had to deliver to my admittedly weak brain.

But it would be nowhere near enough to bring desirable change. The electors I voted for would have to stand for the change I want.

As I previously posted, I want a change that makes our PREAMBLES count as fundamental law: that is our system must promote the general welfare not the power, wealth and welfare of the already rich and powerful over all the rest of us.

John Gelles (me) has said that our need is to change from DEBT-CONSTRAINED CAPITALISM to EQUITY SUPPORTED FREE ENTERPRISE, where the latter features:

a. Full employment budgets for money spent into circulation NOT borrowed from lenders or collected from taxpayers.

b. Inflation protected bank accounts.

c. Subsidized supply chains to keep shelves full.

d. Subsidized wages and consumption to create profit where needed.

e. Strategic planning for peace and plenty.

To be continued by all of us I hope.

basile13  11/29/2011 05:16 PM Report

A third party/candidate is nearly impossible until you reform the electoral system, just adding a person to the ballot won't do anything as people will fear throwing their vote away. This is the problem of a presidential-majoritarian system, it naturally creates a two-party system (think lesser of two evils type stuff).

7Gracie  11/29/2011 04:22 PM Report

I agree with Gelles's last statement. I just don't see how any strong leader (if one surfaces and prevails)can do anything with a congress that has become so broken, polarized and corrupted.

In my opinion, it is the order and process of reform, not reform itself that will underscore how we achieve economic democracy. I believe we must first reform the Process of democratic government. Such will provide a foundation for a better selection and election process whether for president, senator or congressman, and a more level field of play where merit would be less distorted by wallets.

The Process of democratic government is so broken. We need a new one that in many ways returns us to the fundamental standards you mentioned including your Second Bill of (Economic) Rights. Our congressional process is so broken and corrupted. How can it truly represent the people... and create solutions for a greater economic democracy under a weak or strong president?

Once the process is in place which the majority of americans embrace, then the process of a 2 or 3 party system will sort itself out far more successfully. It becomes a "bottom's up rather than top down" system with buy-in and trust from the majority of the electorate.

Maybe if AE focused on this process first, there could be a more successful long term change that has the peoples support, no matter how painful the change would be?

Did you read the link I mentioned?

Gelles  11/29/2011 11:06 AM Report

Evidently I've been a member of AE from its beginning.

So, what's my problem?

The stuff they write and put on the WW Web is too general and looks to me like GLUT.

I say it is a matter of style.

I listened to this CR 20 minutes and liked it. But their stuff on the web is not condensed. They seem to be making headway -- so I assume I'm wrong and they have possibilities.

If they peter out and have no success it will be because they were too unfocused in writing. They want to prevent leadership from emerging too soon. That may be a fatal flaw.

If they started with doctrine and named leaders, like Bull Moose and TR, I would better understand it.

Buffet's reform of congress is also too much with too little promise of a job and a home and the Second Bill, etc.

I hope the CR Show can make something better of this effort.

As I said, reform is coming. But will it aim at economic democracy? Or will it drift toward more corruption at the top until conflict spreads and REMant's pessimism is justified everywhere you look?

Gelles  11/29/2011 10:18 AM Report

"... we begin to see the left-right ideological war that has been fought intensely for the past two centuries -- and that must be overcome by us here and now by open-minded admission that too many of us are being screwed by the deflationary effect of debt-based money." [correcting error near the middle below.

"The inventiveness of AE is exciting." [correcting error near the bottom below.]

Gelles  11/29/2011 10:06 AM Report

Americans Elect (AE) are real and may well be more important than the Tea Party, Occupy WS, or the existing Democratic and Republican parties in helping our country escape legacy political-economy errors in belief and practice that are holding back jobs and middle class power, repair of infrastructure, energy independence, green nano-tech and bio-tech seeding and growth, and reform of congress to stop the common corruption and theft, etc.

ONE POINT that must be made at the outset is that we are witnessing NOT AND AMERICAN dilemma, but a global loss of leadership and trust that has hit Europe, Asia and everywhere, just as hard.

The standard we are trying to support is neatly contained in the PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION of our nation. This standard also includes the PREAMBLE to our DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

If we add to this standard, the SECOND BILL OF (ECONOMIC) RIGHTS, that guarantees full employment and continuous prosperity, we begin to see the left-right ideological war that has been fought intensely for the past two centuries.

This standard helps to shape the goals of Americans Elect. But we are also confronted with legacy legal and economic issues over property, money, credit and currency. No one with manufacturing expertise will forever allow American money to dominate investment and trade. Nor will America surrender its money system to something new out of BRIC or EU nations.

So pessimism over the magic bullet offered by AE may be OK. Still, we ought to all lend them somewhere between $10 and $10,000.

I am going to see as much as I can find on a current Warren Buffet agenda. His Import Certificates were, IMO, excellent. They would protect full employment everywhere.

Buffet's tax the rich a little more did not move me. It seems to me we need Bernanke's trillions, limited only by their inflationary effect, and not the paltry sums Buffet refers to.

The intuitiveness of AE is exciting and refreshing. My checkbook is at hand. The nonsense from REMant that reform is unlikely must be dismissed. Reform will originate here, in Europe, in Asia, or somewhere. The manufacturing skills of Europe and America are now rooted in Asia and taking root in South America. There can be no stopping of radical reform of debt constrained capitalism.

There can be a trade war -- but I think not. The inventiveness of homo sapiens is about to revolutionize investment and trade. The result will be the spread of our standards mentioned at the outset, or another accidental war like WW I. Let us hope and work for peace.

I'll be back after re-learning Buffet. Help from others here in that and other doctrine is required.

7Gracie  11/28/2011 09:59 PM Report

I tend to side with what REMant is suggesting, and I'm a retired CEO.

While I would like to believe in motherhood and apple pie, private equity has been so incredibly destructive for the 99% at the gain of the 1%. So why now can we believe that this new group has the 99%'s long term interests in mind when at least 3 backers Americans Elect are all private equity guys? Why couldn't they have been CEO's of 3 rust-belt manufacturing companies? I wish I had not read: http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2011/11/02/kahlil-byrd-announces-mass-wave-of-resignatio ns-from-americans-elect-leadership/

If you haven't, I would if I were you.

Why didn't Charlie push harder to expand on their identities as 3 private equity players and why their agenda is just another variation of what Mr. Koch and his cronies pulled off with their underwriting the Tea Party for "all americans"?

Americans Elect's basic idea and theme of empowering the other 70% to get another voice on the ballot is good, but the fine print in their Resolutions immediately evokes distrust. Read the disclosure in that article carefully.

The practicality of having a massive and rapid change in our country's political dynamics and activity is here and now. Americans can quickly rally around an idea or strategy, like Warren Buffet's recent set of recommendations to effectively and quickly overhaul congress, re-defining their accountability, compensation and benefits, term length and imposition of penalties for their selling secrets or trading on them. Do we push for new leadership or do we first fix the broader process of government, by putting Congress in the same place as the 99%, thus working for them with a sense of urgency and decisiveness, else they go without as well?

So where do we start and how? Who do we trust? Every time I think we're just about ready to have a breakthrough, I just have to read a little further and dig a little deeper.

Charlie, we need more of your probing on Americans Elect. I'll be the first to change my mind either way when you peel the onion back further to a clearer sense of the truth, the risks and rewards.

Thanks,

7Gracie

Dasein  11/28/2011 04:32 PM Report

Perhaps Nietzsche put it better:"What in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind."

REMant  11/28/2011 11:33 AM Report

I have no idea what they might mean by far right or far left, but I suspect they mean something like a candidate who will muddle along as they believe we always have. But if they mean by it irrational ppl who have run the country into the ground, then I stand corrected, tho I doubt it. Ron Paul, for instance, in no way falls into the far right category; he simply is not a Keynesian. He does not intend to wage wars through the back door. I also doubt that ballot access is the problem. Nor is it a matter of corruption. Rather the middle-class has evaporated, taking with it the self-reliant and independent individuals a republic relies on, leaving the field open to authoritarians - communists or fascist - in both government and business. This really ought to need no further clarification.

And I'd be willing to bet that whomever might be elected by this process would be no more likely or able to solve our problems than the present representatives of the people until the problems themselves are solved, and the only way to do that is to restore virtue in the electorate, which it has not been the interest of power to do, which is why I'm quite enjoying this depression.

Just the idea that electing the "right" sort of person could make any kind of difference, much less a huge one, in fact implies conflict not resolution, which leads me to believe these gentlemen actually have an ulterior motive: to form a small swing vote to push a radical agenda, much the same as such parties in the parliamentary system they dismiss.