Labor Day: 2009
There are seven phases of our campaign to re-frame our State of California now. We have completed Phase One. We have only started Phase Two. The bullet point outlines that follow are the milestones we will pass forward. These are the points of accomplishment which we will achieve together. We can do this all and more. If we can see it, we can do it. Join us. We will all have to dig deep and reach far. This time and this place, is where we prove who we are and what we are made of.
Our success is up to you now: you the reader. You are our next volunteer. You are our next recruit. What a handful of us started on November 8th, 2008, we now invite you to join in. Please join with us now. We are on a mission to re-create a California that works, and re-affirm our California Dream. This will be our hard work ahead. What began as a walk of a few, will grow to a walk of hundreds and thousands. On November 2nd, 2010, what we each do now and over our campaign together will become the votes of millions. We anticipate a resounding and thorough victory. We Own It. We Want Change. We are the People of California. We are the political third rail. We are the supporters and sponsors of our new Government. We are not here to repair and fix anything. This is Our State of California. We want to start over, start fresh, design and build a new California, to be the Greatest State in America.
We plan to model our new Constitution after the Constitution of the United States of America, with simple concise Articles to frame our State, and include a host of Amendments to that clean simple charter. We will take all that is good in our current State Constitution, as well as add more clear and concise structures to our new government to benefit everyone. We are not afraid of Single Payer Health Insurance, Equal Rights for all, and leadership as a State among States. We subscribe to the three pillars of American Conservatism: political equality, majority rule, and personal liberty. We subscribe to the Progressive Principles of strong social safety nets, the best in free public education from cradle to grave and respect for the needs of the best public health for all. We have no problem with large infrastructure projects that benefit everyone in our State, like our World Class Freeways, our new High Speed Rail System, and new Statewide Desalination Systems to replace the failed water systems of old. If Kingdoms like Saudi Arabia can provide fresh water to all, California can match that and do better. We embrace new electric transportation, and the restoration of our State's diversity of our ecology. We have plenty of sunshine and our ocean is vast. Our Communities deserve the best in broadband and the best in all our other Public Utilities, which we have licensed to Monopolies that have not delivered. We can do better in the pubic interest. We know it. We do not agree that public health, medical and social problems need fill our State Prisons with non-violent sick people. Our public policy goals include education not incarceration. We are Californians not fascists. We are not afraid of State Regulated Banks and Financial Systems to correct all that has gone south thru our collective misplaced reliance on Wall Street, that frankly, is not necessary for our State, the fifth or eighth largest economy on earth.
Why? Because California has so much promise. Why? Because you have so much promise. Why not? Because if we do not do this, our individual opportunities will all dry up. Our children will be crowded into classrooms that will become the worst in America. We are already ranked 47th out of 50 States. Our farms will lay fallow and unproductive. Businesses that used to be the cornerstone of our State must be re-invented, re-opened, and restarted. California does not need any bailouts. We simply need to put our own house in order. We need new State Banks and State Financial Institutions to serve our Main Streets, to serve our Communities, our Businesses, and our needs in our California.
Our Prison Industry has already grown as a cancer in our body-politic. If we do not step up and stop what Sacramento clearly has no will to correct, California will become the leader of the whole world in incarceration of our people. Prisons have become the largest budget item in our State's General Fund - and this alone will finish the bankruptcy of our Free State. Prisons that now demand over 10% to 11% of our General Fund, within two to five years will demand over 15% to 20%. If we allow this madness to continue, Prisons will consume over 25% to 35% of our State resources. This insanity must stop now. Only the People of California have the will to stand up to a failed State Government and the Prison Guards Union that holds our State Budget Hostage. Three Strikes for Shoplifting? Give me a break!
We as the "People of California" must end the public addictions of government waste that now run amok. Political campaign funding is the only fuel for public policy that works in Sacramento now. As citizens all, we are being abused. Enough! We are the third rail of politics. We are the voters. We must step up and intervene. If we do not intervene now, both our current government and the titans of "Private For-Profit Industries" will squander our collective potential, steal our collective commonwealth, and continue to disassemble and ruin our Great State. Our children deserve better. Our grandchildren deserve better. We deserve better. California is already ruined as a State politically. We are ruined because our Politicians do not Represent the People of California, rather our Politicians Represent the Fat Cat's with the biggest checks! The economic destruction of our communities is next. Our local Counties and Cities are over the edge. The League of County and Local Governments is searching out how to file bankruptcies to escape the rapacious appetite of a State Government that is Out Of Control.
We face ruin and must pull together now as a people. No one in Sacramento is being Honest with us. Few in Sacramento know how to be honest with each other. When the Dow hits 4,000 in February or March of 2010, what are you going to do then? Wall Street is in New York. We have Main Streets in California in every City and Town. Our tax bases have diminished to unsustainable levels, do to the miss-management of our elected officials, and the idiotic process we have embraced for decades now, where we as voters, have tried to "Fix Government" one issue at a time. For every "Fix" we have made there are the unintended consequences we now suffer from. The Corporate Loophole in Prop 13 has shifted 2/3 of the property tax burden to private home owners, where as in 1978, private home owners only paid 1/3 of the total bill. Now the Corporations pay 1/3 and the private property owners pay 2/3! We have allowed the plunder of our economy for private profit, because we have not stood up and stood accountable. That time is over. We must make a stand and stand-fast now. We need to build a coalition to get to the Convention to take responsibility collectively. Either we do this, or big business and the private interests will do it to us again. You make your own choices now. I made mine. I am all in.
Our California housing crisis and the collapse of California's Private Industries and Small Businesses must end. Where are the jobs? We need strong California Private Industries. We need contracts respected by all parties. Only We as the People of California have the collective power to rise, demand and effect change. This time, we must not hand the task of "Re-Framing our State" over to those who have plundered us, again and again. How many Enron's? How many bait and switches? Our elected Officials are incapable of changing our Constitution. The actual frame of our State is now broken beyond repair. Both our Legislature and our Governor are bought and paid for by the very same special interests that have plundered our Great State already - and woe to us all, if we turn over our Commonwealth to Private Industry. Private business has its place. Our Commonwealth is all of ours and not for sale. As Californians - we must take a stand for our public interests now, or we will give our collective common wealth to Wall Street, in the same manner the Bush Administration gave our Federal Treasury to the Banks of New York.
Private Industry and Public Service must both be strong and must both co-exist. As the owners and regulators of our State's Public Services, Public Utilities, and Public Natural Resources (Electricity, Water, Sunlight, Oil, and all our Mineral-wealth), and as the regulators and consumers of the Agriculture in our State, we can and must restructure our California now. Our State and Local Governments and all our Communities can and should prosper. We must take heed as well, to assure the prosperity to our private enterprises. California Private Enterprise is the basis of our economic freedoms and must be nurtured and encouraged. Where are our California Private Enterprises? We must redesign sustainable political and economic structures that serve everyone, while rewarding those Californian's with creative initiative. As the Citizens of California, we can do this. This is not rocket science. Look at Google. Look at Yahoo. Look at the Tesla Car Company. There are California businesses that do things right and do not damage others. It is now time to trust the moral compass of our collective strength, and listen to the special interests and private interests with a seasoned measured wisdom, and empower our Constitutional Convention Delegates to take action on all our behalf.
California is not for sale. We own it. It is past time for us as voters and as citizens to be responsible and define our accountability. On May 19th, we said NO to back room funny business. As the special interests and private interests have so damaged our State, we must intervene. California is beyond repair. What is at hand is not a needed tune up, and minor fix here and a mend there. We need to put a stop to the plunder that has already transpired. We have suffered the plunder of our Commonwealth. We have suffered the plunder of our Liberties and our Freedoms. We have suffered the plunder of our Educational Systems, our Public Health, and our Common Ecology. We have suffered the plunder of our Publicly State Regulated Utilities, Roads, Railways, and Financial Systems. We have suffered the plunder of our Retirement Funds, and Mutual Funds. Enough. Where is the prosecution? We need to completely overhaul what does not work. We need to send our best to go back to the drawing boards to redesign our California Politics and our State Economy for the 21st Century and beyond. It is too late to watch and listen. The time for our collective civil action is here, and in our hands. This may be a slow process - but it is all we have. No one will do this for us. Our change begins with our signature. Our change continues when we ask others for their signatures. As Citizens we have the sacred right to demand redress grievance and to petition our government to step aside, as we call for our Constitutional Convention with Our Own Elected Delegates, who will work for us, and work with the force of our Law, that comes from us, is for us, and is by us.
As Californians we have these Constitutional Rights to take our initiatives and create the change we all know we need now. The process will take thru 2009 to first qualify for the November 2010 Statewide Ballot. Our Initiative campaign to win on November 2nd, 2010 will last thru all of 2010. Our set of seven phases of our campaign process is what we have outlined below. Our win on November 2nd, 2010 will set in motion new set of processes defined by our Initiatives. Our process to call our Constitutional Convention will take thru the winter of 2010 - 2011 to Elect our Delegates first. Then our Delegates will be sequestered to protect us from the bribes and dirty pool so common for business as usual in Sacramento. This is our California Constitutional Convention. Our Convention will take thru some large portion of 2011 to complete the Draft of Our New Proposed Constitution. The Ratification of the Draft Constitution will take place in late 2011 or very early in 2012 in a Statewide Special Election. This is slow. But if we do not do this, we will suffer the consequences of a thoroughly failed State, ruined schools, disastrous unemployment far worse than the Great Depression, and what looks like is impending total economic collapse.
Our Election of All Our New Constitutional Officers will course thru the normal 2012 Election Cycle. in January of 2013, our ALL NEW Constitutional Officers will take their oaths of office and begin their Public Service for us, under our New California that has been re-Constituted according to our collective will, and wisdom. This is the short path to comprehensive reform and our one chance to make all the necessary improvements we all know we have put off for too long.
The elections of November 2010 will choose a lame-duck short-term government. When we win at the ballot box on November 2nd, 2010, that place-holder government will do our State Business as the last sitting set of officials under our Old California. We have worked for over 130 years building a Public House without plans. Now, that old set of 35 Articles needs to be reframed and replaced in 2011 - 2012.
This last set of Constitutional Officers will either run for new positions in the New Government and be elected into the New Constitutional Offices of our New Government, or they will be replaced in the elections of our ALL NEW Constitutional Officers in the 2012 normal Election Cycle.
All the Constitutional Officers of the New Government will be elected fresh in 2012. That is a requirement of our Initiatives. When our work is complete, we will have made a clean sweep thru all of our State Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches of Government. This will take place in November of 2012. One thing that is certain, and probably the only thing that is certain in this process, is that we will have new leadership in California forward. California is now younger, more hispanic, more ethnically diverse, and more progressive, than California was, when most of our current Judges came to the bench over the last 4 decades. Our new California will exercise full political power for a first time now, thru this process that begins with the qualification of our two Constitutional Initiatives now. There are a host of issues our new demographic of California will address thru this process. We have faith in both the process and the delivered work of our new generation of Californians. Make no mistake: this is real change powered by real hope, and the people who will make this happen are really you and your friends!
When we are done, we will have a New State of California! We will have a New Constitution that works. We will have a well thought out comprehensive set of priorities and structures that we will build to last. Our work and the work of our Elected Delegates to our Constitutional Convention will establish a role model for all States in America to follow, when and if they fail in the future. California is historically the first State to fail in the United States. There is no provision for the bankruptcy of a State in our Federal System. Regardless - we did it! There will be other States in the future who will look to what we did to recover, and follow the path we now pioneer.
We will establish a civil role model to create a true Democratic Republic, without revolution, which other people in other Nations will use as their blueprint for change that works! We can frame a California with the best educational and health systems in the world. We can develop water systems that add to our wealth, and deliver for all of our homes, our businesses, and our farms. We can lead in the millennial move to electric powered transportation basis, which is ecologically safe, economically sustainable, and nonpolluting. We will heal our State Ecology. We can protect both personal liberty and personal privacy as fundamental rights, to further develop our freedoms, and to build our futures, and build our dreams upon. We can respect and trust each other. We can end the failed public policies that criminalize sick people. We can deliver real help and self respect to the afflicted. We can deliver freedom from want, sickness, ignorance and fear. Why? Because we have that ability and motive. None of us honestly wants to see any member of our communities hurt, damaged, in pain, and in hunger. We should turn our backs on all who council fear and herald the attacks of the special interests on this and on that. This is a comprehensive solution to the host of political and economic problems that were created by the same special and private interests - who have now bankrupted our Great State. We are finished suffering liars.
California is a place of abundance for everyone. The millennium dictates to us all, that the politics and economics of scarcity, fear, anger, and ignorance is over. The politics of hate is over. We overhaul California as leaders so we can repair and restore our planet. Let us endeavor to Frame our New State Constitution for the betterment of all and as an example to the ages. Let us limit to none who choose to dream, and to act, and let us all respect each other in the process. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for all people, are not theories. We must live these, and provide that all of rest of us can enjoy the same. When the peoples of other Nations urn for freedom, liberty, and justice for all, let them look to California! This is not only our responsibility, this is our obligation. We undertake this work out of duty to all who came before us, and in great honor of all who passed this torch to us, into our hands and what we hold as our bright light now.
Where do we begin? We register to vote. We sign our petitions. We register others to vote, and ask them to sign our petitions too. We meet weekly, on weekends, and we work. We organize our neighborhoods and communities. We attend public meetings and speak up. We walk and we talk. We lead by our example. We respect, we empower, we include, we empathize. We win! We CAN!
What is stopping us? Fear? Let that one go. We honestly have nothing to fear but fear it self.
Phase One: Initial Scope ~ (completed)
