My demands for a more perfect democracy

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET has been slammed by press and independent bloggers for not having cohesive demands, as if the rising unrest could be assuaged by a singular fix.  When people ask me what this protest is about, I have a difficult time tidying it up  into a single sentence.  I usually start out with, "The government bailout of the banks using public funds is a start," and then I go on to talk about economic inequalities, rising cost of tuition, lack of lucrative (and enjoyable) employment, money in policies.  I tend to stop before I discuss the outsourcing of labor, the volatile trade of currencies, the undermining of civil liberties in other countries, the unjust wars in which we are engaged, or the negative effect in a global envirnment because by then you can tell that they don't want to think about it too much.  But I cannot completely blame them; it is a lot to think about.  And this is a quite the undertaking that conscious citizens are trying to confront in a long battle to restore civil liberties, equality, and social--nay, global--tranquility.  So the protesters have forgone the notion of a single goal, evocative of beautiful anarchy.

After my sister's birthday on October 6th, I, too, will join the protesters at Wall Street.  I'm quite excited, but I have a lot of preparing to do beforehand.  Yesterday I began studying civics and taking notes; I checked out several books (children's books, at that) from the library on national, state, and local government.  It was the 7th grade and 1999 when I had civics class, and I don't remember too much because I thought that the subject was boring.  I know now that I am in desperate need of a refresher course.  I've also been researching what it means to be a fascist: having recently finished The End of America by Naomi Wolf (and having watched the corresponding DVD maybe 5 times throughout these past couple of weeks; I tell everybody that I can about her book), I felt so enraged in myself in that I had been ignorant for so long about how fragile democracy is, and how we as Americans have used "democracy" as both a shield and a blinding mechanism.  Now I am riled up enough to fight to take democracy back.  The more that I research, the more that I write, the more that I speak, the freer I feel, the more empowered I feel, the more that the goal becomes clear.

I am so angry that the adults to which I and my generation had entrusted our well-being completely allowed George W. Bush to strip away so many of our liberties.  It saddens me even more when I think about the beautiful promise inherit in late-1999 at the Battle in Seattle, a momentum that was completely squandered and reversed with the Bush administration.  It is the hope that Occupy Wall Street will bring back this momentum and sustain it into a revolutionary crescendo of cacophanous freedom and beauty.  I believe with great conviction that something wonderful has begun in the tenacity of the Wall Street protesters.  In my own state, Occupy Denver began this week, and in a few hours Occupy Colorado Springs begins.  But my sights are on Wall Street because this is where the tangible battle is; Wall Street is both a concrete and symbolic reality.  No one can tell when the winds will officially turn; it could be years from now, it could be after my death.  But I know that the flames of revolution have caught spark as the occupations throughout the US and abroad have been ignited by the imignations of individuals wishing to express their solidarity.

If the revolution happened tomorrow, I know exactly what I'd demand.  It's not a singular demand, but a list, though incomplete at the moment: 

The People's Anti-Corportion Bill

• Politicians both current and running must disclose all corporate donations to their campaigns on their websites.
• State elected officials will not cajole businesses of other states to their state by offering tax breaks.
• A corporation--having legal personhood--must be accountable to the People in the American court system--both state and national--as would a human being, its CEOs being liable for due punishment.
• Betting upon the success or failure of a market is gambling and therefore illegal with public funds.
• The government will no longer give public funds to private institutions in the form of bailouts.
• Governments must disclose all non-profits applying for federal, state, or local grants.
• All banks having received recent bailouts must pay back their loans with interest to the People by 2015, or risk seizure of private assests by the national government.
• The Federal Reserve--being a private institution--will no longer be granted permission by the national, state, or local governments to print national currency.
• Public taxes collected by the IRS will no longer support the Federal Reserve, as it is a private institution.
• Banks will no longer sell their debts to other banks--they are as accountable as People in the American court system.
• College tuition increases must correlate only with national inflation; student fee increases must first be proposed and voted upon by the students.

That is for the near future.  Other statutes that I am would like to see instated:

The People's Anti-Manipulation Bill

• Commercials for cosmetics, fragrances, body altering devices, weight-loss supplements, and weight-loss programs will only air on the television after 10pm in any area's given time-zone.
• Blatant product placement (more than 2 visible images or verbal mentions intended for endorsement) are banned from television shows and movies.
• Corporate logos and soda vending machines are to be removed from public schools.
• Blantant hate-speech conveyed through the media will be liable as slander upon the People.  (*I admit that this issue would be very difficult to try.  Then again, perhaps not with an argument well-crafted by a critical thinker.)

The People's Restoration of Civil Liberties Bill

• The elimination of militant foreign presence--the complete removal of American military personel on duty in foreign lands.
• From hereon, The Department of Homeland Security will no longer conduct business.
• From hereon, the IMF will no longer indenture other nations.  The IMF will no longer conduct business and would cease to exist.
• Abuses of preisthood are accountable to the People as a global entity, liable for due punishment by the courts representive of the victim.  (This would be an issue for the UN.)
• The immediate legalization of marijuana and cocaine nationally; states will be granted the option to opt-out.  (*The bloodshed terrorizing Mexico is executed by the drug cartels; 50% of the world's demand for Mexican-grown cocaine comes from the US.  The US has more prisons and inmates than any other developed country with the vast majority of the inmates being people of color.  From a fiscal stand-point, imprisoning people costs more tax dollars than if the people whom needed treatment got treatment.)