Unity08. A people's movement to take our country back.

We can all shop nationally for any plan we want, we can buy through any organization who has a plan, not just our state or our company.

Mostly it gives the average family more buying power in the market and rewards good plans by letting any interested person opt-in.

Its universal care but not nationalized medicine.

I know many of you dislike his policies on Iraq & immigration, but lets hear this good idea of his and embrace the good aspects of it.

(Also, GM & Chrysler have just agreed to let the UAW have their own plan. No more company-based care.)

Market forces will work better if we all have good buying power.

More reasons why we need to join together to take our country back:

although i like the idea of a gore / powell ticket i beleive a ticket that might actually help the common man would be gore / bloomberg. here are some of my reasons.
i read gores book assault on reason and in my opinion he has a clear vision of the road america is heading down and the road america should be heading down. he has the experience. when clinton / gore won the white house they inherited a 300 billion trade deficit, when they left office america had a 235 billion trade surplus. we are now back to about 165 billion deficit. since leaving politics gore has found his personality which i feel he was devoid of when he ran for president (stiff). the number one reason i like the pairing with bloomberg is that they could finance their own campaign. special interests need not apply, this alone could be the single most important reason for their consideration.
we know bloomberg has thought about a run on an independent ticket, could gore be convinced i don't know.

I have an idea. If, it comes to the point that we are unable to find a viable candidate, or to agree on a possible candidate. We could all go to the polls as usual. And then, in the voting booth, write in a name. Any name. Other than a name signifying a member of a "Party".

In other words, what would happen if Americans rose up in rebellion, so to speak, and just refused to go along with the status quo. And, made sure the status quo knows about our rebellion.

I think that the best way to get our message out is through public speeches and rallies. Unity08 has grown a lot but we still only have 112,960 members, if we want to reform the political system we need millions and millions of supporters. Time is running out so we need to really buckle down. I live in Northeast Ohio and would be willing to help set something like this up here.

--Zach

Bringing more contests into play every election cycle is IMHO the key in getting transparency and accountability of our government reps so we can start to whittle away at the vast ends-means disconnects our current reps and the K-Street power center foists upon us.  To that end I feel the Iowa apportionment example provides an excellent best practice we all could strive to get enacted into all of our State's laws.  A national movement to get these types of reforms in place would serve us all very well.

Reapportionment based on " non-citizens "
(• The presence of illegal aliens in other states caused Indiana, Michigan, and Mississippi to each lose one seat in the House in 2024, while Montana failed to gain a seat it otherwise would have.)
(lnk ~ http://www.14thamendment.us/)

As the number of US House seats is fixed at 435, reapportionment means that if a given state gains a House district, another state must lose one. If (illegal alien non-citizens are counted in the decennial Census upon which districts are apportioned, then states with larger illegal alien populations are likely to end up with more districts and therefore more representation in the House. This effectively dilutes the votes of citizens in states having relatively low populations of illegal aliens.

In yet another sign that partisan politics as we know it is dead, this headline says it all: 

• Senator Suing Own Party Over Discord on Florida

When the parties become so gridlocked they are not only competing with each other, but now suing themselves, something is very, very wrong.
 
The medicine for what ails us is simple.  Look at the example of Chandler Stevens of Minnesota, one of our amazing Unity08 members.  He took his experience in politics and crafted a unique and interesting survey to get us discussing the important issues on the New American Agenda.  Read Chandler's editorial that he placed in his local paper:

I think the United States needs to have a real discussion on our policies in the Middle East. There are a number of foreign policy experts (such as Edward Luttwak) who make convincing arguments for ignoring the Middle East altogether. We should discuss the benefits that a post-Iraq Middle East (with which we have as little to do as possible) may hold for our country, as well as for the Middle East. For too long have we been squandering power and treasure in a region that is quickly losing its importance. Any Middle East policy that involves our continual intervention in the region only reinforces the dismal status quo. I wouldn't expect a major sea change in Middle East policy from any of the current crop of Republican (with the possible exception of Ron Paul) or Democrat candidates. (That's right, no change from the Dems either--thus exposing the term "progressive" as perhaps the most misleading synecdoche ever coined by American politics.)

Sorry for suggesting so many new issues. I'm not getting gabby, actually I'm reading and understanding more of other postings, and being inspired.

Many years ago, General Motors was the countries biggest employer. That was a long time ago and we dont have as much manufacturing superiority anymore. So GM is a global company now and doesn;t employ as many US workers.

Times change.

Still, I do think that in Middle America it is vexing that the leading employer in our country is Walmart. You can talk economic theory and political movements all you want, there's something wrong with the economy for that to be our current status.

What went wrong?