Dear Mr. Panetta,
A large group of voters and future voters have a modest proposal for fixing the many dysfunctions in our political process; we describe the proposal in detail at www.Voters-Intervene.org.
Our basic criticisms are that the People have no voice; the Congress, the President, the parties, the corporate media and the elections are all effectively controlled by the moneyed interests; the People are systematically deprived of vital political information; and, there is no process available to hold our politicians accountable in public, i.e., to embarrass them into doing the right thing.
In other words, although the Declaration of Independence demands that our government operate only with the “CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED”, our corporate-controlled elections and corporate-controlled policymaking deprive us of any meaningful method for expressing that consent. The solution is to establish (a) an ongoing process of public dialogue between citizens and politicians, and (b) a foolproof method of providing reliable political information. Only then will we be able to undermine the power of money in politics and arrive at legitimate expressions of consensus.
Let me give a local example of how our current style of national politics was working as long ago as 1993: Bill Clinton had just been elected President in November 1992: He was recruiting a particular Congressman, who had become an expert on the federal budget process, to be Director of the Bureau of the Budget: Your father, Leon Panetta. At that very moment, though, a high-powered lobbyist from strawberry agribusiness, the dominant industry in our congressional district, was putting the arm on Congressman Panetta to get the industry a huge favor that would enhance their quarterly profits.
A few years earlier, back in the mid-80’s, the nations of the world, all 200 of them, had come together to protect the Ozone Layer, the Earth’s only effective defense against the mortal dangers of excessive solar radiation. If that vital protective system were to get weakened much more than it had been already, all life forms on Earth would be threatened with extinction. The nations met in Canada and signed the Montreal Protocol, a global treaty that required all nations to abolish the use of Methyl Bromide, a gas that (1) is among the World’s most toxic substances, and (2) (along with other gases), was attacking and slowly destroying the Ozone Layer. In addition to these two dangers presented by Methyl Bromide, it is also a powerful greenhouse gas that exacerbates the global warming crisis.
Strawberries can be profitably grown using organic or other non-toxic methods, but Methyl Bromide users were getting the highest profit levels. However, they were also poisoning the migrant farm-workers, other local residents, the school children and the teachers, all of whom were close by the Methyl Bromide fields every day. The long scientifically-established list of health effects from exposure ranges from skin rash to asthma attacks to low birth-weight newborns to cancer, and many others in-between.
Despite all these facts, Mr. Panetta carried out his duty as loyal party member, because it was going to produce handsome campaign contributions from strawberry agribusiness: He recruited his successor, Congressman Sam Farr, to get the corporate strawberry growers exempted from the Montreal Protocol. Everyone, including the teachers, were intimidated into silence on the subject. All of this skullduggery was conducted in absolute secrecy: Here was routine American politics at work, and it’s worse now than it was then, as our fat cats and their operatives gleefully poison the air, the rivers, the oceans, the earth, the plants and the animals, including all of us, all in pursuit of maximum quarterly profits. Quite a system.
To abolish this corruption, the voters and future voters are conducting an intervention to deal with all the horrendous political habits our politicians routinely engage in. We are intervening to demand a straight answer out of every 2024 ballot candidate: “Will you or will you not support the creation of Open and Accountable Government?” When they ask what that means we will refer them to www.Voters-Intervene.org, and explain that it means, first, that all officeholders (and all ballot candidates during election season) will be required to publish daily the text of every written communication concerning the public’s business that they send out or receive-and-read, AND, every day, electronically record and publish every conversation (and every public statement) they engage in concerning the public’s business, all posted daily on the internet.
Secondly, Open and Accountable Government also means that every ballot candidate during election season, and every officeholder, once a month during the entire year, will be required to engage in a 30-minute, televised conversation with a citizen 12 years old or older, who is chosen by lottery from among all volunteers who sign up. The chosen volunteer shall have the option to appoint any proxy spokesperson, 12 years of age or older, who has registered on a new federal registry of proxies.
The body politic dies without a reliable source of information and without ongoing public dialogue.
Finally, we will have a reliable source of current political information, and perhaps most important, an effective method for embarrassing our politicians into carrying out their duties to serve the People instead of the fat cats. For example, during a televised conversation we can ask our Congress Member: “How does it feel to be protected by full medical insurance provided to you because you are a Member of Congress, while millions of your fellow Americans go without such protection, suffering and dying and getting bankrupted in massive numbers from the deprivation?” Maybe then we’ll get what 80%+ of the American people want: Medicare for Everybody.
So, Mr. Jimmy Panetta, please answer our question: Will you or will you not support the creation of Open and Accountable Government? Please answer this question well before Election Day, to the address shown below, so that everyone can learn of your response before they vote. When I asked Leon Panetta that question, his answer was No. (See my exchange of letters with him at www.Voters-Intervene.org). Although he is a founding member of the Panetta Institute (for better government), he appears to be satisfied with the status quo. Is that your position as well, or will you help us fix our pathetic, corrupt and dying political system?
Yours truly,
Ed Frey, 4630 Soquel Drive, Ste. 8, Soquel, CA 95073
I have not received any response to this letter as of 9,16,2024
Voters Intervene 