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James Kindler

Mental Health Recovery Coordinator,

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How do we get corporations out of government.

Large corperations run our government, thay donate huge amounts of money for which they are rewarded. The government no longer represents the people but rather the corporations. We are supposed to be a representitive republic but our needs are not being represented, the corporations are. This is why I'm in the occupy movement, to try and return to our constitution and excercise my rights. We want the government to represent us and not the corporations, they are not people. Everyone thinks we are there to get money from the 1%, while this may be true for many what I have just written is true for me and most in the movement.

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  • ralph haulk

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    Jan 20 2012: Justen, that't the biggest crock of hooey I ever heard. When you make statements, how about proving them?
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      Justen Robertson 50+

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      Jan 20 2012: Sorry, I know that the restriction on reply depth make this difficult, but what are you referring to? Washington? Several good books have been written on the subject, but the claims I made are not disputed by anything other than gradeschool history teachers in the United States. The American revolutionaries were just ordinary people who had become fed up with a government unresponsive to their needs; nothing more. To put them up on pedestals is unkind to their true legacy and unwise if you want to understand history and politics.

      Some of them were exceptionally sharp; Franklin and Jefferson are my favorites there. Others were merely clever and opportunistic. Washington was neither of those things. He was a straightforward person who preferred action to words and lost more battles than he won, at horrific cost to his men. He was your friendly, if witless, veteran neighbor put in an undesirable situation and making the best of it - not because he was the ideal candidate, but because he was the best suited to it from amongst the people available. He was a regular guy that people felt comfortable trusting their lives to. It was up to his peers to be the philosophers, the strategists, the tacticians; he didn't have it in him.

      If you don't agree, I challenge you to go find one pamphlet or essay written by Washington that was instrumental in sparking the revolution. I challenge you to go research the history of his battles and point out moments of strategic brilliance which he originated. The former simply don't exist; the latter are few and far between. To pretend otherwise is to make a cruel caricature of the man, and in so doing denigrate others like him by suggesting they can't compare. It does a disservice to anybody who has ever wanted to make a difference in the world, by saying "aha, but you are not like these great men, you don't have it in you". That is a much deeper crime than failing to give due reverence to long-dead historical figures.

      • ralph haulk

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        Jan 21 2012: Justen, noweher in any of my statemet on history did I mention Washington. This is what is known as the straw man fallacy. Look at my references: St George Tucker, a very smart man. Joseph Story, brilliant in his understanding of law, I cited "Dartmouth v Woodward" with decisin rendered by Chief John Marshall, whom no legal scholar would call 'slow".

        Further, I cited Blackstone, and the understanding of men such as Madison, Hamilton, and Adams, among others read and practiced. I give you references from history, written by its most brilliant men, and you argue about Washington. That is classic straw man. Who caes what Washington said? As for franklin, he, along with james Wilson and Madison, tried to ceate a federal corporation for internal improvements, which the colonists quickly shot down. I' ve seen nothing frm you to counter my statements except a focus on Washington, whom we both agree offered little except as figurehead.
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          Justen Robertson 50+

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          Jan 21 2012: I'm not attempting making a straw man at all, I was giving a single example. You made a statement and I wasn't sure what you were referring to, so I guessed. You're right in that *some* of the early historical figures were very intelligent. I agree there - like I said, I like Jefferson and Franklin (despite the latter's political opinions which we both apparently find foul he made many interesting scientific and technological contributions). Marshall's judiciary opinions were also very interesting and poignant, almost without fail.

          But there are many, many brilliant people on earth today, and an intervening couple hundred years of science and social development permitting us, I argue, to outperform the best efforts of both the brilliant and mediocre from yesteryear.

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