Hi BeachBoy: Thank you for being openminded and trying to look at both sides of things.
It will take people like you to bring the best of both worlds together, not the worst sides which is what we have now.
The main idea I have is to organize ppl in teams, on specific cases
we can use as a pilot study to see if this can work. Some of the activist groups like the
Greens or Occupy may already have legal defense groups willing to take on the
task of assessing the costs to taxpayers for specific acts of abuse or corruption.
If this works, I would go through law schools to set up internships, similar to the
Innocence Project, where this can be done on a continuing basis. [The model I want to
use for setting up a democratically accessible grievance process to check corporate and
govt abuses more directly, would be like Nader's OSHA process of streamlined citations
that are answered by hearings or penalties/corrections, and not proceed to trials unless necessary.
but instead of govt complaining of business violations, citizens would complain of corporate or govt
violations of the Bill of Rights, Amendment 14, or the Code of Ethics for Govt service,
where I posted these basic principles on http://www.ethics-commission.net]
For the restitution part, to publicize the cost to taxpayers per project,
I recommend using the independent currency idea taught by Paul Glover
and Ithaca HOURS Ithaca Hours - Local Currency - Ithaca, New York OR Home
But here I would use the currency not just to represent labor exchanged at 10/hour,
but also to represent the debt, and use the VALUE of the project to back the notes.
I talked to a local banking professional who recommended having people
lend their money against the notes and the project goal; hold that
in a bank account; and then circulate the notes to represent the debt.
The point is for the actual WRONGDOERS to be held to paying the full
amount of the debt, which I would ask teams of lawyers to work out a settlement
plan with the govt and the parties responsible for absconding or abusing public funds.
And either the lenders gain interest off the loan (while the notes or money
are used to finance the jobs and internships/studies to fix the problem
such as with restoring damaged sites of national historic or environmental landmarks)
or the investors OWN shares in the actual project or program.
So either the govt holds the WRONGDOERS responsible, or the citizens
take back the program/property as collateral against the debts and damages at our expense.
If lawyers are hired to do the settlement/collection work, on behalf of taxpayers then they could get a commission, but not where it become a racket itself, like with tobacco suits that profited the lawyers more than anyone else.
What do you think of developing this idea?
Since you are in California, the Headwaters Forest is a good example of
corporate destruction of invaluable wilderness and wildlife at taxpayers' expense.
Would you like to form an exploratory team around that?
I know some ppl who may be interested, if you want to give it a good college try!
Julia Hill of the Circle of Life Foundation was interested in fundraising for scholarships for student interns. And I know other politically-minded media activists who might join in if a team started up around this idea.
here are the rock song lyrics I wrote to host music video contests
to try to raise the money to save redwood trees, endangered species
or the 5 groves within Headwaters Forest:
http://www.houstonprogressive.org
I thought people of all ages might get involved in karaoke contests
to honor their favorite stars while raising money for a good cause!
What do you think? What kind of music do you like, are you interested?
PS where i Live in Houston, the Freedmen's Town national historic district
is another site I'd like to use as a pilot program for taxpayer reparations:
Freedmen's Town Historic Churches and Vet Housing
Because this site combines Freed Slave church, Civil Rights and military history
it may be a bit heavy for lightweights to deal with all that in one project.
So the environmental campaign I was going to call "Rock the Earth"
for hosting wildlife pageants and video contests for clubs to raise money to pay back restitution to save endangered species in a redwood rainforest and river ecosystem
is more appealing to the general public and kids. Since everyone's into American Idol I thought of pitching a TV show called American Wildlife and see if that would draw talent.
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