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The Occupy Wall Street movement needs to find an outlet. The energy that has been regrouped in this growing movement needs to find a constructive and active outlet. In Cairo, the Arab Spring movement resorted to throwing rocks at the police. What will the Occupy Wall Street movement do?

Corporate Personhood & Unlimited Campaign Contributions

As all roads lead to Rome, all our problems can be said to be the destinations down the path from nearly unlimited campaign funds.The issue at stake is the one of "corporate personhood" and its ability to make unlimited and anonymous campaign expenditures  One should ask the question: Does a corporation have more to say in the running of the country than the people themselves who chartered them and gave them the means to flourish and prosper in the first place?

In the Supreme Court case of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific, the court ruled that the 14th amendment's equal protection clause guarantees constitutional protection to corporations. And then to add insult to injury, in January of 2010, the Supreme Court ruling allowed that corporations could make unlimited donations to political causes and indirectly to individual campaigns. Keep in mind that the primary purpose of the 14th amendment was to protect freed slaves, not to turn water into wine.

Can We Expect Congress to Reform Itself?

A question that Prof. Lessig raises is the following: How can we expect Congress to initiate election reform when they are the very beneficiaries of a system that is much like a giant game of chicken. After all, 94% of election winners are the ones who spent the most money in their campaigns... and we would expect them to willingly step forward to quit? They need ever increasing "donations" to fund ever increasing re-election campaign expenses.

Without question, eliminating big money by the few from our election process must be the brass ring to snag.

Professor Lawrence Lessig, the author of "Republic, Lost" may have a viable solution. There is a little known constitutional recourse where the States themselves can initiate a constitutional amendment when Congress won't do it themselves. The Founding Fathers, in their seemingly prescient way, realized that there would come a day when Congress would be incapable of representing the people and where the people would need a legal and peaceful method to "make Congress behave responsibly".

If the Occupy Wall Street movements can be directed to force a "People's Constitutional Convention" to propose and then help ratify a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Supreme Court rulings, then the founders' dream of a self-correcting democracy will have been realized. And American can once again become the shinning example of peaceful self-rule for others to follow. Just as it was in 1776.

Rachel Maddow Helps Frame The Problem Of Big Money In Politics By The Few

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Lawrence Lessig Discusses A Constitutional Amendment With Rachel Maddow

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Lawrence Lessig: A Lecture Why Of Big Money In Politics Is A Problem

More On This Topic:

Lawrence Lessig on How We Lost Our Democracy - Lawerence Lessig - Rolling Stone

Recommended Book:

Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It
by Lawrence Lessig.

Lawrence Lessig is the director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and a professor of law at Harvard Law School. Previously, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School (where he founded Stanford's Center for Internet and Society) and the University of Chicago Law School. Lessig clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lessig's interest in getting money out of politics is surprising but yet assuring due to his association with the Federalist Society and having clerked for Justice Scalia who was at the center of the Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United, which has now so completely corrupted and polluted the political system.

Click here for more info and/or to order this book on Amazon.

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