Declare your Independence from Corporations!
I'm running for Congress, and this is my update to the Declaration of Independence for 2020. I take $0 from corporate sources, so I need YOUR help to compete with two Big Party candidates who are flush with lobbyist cash. Can you give just $4 for the 4th of July?
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for the People to overthrow the tyranny of a Two-Party State, and to assume the power to name a Representative outside of that duopoly, a decent respect for the best interests of the People requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all Persons are created equal, that they are endowed by their existence with certain unalienable rights, that among these are health care, social justice, and fair compensation for their labor. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted by the People, deriving their Power from the consent of the governed. That when a greedy few use their excessive wealth to secure for themselves disproportionate influence over our Government, and pervert its laws to further their selfish interests at the expense of the Working Class, it is the right of the People to elect new Leadership, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and peace.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Parties long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience has shown, that the People are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But, when a long train of abuses, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to make the wealthiest One Percent among us ever wealthier, while oppressing the majority, it is their right, it is their duty, to overthrow such Parties, and to assert their will to make the Government of the People, finally be truly for People and by the People. The history of the current Oligarchy of Corporations & Billionaires is a history of repeated injuries and Moral Abominations, all having in direct object the absolute domination of our Governance for their private benefit. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:
* They have used the Citizens United case & other decisions of the Supreme Court to spend almost 20X as much on "campaign donations" in 2018 as they did in 2010
* They use these monies in combination with paid lobbyists & teams of lawyers to write the laws of our Nation by making it clear to members of our Government that their continued support depends upon them passing the laws as written by their agents, along with implied threats to fund campaigns for opposition candidates of any elected officials who would impede them. This is nothing less than bribery with extra steps, to make their actions not-technically-illegal.
* They have opposed and impeded all efforts to guarantee health care as a human right. While every other Nation called "Highly Developed" by the United Nations provides universal health care in some manner, health insurance & pharmaceutical companies make themselves rich by charging extortionate prices to the American People for medicines and services they cannot live without. Other large corporations outside the health care industry benefit greatly by keeping their employees dependent upon their jobs for affordable group health insurance, whereby they discourage efforts to form unions, strike, or otherwise organize to demand improved working conditions by implied threat to the health of workers and their families.
* They use technicalities of law to employ many workers just below the number of hours per week that would qualify them as "full time workers" to avoid being required to provide benefits such as health insurance, even though workers want to work more hours per week and the business has more than enough work for them to do. Also many are deliberately classified as "independent contractors" to get around other labor regulations & transfer risks to people who can least afford them, even though they are in fact completely dependent on one customer, spending so much time serving them that the contractor cannot serve any other customers to diversify.
* The maximum donation any one individual can contribute directly to the campaign for candidate for public office per election cycle (presently $2,800) automatically increases every year to account for "inflation," while the federal minimum wage has been $7.25/hour since 2009. When the minimum wage was first created, one unskilled worker at 40 hours per week at that wage could reasonably afford all the necessities of life, while having time & money remaining to improve their station. Now workers at the bottom of the scale work multiple part-time jobs that add up to over 40 hours per week, only to barely afford regular necessities and have nothing left to save for emergencies, and not enough time or money to pursue training or education to qualify for a better paying job.
* Private prisons proliferate profitably, where governments have guaranteed to keep said "correctional facilities" full of inmates, creating perverse incentives for Government to implement harsher penalties & enforce laws more strictly upon those with the least power & influence. This has had a wildly disproportionate impact upon Black & Brown Americans, continuing the legacy of slavery through the loophole in our 13th Amendment that allows those convicted of a crime to still be enslaved. Our Nation has only 5% of Earth's human population, but 25% of all incarcerated people, and while only 1 in 17 white males serve some time in prison during their lifetime, 1 of every 3 Black males will. Elected officials make sure the prisons stay full, tax dollars go to the prisons, the prison owners get rich, the owners "donate" to the campaigns of elected officials to keep them in office, and the cycle repeats without end.
In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress, in a peaceful manner. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury, including deliberate provocation by law enforcement to escalate peaceful protests to a state of violence. Leaders, whose characters are thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, are unfit to be the rulers of a free people.
I, therefore, appealing to You, the People of the United States for the rectitude of my intentions, have voluntarily forsworn any & all support from corporations and SuperPACs created by them to circumvent campaign finance limitations, that I may be entrusted to hold paramount the interests of the Many People over the Profits of the Wealthy Few, at the same time humbly requesting your financial support, such as you are able, in order to campaign competitively against candidates who have not so pledged.
If so elected to serve the Second Congressional District of the State of New York, I am committed to using such power and influence to alleviate these and other transgressions of the Corrupt Leadership & their Patrons against the People of the United States.
In honor of the 4th of July, can you commit just $4 a month to help me get the word out? In this sort of race, the number of different people who contribute is just as important as how many dollars we collect.
Follow me on Twitter @HarryRBurger, Retweet my posts about this or tag me in your own & tell everyone why you're supporting a REAL choice for Long Island!
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Friends of Harry R. Burger