"Individuals need to rise up and sieze the power they have always had and been urged to forget. Beyond voting, we need to organize and actively debate everything, from the sidewalks in our home towns to the bills before Congress and the ad hoc rulings from the executive branch. We need a parallel government that forces the attention of politicians back to the people and away from the monied interests.

Why would this work? Because politicians go where the power is and money is merely a proxy for power and time (because you can buy people's time or their attention through broadcast media). An active populace, a Jacksonian revival, with a thousand Lincolns spinning homely leadership, and a thousand Dr. Kings igniting our indignation toward arbitrary exercises of power by something called "the majority" would erase the proxy power of lobbyists and career representatives of big contributors and drive the return of an American dialog.

We should use the connections to establish parallel governments at every level, until the governments adopt the dialog by default, which they will do, because American government is still by people and for people at its roots. There are good people in government, and a lot of snails and weasels, too. Give the dedicated civil servant and the earnest legislator a constituency and they can change things in weeks, even days. Decisions can and will be made based on the will of the people through informed and open debate."