New Constitutional Convention for United States (ConCon)

Practical Plan to Really Restore United States Economy (by late 2020s): 

Part 1: Road to Constitutional Convention and a proper message to unite factions of the tea party with urban progressives in an alliance of convenience



Situation in United States has deteriorated to a point where we are not looking at a gradual and peaceful slide into Brazil level international status (with similar domestic social conditions) anymore but at a Soviet style nasty imperial disintegration when the next inevitable financial shock occurs.

We've heard many exciting proposals recently such as "abolish the fed", "end corporations as legal entities", "default on the debt", "wipe out the financial parasites and rebuild FDR style", etc. Structurally however, none of those can be accomplished due to oligarchy's aging personal lawyer/butler (supreme court/congress) and their guard dog (the president) being on a tight leash. Needed changes cannot come from the federal center of force unless the situation dangerously deteriorates. It'd be too late then.

As such, a moderately radical (compared to fascist, bolshevik, and secessionist proposals we'll be hearing after the upcoming second dip of the depression) but doable and pragmatic plan needs to begin to be implemented immediately if United States hopes to start a long multi-decade road to recovery. This plan has been distilled from previous long articles such as the ones dealing with unpayable national debt, pinpointing need to prevent braindrain, problems of a sold out senior citizen home that is US congress, and nurturing some industries to compete with China's mercantilist practices.

The plan has to be appealing to a vast majority of the US public across the political spectrum (fringes included) which means utilization of emotional triggers that people had ingrained into their consciousness since childhood. Believe it or not but a 21 year old progressive from Boston and a 70 year old rural man from Alabama both share nearly identical life long propaganda indoctrination by the ruling oligarchy. The trick for realization of a movement towards recovery is mobilization of a broad coalition to displace the ruling regime by flipping regime's own propaganda against them. 

Only a plan that:

a) plays to rural genuinely constitutionalist factions within the tea party movement (those not misdirected or bought off by corporate infiltration of the movement's phony "national leadership")
and  
b) unites them with younger urban unemployed/underemployed via a common, very consistent, and rather simple message

can achieve a breakthrough. Uniting some tea partiers and disenchanted progressives in temporary marriage of convenience against a common foe will be the hardest part. However when anger is up and emotions are running high, such unthinkable political bedfellows become possible if extroverted emotional waves join at a proper time. It has happened numerous times before in other societies.

[Message building]

1) Call for a Constitutional Convention  (34 states needed to have one and 38 needed to ratify)

Now that the federal and most state governments are broke and running budget deficits that require physically unacceptable austerity measures (on top of decades of already declining infrastructure and social services) popular anger can readily be channeled into a ConCon. Americans of all ages have positive associations with this concept from childhood schooling. ConCon can happen through bypassing presidential and congressional power (it is key to isolate the federal center of oligarchic force).

People like South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer are already talking to high level republican state politicians to have a ConCon. For disenchanted progressives, a desire for a ConCon can be the best outlet for their frustration as well. Nobody knows what ConCon will bring and it therefore serves as a point of contact for a diverse spectrum of political factions. The idea can also excite the imaginations of young and old alike due to their association of it with national greatness and renewal after a difficult period. What is more, it is a legal idea that appeals to the majority of people who are psychologically not predisposed to radicalism. The slogan should be "Convention not Revolution". At the same time, the potential of convention is so full of radical restructuring promise that for the more passionate of tea partiers, the slogan can be reworked to be "revolution through convention". Call for ConCon is a protest vote against current national elites, a call for dramatically different direction, AND meaningful legal activism all rolled up in one.

It is key to get regional elites on board by playing to their pathologically narcissistic egos and sense of importance. There is so much negativity now that controlled positive attention/affection can really puff up the psyche of small state legislator. People in every state must divide their state politicians among themselves by passionately asking their favored ones to be a ConCon supporter and "a delegate to the convention" and sharply ridiculing and alienating those who don't support it. State politicians are all former political science/history geeks and many would get a kick from the masses thinking they are worthy to represent them at a historic event of such magnitude. ConCon should be made an issue in upcoming state and local elections as well. If a dedicated minority of state politicians get excited by the idea, they'll drag many of their drinking buddy legislators along for the ride via simple social psychology. Their corporate masters should not immediately have a problem with this since ConCon isn't specific enough.

It is inevitable that activism for Convention will begin fierce polarizing debates about the key constitutional changes that need to be done at the convention itself. This is where, paradoxically, our budding city/country coalition will find additional points of contact through agreement to disagree. They will realize that the federal union needs to be loosened up into a more confederal structure with states and entire regions pursuing their own modes of popular development. Thus the more confederal structure becomes perhaps the first goal of convention. This first goal needs to be stressed because it will reenergize the diverse political spectrum by creating pseudo nationalism and lively brainstorming among regional factions. Mass reactivation of the apathetic and disenchanted young democrats and progressives can even occur if emphasis on possibilities of states rights (for northeastern states) is combined with emotional need for revenge against Obama. 

Additional regional and state elites may now join the call for ConCon since they will realize how dramatically their power will increase within a more confederal America. Unfortunately but perhaps inevitably we can expect some oligarchic corporate interests to begin supporting ConCon with the expectations of profit in the more libertarian post ConCon Southeastern region of US. Opposition to ConCon should be actively painted as federal (based in the hated congress to not alienate pro-Obama ConCon supporters) AND corporate in nature to maintain emotional focus and factional unity in the ConCon coalition.


2) Building mental associations of United States with Soviet Union, time of troubles before the Last Constitutional Convention, and/or rotten oligarchic regimes that have collapsed in the past due to a diverse and peaceful political coalition 

What helps any movement is belief that regime's collapse is inevitable and that the activists are just helping history along. What helps even more is all the recent data showing that this belief is grounded in reality. I have written how all the key structural and social problems that Soviet Union had are being experienced by present oligarchic imperial socioeconomic model in United States. It seems this society reached Soviet level of decay and dysfunction via a seemingly different ideological path (the inflexibility of which inevitably began leading to mistakes on all levels of management).

Since Americans are very educated about Soviet problems and failure, it would be very easy to begin comparisons between the two former superpowers in the minds of the tea party movement. The more they would look, the more similarities they will discover to their horror. This will help movement towards ConCon by providing an aura of inevitability when it comes to ending federal power in its current form.

When it comes to young progressives, such suggestions of comparison (USSR to USA) will prove to be more difficult due to their laughter and derision of tea partiers calling Obama's policies socialist. Some may of course see the blatant similarities but they are not likely to see USA in the same light as the rural ConCon supporters. Thus it seems better in their case to compare United States to post WW2 regimes in Spain and Greece before they were ended by a broad coalition (where liberal college educated youth played a key role). Unfortunately Franco's regime and similar rich man's regimes in Portugal, Brazil, etc are not well known to the US public (due to their rot having a more common capitalistic source with US) and don't provide the same association with inevitable decay and collapse. Therefore, a hodgepodge of societies should be utilized when comparing problems of US to similar problems that other countries had. This will show demoralized progressives that America's problems are not unique, how such things were solved abroad, and how ConCon is the best legal way of bringing about the end of the current regime.

This is it for now and later sections of the recovery plan will deal with the debt situation, military industrial complex, and additional political solutions as truly bipartisan coalition builders.

What is meant by recovery is putting the country on a road back to the level of dynamic ability, social strength, and international role model status that existed at the peak of American power in 1960s (before it was gradually and systematically ground into a large banana republic by a neoliberal oligarchy). When US returns to that level of confidence, government responsiveness, and hope for a better tomorrow then new plans can be implemented that work with the the drastically improved tools at hand.