Scott Silber's activity stream
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Scott Silber published Emergency CPR: Democracy Needs an Intervention in SoberBlog 2022-11-01 16:30:52 -0400
Emergency CPR: Democracy Needs an Intervention
2024 Emergency Fund for Democracy
CPR: Critical Participation Recovery
WHY IT WORKS:
Why can't candidates get more than 5% of people who quit voting to participate in such close elections?
Because people who don't vote largely do not trust anyone who would run for office.Since National Intervention exists without a dependency on giant moneyed interests, our volunteers are trusted at the door, and that's how we're able to get more than 65% of all non-voters to vote when they see that just one "sober" candidate is on their ballot.
THE CHALLENGE:Today's national sense of urgency also means that we have thousands of potential volunteers to reach those who won't otherwise vote, and get them to the polls.
The problem is that we simply cannot possibly train or coordinate all the potential volunteers in so many high-stakes states without your help right now.In a system of addiction to power & money in politics, pre-purchased elections can leave over 100 million eligible voters too uninspired to participate.
But, instead of millions of constituents tuning-out of the election, we could be turning them out to vote in record numbers.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
By funding precinct-by-precinct volunteers committed to face-to-face conversations, we are able to deliver the only message in the country that undermines all the noise on every screen, billboard, mailer, and airwave from an expected $16 BILLION in campaign ad-spending alone.
(If you are considering partnering with us with a large independent contribution, please contact us here with the subject: "Partnerships").
Your support is how we have remained interdependent in our recovery work, no strings attached, and how we make history, close election after close election.
So, please do join Sobriety Sponsors nationwide and contribute whatever you can while we still have time to activate millions more.
...These are not tax-deductible contributions. If you are interested in making a large, tax-deductible donation to a fiscal sponsor of our non-profit voter education work, instead, or in addition, please contact us here with subject: "Nonprofit" or call us at 202.596 VOTE (8683).
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Scott Silber published A Senate Addicted to NRA Cartel Money and Power in SoberBlog 2022-05-26 19:18:13 -0400
A Congress Addicted to NRA Cartel Money and Power
In the addiction to corporate power and money in politics that we call "greed," NRA money is an abused substance.
Your representative may be hooked. Your senator may be a distributor for NRA cartel cash. Perhaps they're just enablers, trying to protect themselves like the rest of us. That's what it's like in a household run by an addict who uses Gross Domestic Violence to get access to the next fix at any cost. Even if that cost is our children, huddled in classrooms turned into crypts.
Even that cost.
Whatever the case, NRA pushers legally register as lobbyists and move their highly addictive product through the veins of your democracy. Go against the cartel and pay the price.
As if massacre after massacre wasn't sobering enough, it's clearly time to sober-up a congress under the control of an addiction so powerful that it will feed on our kids without a single law ever passed to stop it.
Simply put:
Addiction controls people. Whether suffering as addicts or enablers, people who will feed the disease of addiction --until they are a threat to themselves and to others-- need recovery. In this case, the healthy choice is to check them out of power and into rehab. And we've already made history across the US doing just that.
And with about 90% of voters agreeing on the simplest limits to the NRA's gun lobbyist pushers, we think now's the exact time for you to join us in breaking-up with those who know better, but just cannot seem to stop themselves. Why? Because whenever, wherever National Intervention's volunteers have drawn strong boundaries, it's worked very, very, very well.
Not unlike other recovery programs, our program works if you work it. That's partly because a lot of people who can vote, just don't. And we get it. It's been a toxic, abusive, co-dependent relationship with addicts who use and abuse our wealth and power against us. Why wouldn't people want to leave that relationship?
Nonetheless, things would be quite different if we all voted. It's just that most people who've quit voting just don't trust anyone who would run for office. Even the most stellar candidates, who knock every door and shake every hand (or bump every elbow), can only get about 5% of nonvoters to come back to the polls. But, when our volunteers show nonvoters that there is a "sober" candidate on their ballot, over 65% of them will vote in that election.
Instead of breaking-up with elected officials by boycotting their ballot, now people can break-up with elected officials by casting it.But interventions only have a chance at building recovery when we do them together. Ours is a house ruled by this addiction. If you're looking for a way to fundamentally solve this, and so many other broken parts of our society, please join us, recovering enablers and once-codependent constituents, and learn what it means to draw strong boundaries with a disease that otherwise continues to live on the lives it takes.
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Scott Silber published Sending the Sobriety Test to the President in Sobriety Testing 2020-02-27 16:22:08 -0500
Sending the Sobriety Test to the President
Below is an invitation you can send directly to the White House to take the Official Sobriety Test for addiction to corporate power and money in politics. Simply sign, send, and share.
To the President of the United States:
National Intervention will be reporting the results of the next round of testing all current candidates and elected officials with the Official Sobriety Test for addiction to corporate power and money in politics. (Before replying with pre-packaged information on issues, like Citizens United or "free speech", I encourage you and your staff to read on and learn more).
Because National Intervention treats corporate power and money in politics as addictive substances, we call simply the addiction gripping our political system, "Greed." I am writing to confirm that you have passed the basic sobriety checkpoint
and you are not too under the influence of your wealthy donors, corporate sponsors, or other intoxicating ingredients that have no place in a healthy democracy.
If you are not an enabler in the addiction system, this should be the easiest Pass/Fail test you have ever taken. Please take a moment to commit to its very simple pro-democracy affirmations, as other sober candidates and elected officials have. I have included more information for you below:Presidential Sobriety Test Details:
To make official your commitment to getting clean and to a sustained recovery, go to:
NationalIntervention.org/Official_Sobriety_Test and login with your official email address to fill out the congressional form. The test asks that you commit to sponsoring or co-sponsoring any "Cold Turkey Amendment" language* to be ratified by a reasonable deadline, affirming that:1. Corporations are not people
and
2. Campaigns are only publicly financed*(This provides each of the key elements constitutionally required to reverse related Supreme Court rulings. Again, please review NationalIntervention.org/FAQ for more information about qualifying amendment proposals).
Most addicts or enablers know better than to make destructive choices, but often cannot stop themselves. Your constituents deserve to know you are sober and in control while behind the wheel of our democracy. Until we all choose recovery, we will all continue to feed the addiction system's insatiable appetite.Perhaps you or some of your colleagues do suffer as actual addicts, having lost control and desperately needing more wealth or power, both in the campaign coffers, and in your own lives. The average person serving in the United States Congress is more likely to suffer in the same powerless relationship as We, the People now do, as codependent enablers, forced to feed the addiction system at all costs:
- On average, congresspeople fundraise more than 4.5 hours of each day. Elections are more like auctions and we're One Nation Under the Influence.
- You have experienced the pressures of some of the 13,000 lobbyist pushers in the halls of our House.
- You know better than most the brutal consequences that can come from stemming the flow of wealth and power to those extorting it from your own constituents, our families, or our only resources.
Nonetheless, our communities and families count on you to do our bidding, not serve as an enabler in our massive national addiction system. Failing to commit to recovery is to guarantee that we'll all hit rock bottom.
If you have yet to take the test, my question to you is this: If you say you can quit anytime you want, then why not prove your commitment to recovery for all of us by passing this simple Sobriety Test? Corporations are not persons with human rights, but property with privileges that may be revoked.
And only well-regulated, publicly-financed elections stand a chance against the influence of moneyed interests. Once you have committed to satisfactory amendment language, we will know we can rely on you to steer our democracy in the direction of sobriety before it's too late.Thank you for making clear your commitment to us, not the addiction system. I look forward to seeing confirmation of your test results for a sober democracy, free from the addiction to and influence of corporate power and money in politics.
Thank you, again.
Signed, -
Scott Silber published Sending the Sobriety Test to Candidates in Sobriety Testing 2020-02-26 14:47:51 -0500
Sending the Sobriety Test to Candidates
It's simple to send your elected officials this invitation below to take National Intervention's Sobriety Test on Addiction to Corporate Power & Money in Politics.
You may now also view the Official Sobriety Test checkpoint yourself and send it to your elected officials in Congress and directly to the White House.If you receive responses, let us know, and we will confirm whether the candidate has passed.
Dear Candidate:
National Intervention will be reporting the results of the next round of testing all current candidates and elected officials with the Official Sobriety Test for addiction to corporate power and money in politics. (Before replying with pre-packaged information on issues, like Citizens United or "free speech", I encourage you and your staff to read on and learn more).
Because National Intervention treats corporate power and money in politics as addictive substances, we call simply the addiction gripping our political system, "Greed." I am writing to confirm that you have passed the basic sobriety checkpoint
and you are not too under the influence of your wealthy donors, corporate sponsors, or other intoxicating ingredients that have no place in a healthy democracy.
If you are not an enabler in the addiction system, this should be the easiest Pass/Fail test you have ever taken. Please take a moment to commit to its very simple pro-democracy affirmations, as other sober candidates and elected officials have. I have included more information for you below:Candidate Sobriety Test Details:
To make official your commitment to getting clean and to a sustained recovery, go to:
NationalIntervention.org/Official_Sobriety_Test and login with your official email address to fill out the congressional form. The test asks that you commit to sponsoring or co-sponsoring any "Cold Turkey Amendment" language* to be ratified by a reasonable deadline, affirming that:1. Corporations are not people
and
2. Campaigns are only publicly financed*(This provides each of the key elements constitutionally required to reverse related Supreme Court rulings. Again, please review NationalIntervention.org/FAQ for more information about qualifying amendment proposals).
Most addicts or enablers know better than to make destructive choices, but often cannot stop themselves. Your constituents deserve to know you are sober and in control while behind the wheel of our democracy. Until we all choose recovery, we will all continue to feed the addiction system's insatiable appetite.Perhaps you or some of your colleagues do suffer as actual addicts, having lost control and desperately needing more wealth or power, both in the campaign coffers, and in your own lives. The average person serving in the United States Congress is more likely to suffer in the same powerless relationship as We, the People now do, as codependent enablers, forced to feed the addiction system at all costs:
- On average, congresspeople fundraise more than 4.5 hours of each day. Elections are more like auctions and we're One Nation Under the Influence.
- You have experienced the pressures of some of the 13,000 lobbyist pushers in the halls of our House.
- You know better than most the brutal consequences that can come from stemming the flow of wealth and power to those extorting it from your own constituents, our families, or our only resources.
Nonetheless, our communities and families count on you to do our bidding, not serve as an enabler in our massive national addiction system. Failing to commit to recovery is to guarantee that we'll all hit rock bottom.
If you have yet to take the test, our question to you is this: If you say you can quit anytime you want, then why not prove your commitment to recovery for all of us by passing this simple Sobriety Test? Corporations are not persons with human rights, but property with privileges that may be revoked.
And only well-regulated, publicly-financed elections stand a chance against the influence of moneyed interests. Once you have committed to satisfactory amendment language, we will know we can rely on you to steer our democracy in the direction of sobriety before it's too late.Thank you for making clear your commitment to us, not the addiction system. I look forward to seeing confirmation of your test results for a sober democracy, free from the addiction to and influence of corporate power and money in politics.
Thank you, again.
Signed, -
system
Abuse and the Addiction System: At the Wheel and Under the Influence
We recognize that people are not born to us with a plan to do harm, but that a society that rewards reckless disregard for others -and every other criterion for diagnosing abusive or psychopathic behavior- socializes people to value profit over any other concern.- Too often, the behaviors of the big moneyed corporation mirror that of a psychopath’s and the rewards for that behavior only increase.
If the corporation-as-person-as-psychopath is the vehicle for getting more of their next fix or rush, then those driving that vehicle more vulnerable to the addiction, “Greed.”
- In family psychology, the addiction system is the entire network of those in the lives of the addict who, in some way or another, serve as support for the addiction, unless strong boundaries are drawn in the relationship to an addict who has yet to choose sobriety and recovery.
Like any addiction, the addiction to corporate power and money in politics is only capable of thriving in its host with the support of those who feed it. We all play a role in supporting the addiction system:
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Manufacturers:
As compromised workers, consumers and voters, we manufacture the ingredients of the substance and sell it under duress for much less than its true value to the corporate cartels.
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Distributors:
The corporate cartels distribute the wealth we produce (as workers and consumers) and the power we concede (as voters)
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Pushers:
Lobbyist pushers then move the substance of our wealth and power into the halls of Congress and every elected office or candidate campaign. Once it’s in the veins of our democracy, politicians get hooked, using and abusing it, often feeling controlled by their own addiction.
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Enablers:
Instead of demanding sobriety or walking out on those whose addiction has taken control of our home districts and our democracy, compromised consumers, workers and voters often act as enablers, choosing to continue the toxic, abusive and co-dependent relationship with addicts who use our own power against us.
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Users:
The path to addiction in humans is: Use-Abuse-Addiction. Not every user or abuser is hooked just yet. Often, those trying to clean-up the mess caused by the addiction are forced to use the substance themselves just to stay in the game. Some are politicians who feel like cannot “unilaterally disarm,” but refuse to lead the way as sober officials. Some are corporate office holders who are driven by a legal system of reward for maximizing profit. And, in a system ruled by addiction, nonprofit groups are usually forced to function in the same way. Most not-for-profit organizations are typically only allowed to support themselves when they address only the symptoms, not the root causes, of the addiction. Otherwise they ate cut-off. We are then forced as a society to institutionalize “the enabler” in a nonprofit industrial complex. Thus, nonprofits are permitted a little “hit” of the wealth, just enough to function and put out thousands of fires while never having the resources to go after the arsonist. Unfortunately, like some in corporate or elected office, well-intentioned organizations, while being forced to “use,” often also serve as system-wide enablers, keeping the house from crumbling completely, while the addiction and the "Gross Domestic Violence" of the addition system rule every aspect our lives.You can learn more about “One Step Forward, 12 Steps Back” policy-making in our upcoming book, The 12 Step Guide to Recovery from Addiction to Money in Politics.
National Intervention tests the sobriety of those at the wheel of the dominant institution of our time, The Corporation, and those that serve it as addicts to corporate power and money in politics. Then, we organize Interventionist nationwide to call for sobriety and recovery so we can finally balance or replace the toxic impact of this system-wide addiction before it’s too late.
Recovery. Amends. Reparations.
Learn more, then join us.
The Beginning Is Near…
–The National Intervention Coordinating Committee
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