About National Intervention

National Intervention treats corporate power and money in politics as addictive substances.

We use a simple Sobriety Test for candidates and elected officials to see who is too "under the influence" of their donors and power-brokers to be trusted behind the wheel of democracy.
This tells us which politicians may need an intervention. 

65% of nonvoters contacted by our volunteers will vote in their next election if at least one candidate on their ballot has passed the National Intervention Sobriety Test.


Then, we work to organize Interventionists in every Congressional District in the country into chapters or affiliates. These groups call for recovery so we can finally balance or replace the toxic impact of this system-wide addiction before it’s too late. Some constituents want to check their representatives out of power and into rehab.  Others want to simply break-up with those who have used and abused their voters' power against them.  Some elected officials do indeed suffer from wealth and power addiction themselves; some suffer in their own role as enablers to those who demand more and more, at any cost.

Whatever the case, if your elected officials cannot choose a "sober" path forward for all of us, then we enact a plan to draw strong boundaries in our relationship to them. Many active interventionists also work to drawn strong boundaries with those compelled to serve the addiction system.

Become a Citizen Sponsor or an Interventionist.

 

Before reading more in depth, many like to visit our FAQs first.

 

What We Do:

1.  Getting Clean (Free & Clear Elections and Government): The policy arm of National Intervention works for our recovery from the addiction system by testing the sobriety of those at the wheel of our democracy, whether in corporate or elected office. Note: Any amendments-as-sobriety test must be formally sponsored, co-sponsored, and --when an option-- voted upon in the affirmative, at the earliest possible moment to have taken such actions. Working without delay gives us time for an effective Intervention before the damage done by the addiction system is too much to repair. 

I want to test a candidate's or my elected officials’ sobriety.

2.  Drawing Strong Boundaries: Knowing who it is that is too under the influence of wealth and power allows us to determine the best way to draw strong boundaries in our relationship to them. Many know better, but cannot stop themselves in pursuit of the next fix. Some are a threat to themselves and to others, so this area of work is similar to protecting those otherwise subject to abuse at home. Because of the large-scale damage that can be done by an entire economic or electoral system for feeding an addiction, we simple refer to the abuse of those in power on a societal level, "Gross Domestic Violence." Next, we strategically organize Interventionists in every Congressional District in the country to call for recovery so we can finally balance or replace the toxic impact of this system-wide addiction before it’s fundamentally too late. 

3.  National Recovery Platform: We are then able to convene the National Support Group of organizations around the country and mobilize Interventionists in every US Congressional District around our 12-Step National Recovery Platform, a program of repayment for the damage their addiction has caused. 

*In short:  Addicts to corporate power and money in politics can have control over our democracy or they can keep what they owe us for causing so much damage, but they can’t have both.  Elected officials who choose sobriety and recovery can ratify an amendment to give us back our democracy in time.  (If their addiction makes that impossible, then we probably need to break up with them, at least until they are ready to "renew their vows" or a prenuptial contract we can live with…)

What We Know:

Much of the core philosophy of a National Intervention is already familiar to you. You understand, no matter who you are, the impact of —and to some extent, the nature of— addiction. 

While corporations are not people, the humans who do the bidding of big moneyed corporations are real, biological people.  One environmental, economic, social and political disaster after another, we see those people have likely become too addicted to power to stop themselves from leaving costly, sometimes irreversible destruction in the path of their pursuit of the next greed-driven “high.”

Congressional Sobriety Test:  

True or False:  
Corporations Are Not People and Campaigns Should Be Only Publicly Financed.

It’s simple.  If you answered “False,” an addiction to corporate power and money in politics, called “Greed,” may be making your choices for you.  You know better, but you can’t stop yourself from being a threat to yourself and to others.  If this sounds like you or your elected officials, there’s help:

National Intervention: The Basics

1.  Addiction Warps Reality; Sobriety Makes It Clear:
When sober on corporate power and money in politics, we recognize some self-evident truths:

  • Corporations are not persons.  (They are property).
  • Money is not speech.  (Money is money: a monetary means for exchange).
  • Only publicly funded elections are not corrupted by moneyed interests.

However, when we are under the influence of corporate power and money in politics, these truths become warped.  
Suddenly, we live a place where corporations are persons who may control people like property, money is speech that has a bigger voice than you do in your own government, and campaigns are controlled by a few billionaires desperate to secure the pipeline for their next fix at any cost.  

As a sober citizen, you might want to clean-up the neighborhood, get the lobbyist pushers off the street corner, keep the kids from getting sucked into a life of addiction, and protect your home from a violent addict who demands you give him everything you have and need just so he can get another high… again.  Try, though, to stem the flow of the drug lords’ substance, and you will quickly learn the power of an addiction system determined to survive and thrive in the addict, no matter what the consequences.  

It might seem funny to look at our relationship to corporate power and wealth, and those addicted to it in government, but it isn’t a joke.  The toll this abuse has taken on our society, on our world and on each of us forced to suffer in and support the addiction system is obvious, cruel and severe. 

2.  Gross Domestic Violence:
You already understand what a toxic, abusive and co-dependent relationship to an addict might look like:

  • Loss of control in your own home
  • Often coercive demands that you give more and more for less and less
  • Fear that, if you leave the relationship, you won’t be able to survive
  • Willingness to take continued beatings or abuse to placate the addict
  • A feeling that you cannot continue to feed the addiction, but this world is all you know and you don’t how to break free…

Of course, as in any abusive relationship with an out-of-control addict, the long, unfortunate and unnecessary list of brutal costs continues.

3.  The Addiction System: At the Wheel and Under the Influence
We also recognize that our 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 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 addictive substance, then those driving that vehicle are 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:  

  • 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.
     
  • Distributors:
    The corporate cartels distribute the wealth we produce (as workers and consumers) and the power we concede (as voters) 
  • 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.  
  • 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.
     
  • 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 are 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 “systemwide enablers,” keeping the house from crumbling completely, while the addict and his Gross Domestic Violence reign.  

    You can learn more about “One Step Forward, 12 Steps Back” policy-making in our upcoming book, The 12 Step Guide to Recover from Addiction to Money in Politics. This year's edition of the Wealth and Power Addicts Guide will also be made available to anyone who signs-up to receive. Providing one's identity is never required for receiving a WAPA guide.

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