Koch cited a great article by Alesh Houdek: Has a Harvard Professor Mapped Out the Next Step for Occupy Wall Street? Most is a review of Lessig's book. Correctly noted about using the convention option is "it bypasses the usual means of reform (Congress, presidential elections, etc.) which the lobbyists and other interested parties have learned so well to manipulate. And lastly, such a convention would be free to propose solutions that would otherwise be subject to be stricken as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court." This is critical to understand. Houdek concludes: "Properly presented, the strategies and aims of Lessig's book could make it the handbook the protesters have been looking for -- and provide a pathway for them to ride out the winter ahead."
Dan Froomkin also has presented the same case in: Lawrence Lessig's New Book On Political Corruption Offers Protesters A Possible Manifesto. He quoted what Lessig himself had said in an article about the Occupy movement and the concern that I share, namely that the Occupy movement "will become too diffuse and not focused" on the root issue of corruption of government. And that the movement will only grow "if a wide range of people can be part of it." This requires coalescing around an issue "as fundamental as the corruption of the system." Only a constitutional amendment can fix the corrupting impact of money in politics. This is also the focus of Dylan Ratigan's fine effort, except that the use of the convention path has not been emphasized.
A specific call for an Article V convention was made by the pro-Occupy US Day of Rage group: "We are organizing a coordinated national campaign at local and state levels, including where necessary the occupation of state capitols, in order to demand an article V constitutional convention be called to restore representative democracy to our nation." A set of specific reforms to be fix the corruption-money problem are presented.
The 99 Percent Declaration group has also presented an important statement centered on the call for a National General Assembly, where delegates would formulate a petition of a list of grievances that would be delivered to the main parts of the federal government on behalf of 99 percent of Americans. A suggested list of grievances includes the need for constitutional amendments to achieve solutions, but only for a few of the issues. Not explicitly acknowledged, however, is that constitutional amendments, not ordinary laws, would be necessary for other solutions, such as term limits for Congress and abandoning the Electoral College. Moreover, there is no specific recognition that serious amendment reforms will not be proposed by Congress, and that an Article V convention is needed. Inattention to method was also the shortcoming of a similar list of solutions by Ralph Lopez.
Author Scott Turow has presented: How Occupy Wall Street Can Restore Clout of the 99%. His recommendation to the Occupy movement is "work across the nation for a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to regulate the expenditure of private money on elections. " The best antidote to this imbalance of income and influence would be to greatly reduce the role of private funding in our elections. "As for the Occupy Wall Street movement, it has been criticized by some for not having a realistic agenda, even though polling shows that millions of Americans, including me, are sympathetic to the basic message of the protests." His prescription: "rally around a single goal and reinvigorate their movement." Fine, but missing from his analysis is the recognition that Congress will never propose reform amendments, only an Article V convention will do the job.
This sampling of recent writings clearly shows convergent thinking that the Occupy movement can and should focus on key reform constitutional amendments and, second, that some better informed critical thinkers recognize, this requires advocacy for using the Article V convention option that Congress has refused to honor.
As to Occupy movement success, I want again to emphasize that there is always competition for the attention and support of concerned Americans who recognize how broken our system is. In particular, the well financed Americans Elect effort is impressive. Because it is offering an alternative path to nominating a presidential candidate in 2012, over 2 million Americans have already signed up to be delegates for a web convention, with millions more very likely as the mainstream media keeps giving this effort attention. The Get Money Out campaign has over 250,000 signatories.
Disgust with the two-party plutocracy is surely shared by Occupy participants and supporters. But for movement success based on enticing many millions of Americans, the Occupy movement cannot ignore competition such as Americans Elect. This means that the Occupy movement must explicitly start making the case to the broad public why their effort can achieve more of what is needed. This is easily done.
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