I’m a family therapist. My job is to assess and treat dysfunctional systems.
I’m freaking out about our current political system. I think everyone is. Our current leaders are spectacularly failing at coming up with common sense solutions to fix some very big problems.
In my book, Intervention On America, I actually laid out a plan for doing an Intervention on our country — on the 1%, our leaders who are addicted to money and power, and on the enabling codependent voters (thats you and me) who keep sending them back. This dysfunctional system is the problem.
One of the suggestions in my book was that all of us, the 99%, need to stand up, go to the streets, post blogs, run for office, write books, whatever, but get ready for the big changes coming our way.
So, I can’t get this crazy idea out of my head to run for the US Congress. I don’t want to be a politician, I don’t want to run for office, and I don’t want to live in Washington!
But as I look at my grandchildren, I feel deep sorrow and pain. We, you and I, have so screwed this thing up that I believe we all need to get off our butts and act. I don’t think we have a choice. We all need to take responsibility and change. Therefore, I’m asking you to help me in this mad idea of running, winning, and going to Washington.
I believe there is a simple solution to disrupt the dysfunctional system. It is to get money out of politics. Our elected leaders take massive amounts of money from the 1% (Big Business, Big Union, and the Hyper-wealthy) in order to fund their endless election cycles. These elected politicians end up serving them — not the American people.
I believe that we would be better served if we voted only for those politicians who agree to take no money from corporations and other entities — who pledge to take only small contributions and only from real people.
To this end, I have made a decision to put my toe into the political waters as a 99% candidate who pledges to accept money only from individuals and only in amounts of no more than $100.
I pledge to raise a very loud voice for sanity and do my best as a family therapist to facilitate both of our adolescent-acting political parties to sit down and do the work that they were sent to Washington to actually do!
I haven’t a clue how to do this. Friends are saying that it’s hopeless — the Democratic and Republican Machines always win; they have millions of dollars to protect their fixed progressive or conservative positions. I’ll run as a Democrat, but I believe that both parties have honorable positions. I believe that they, like healthy parents, need to stand up for their beliefs. But, at the end of the day, like healthy parents, they need to work things out and go back to having fun.
So, if you would like to participate in making a difference and to be in on something fun please join me this Saturday, noon, at the Best Western in Corte Madera, across the street from the Town Center (next to Max’s Restaurant).
Larry Fritzlan