I'd like to try an experiment, for the sake of seeing if a group as diverse as this can come up with some consensus, because I figure if we can do it here, it should be able to be done on a national level.

Let's start with the premise that we agree our leaders are dysfunctional. They have (as a group) been bought and paid for by the special interests, from Wall St. to the "Food" manufacturers, and everything in-between.

We want them to clean up Washington (and I would imagine state governments, as well.)

I really like the Pitchfork as our symbol. It can be used to gently prod them into moving, but has the implication that a degree of pain COULD be inflicted if necessary, and by that I don't mean PHYSICAL pain, but rather at the ballot box. I'm sure the two could easily be melded together.

So call it a platform, or a new version of the "contract for America" (I'm sure one of you wordsmiths could come up with a catchy name.)

I want to get fundamental here. There is LOTS that needs to be done, but many can't be unless the problems are addressed at the "foundational" level.

For instance, Jason has been stoking the fires of healthy eating, and I consider that to be an essential building block. We cannot address the issues surrounding the deficit and health care, without addressing the food that is making us fat and causing all kinds of disease, so where do we start with that?

Another building block...campaign finance reform. How can we get the money out of politics?

What I would like to do is some brainstorming here, then get with a few of you behind the scenes to work on language, then do another post in a day or two with a rough outline, more discussion and some follow-up posts to polish it up and see what we can come up with. If it turns out to be something we are proud of, we can send it off to the entire congress and the President and see if we can get some traction.

We do a lot of talking around here...do you think we can put the words into action?

So. We need to get a bunch of ideas to boil down to maybe 10 things we want our leaders to address that are fundamental to our survival as a nation.

Anyone interested? Let's go!