The Interview
hi, phil. i ran out of time! but i have answered about half of your questions.
1. Could you introduce yourself in a few sentences ?
Hi, I am Frank Moore and I’m running for President of the U. S. I was one of the NEA-funded artists targeted by Jesse Helms and the GAO (General Accounting Office) in the early 90s for doing art that was labeled “obscene” for my long [5-48 hour] ritualistic performances with audience participation, nudity, and eroticism. This attack on the arts is generally considered the opening battle of the cultural war that has raged in the U.S. ever since. I have always used art as a means to effect political change and cultural subversion and to create intimate communities. My running for president is the logical outgrowth of this!
I am running on the politics of possibilities. I have always been dumb to what is impossible. So I just figure how to do the “impossible.” I have been doing this all my life! I am 61. I was born with cerebral palsy, can not walk or talk. I communicate using a laser-pointer and a board of letters, numbers and commonly-used words. But I am a host of a popular public access TALK show. Go figure it! So now I am setting my sights, as president, on eliminating poverty, hunger, war, etc. Impossible, eh?
2. How was your political engagement born ?
Well, I think it began when I was born. When I was born, doctors told my parents that I had no intelligence, that I had no future, that I would be best put into an institution and be forgotten. This was a powerful expectation with all the force of western science and medicine as well as social influences, behind it. It would have been easy for my parents to be swept up into this expectation. Then that expectation would have created my reality. I would have long ago died without any other possibilities.
Instead, my parents rejected this expectation for the possibility they saw in my eyes, for what for them should have been true. This rejection of the cultural expectation of reality could not be a one‑time choice. They had to passionately live their choice everyday, every minute, or the cultural expectation would have sucked them and me into it. It fought them at every new possibility they opened to me. Their passionate commitment to how they thought things should be attracted people to me who kept opening new possibilities for me. Of course, these were in the minority. But I focused on them, making them how people should be, how I wanted to be. So I expected people and myself to be like that. So people were for the most part that way...at least I saw them that way. This opened up to me what is called luck. It also gave me the ability to trust and the ability to use opportunities.
So the struggle for freedom, and against the powers-that-be has been my life. And it has been a continuous struggle, struggling with schools to let me in, etc. I have always been a radical. But that became obvious when I was 18 and invented my head pointer with which I type and communicate…I started writing political columns for the high school paper…as well as putting out an underground paper. I was in the first special class placed on a regular high school campus so that the disabled students could be in regular classes and be a part of campus life. I was involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements. This was 1965…before it was popular to be against the Vietnam War. In the school paper I got into a debate with a GI in Vietnam. I was sat down and told that, because of my political philosophy and activities, I was hurting the chances of the disabled students who would come after me. I replied that the goal was to get the rights for the disabled [and for all people] to be complete and equal…and that included the right to be political. I would not surrender that, or any other, right.
3. What personal way drove you to compete for the presidency of the United States ?
I am running because no other candidate is talking clearly about the issues that people care about, nor is firmly committed to solve the problems that keep us from living together in the society that we have been dreaming of…and is very possible. I am running because there is no other candidate whom I could vote for. I’m running to reveal and explore the possibilities outside boxes. I’m running to plant hope and to zap fear. Oh, yes, I’m running to win…and to get the health care benefits that the president receives!
4. Can you tell me some key points about your program, the main ideas ?
Here are some of the most important planks of my platform…all of which people can read at http://www.frankmooreforpresident08.com/ : I’ll do away with welfare and social security. Instead, every American will receive a minimum income of $1,000 a month. This amount will be tied to the cost of living and will not be taxable. We will have universal prenatal-to-the-grave health care and universal free education with equal access. I’ll do away with all tax deductions for over $12,000 income. Instead, there will be a flat tax of 10% on annual income of less than one million dollars for an individual and less than five million dollars for a corporation. But the flat tax will jump to 75% on annual income exceeding these limits. I’ll cut the military budget by at least half.
The primary function of the government should be the protection of the health, the civil and human rights, the freedoms, and the general welfare of the people…instead of the protection and the promotion of corporate profits and interests. The government should exist to serve the people, and not to make a profit on the services to the people. My administration will be governed by these basic principles.
I will bring the troops home from Iraq immediately. Moreover, I will change this country’s self-image from that of THE SUPER POWER/WORLD LEADER to that of a member of the global community.
5. How do you view the upcoming campaign, can you give us some elements about what it represents in term of hardships, opportunities... in the US system, and what about your strategy?
Well, I’m doing it without money, without spin, without experts, without hype. My campaign is base on ideas, on how we can create the society that we want, on hope. It is an underground, grassroots campaign, bringing people into a community of active change through direct and personal exchange with me. They keep telling us this kind of campaign can’t work. But you are talking to me. A lot of people are getting turned on, inspired by this campaign. So it is already profoundly working!
6. Political fiction : It's January, the 20th, 2009. You have just been elected president ! What are your first steps, your priorities ?
I’ll start withdrawing our troops out of Iraq quickly and safely. But I will START creating our dreams as I’ve outlined in my platform. Free universal health care, free universal education, cutting the military, guaranteed minimum income, real tax reform are some of my priorities. I will forgive all the interest on loans to the so-called third-world countries.
I’ll have a repealing party at the White House to repeal all the regulations in all departments that were enacted in the last 8 years and are harmful to the environment or to the people’s health, safety, rights and freedoms. I will also throw such parties in both houses of Congress to repeal dangerous laws such as the so-called patriot act. We will restore our Bill of Rights!
7. What are America's biggest internal problems today, and what are your answers ?
The greedy addiction to obscenely huge profits of the big corporations is polluting and distorting our society. I’ll do away with all tax deductions for over $12,000 income. Instead, there will be a flat tax of 10% on annual income of less than one million dollars for an individual and less than five million dollars for a corporation. But the flat tax will jump to 75% on annual income exceeding these limits.
All patents and copyrights will expire in 20 years. Inventions, products, etc. which are developed with governmental money and/or public institutions can not be patented.
All businesses selling their products in the U.S. will have to certify that their products were manufactured in accordance with this country’s labor, wage, environmental, and safety laws… that they meet or exceed these…no matter where they were produced.
Every corporation should come up for a renewal every 25 years, at which time it must prove that it has been operating in the public interest. If it fails to do this, it loses its right to exist. Corporations that have existed before this policy will have 10 years before they will have to prove they are worthy.
All of the opt-out schemes should be illegal. If a corporation wants to sell your information, it first should directly and clearly get your permission. Before this happens, all such information is a part of your privacy, not the property of a corporation.
The selling/buying of debt should be illegal.
8. Same question for America's external problems.
Our biggest problem is we think we are THE world leader, rather than a member of the world community. We think the world is there to satisfy our “national interest” [which is really the interest of big corporations], rather than finding what the world community needs and wants. This attracts anger, etc. to us. It also prevents us from relating to the changing world wisely.
9. More specifically, what do you think should be done on Iraq and national security ?
The Iraq invasion was never in our national security or interest. So I will withdraw our troops. You don’t keep doing what hasn’t worked. It is like staying in an abusive relationship just so that you don’t need to admit you made a huge mistake.
10. What about environment ?
I will encourage a society of small villages connected by mass transit. Within these small villages, people could walk or bike to work, to school, to shopping, to entertainment, etc. Mass transit will combine these small villages within 15 miles radius into dynamic communities. Living in these villages will end gridlock traffic, will cut greenhouse gasses, will cut stress and isolation. Housing for all incomes will be included equally in each village.
We will encourage electric cars, fast trains, clean sustainable decentralized energy generators. I would shut down all nuclear generators.
I will destroy 10 percent of our nuclear weapons each year to reverse the nuclear arms race.
11. What about your political (institutions), social, economic and societal (civil rights, abortion, homosexuality...) positions ?
Government should leave marriage to churches. Instead, any two or more adults who have been living together for at least 2 years should be able to register as a “family.”
Government should stay out of religion, out of our personal decisions about who we can love, what we do in our private lives and with our own bodies. I will see that we will finally achieve real social and economic equality of possibilities for everyone by actively insuring the civil and human rights for all.
12. What should be America's relationship with the rest of the international community ?
As an equal member of the global community. The U.S. has to stop seeing itself as THE WORLD LEADER or THE SUPER POWER OF THE WORLD.
13. Political fiction, again. You're at the White House. Iran just acquired nuclear weapons, with abilities to launch them to Europe's doors. It now threatens to launch one on Tel-Aviv if the Israelis don't evacuate the territory under 48 hours. As the Commander in Chief, what do you do ?
I don’t do fiction. Things should never get to that point. I’ll work for a sustainable Israel and sustainable Palestine with the civil and human rights insured for all the inhabitants of both nations. In other words, my policies would be even-handed. I will join the rest of the world in pressuring Israel to live up to treaties, and to dismantle its nuclear arms. I will use the “special relationship” between Israel and the U.S. to motivate Israel to do this.
I will work for global shutting down of all nuclear reactors and dismantling all nuclear [and biological and chemical] weapons. I will start this in the U.S. All countries should be expected to live under the same rules….not one set for the “super powers” and another for the “developing” nations like Iran. I will push for a global development of clean, safe energy sources as alternatives to nuclear power.
But after saying all this, I am quite able and willing to confront acts of insanity with the unexpected which will be extremely effective!
14. What assessment do you make of George W. Bush's presidency, and on which points will you be inspired or distance yourself from him ?
It speaks for itself!
15. Could you tell me about you day of September the 11th, 2001 ?
We watched TV news. We watched someone giving Bush all the power. The day before Bush was a political has-been…couldn’t get anything done. But by the act of mass murder, somebody gave Bush all the cards. Now this could be an act of political stupidity. But if the goal was to generate hatred for the U.S., then giving Bush all the cards was coldly brilliant!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
From: annie sprinkle
To: Frank Moore
Subject: Re: the interview
Frank. Really brilliant interview.
If only you could win presidency. The world would be such a better place.
Dreaming it is the start. well done.
annie
From: Frank Moore
To: annie sprinkle
Subject: Re: the interview
thanks, annie! i/we are winning. the key is active dreaming...like writing me in on election day. the next step will be getting us qualified in every state to be a write-in candidate. i'll need people in some states to be my electors.
also i need groups or whatever to speak to. SPREAD THE WORD!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
1. Could you introduce yourself in a few sentences ?
Hi, I am Frank Moore and I’m running for President of the U. S. I was one of the NEA-funded artists targeted by Jesse Helms and the GAO (General Accounting Office) in the early 90s for doing art that was labeled “obscene” for my long [5-48 hour] ritualistic performances with audience participation, nudity, and eroticism. This attack on the arts is generally considered the opening battle of the cultural war that has raged in the U.S. ever since. I have always used art as a means to effect political change and cultural subversion and to create intimate communities. My running for president is the logical outgrowth of this!
I am running on the politics of possibilities. I have always been dumb to what is impossible. So I just figure how to do the “impossible.” I have been doing this all my life! I am 61. I was born with cerebral palsy, can not walk or talk. I communicate using a laser-pointer and a board of letters, numbers and commonly-used words. But I am a host of a popular public access TALK show. Go figure it! So now I am setting my sights, as president, on eliminating poverty, hunger, war, etc. Impossible, eh?
2. How was your political engagement born ?
Well, I think it began when I was born. When I was born, doctors told my parents that I had no intelligence, that I had no future, that I would be best put into an institution and be forgotten. This was a powerful expectation with all the force of western science and medicine as well as social influences, behind it. It would have been easy for my parents to be swept up into this expectation. Then that expectation would have created my reality. I would have long ago died without any other possibilities.
Instead, my parents rejected this expectation for the possibility they saw in my eyes, for what for them should have been true. This rejection of the cultural expectation of reality could not be a one‑time choice. They had to passionately live their choice everyday, every minute, or the cultural expectation would have sucked them and me into it. It fought them at every new possibility they opened to me. Their passionate commitment to how they thought things should be attracted people to me who kept opening new possibilities for me. Of course, these were in the minority. But I focused on them, making them how people should be, how I wanted to be. So I expected people and myself to be like that. So people were for the most part that way...at least I saw them that way. This opened up to me what is called luck. It also gave me the ability to trust and the ability to use opportunities.
So the struggle for freedom, and against the powers-that-be has been my life. And it has been a continuous struggle, struggling with schools to let me in, etc. I have always been a radical. But that became obvious when I was 18 and invented my head pointer with which I type and communicate…I started writing political columns for the high school paper…as well as putting out an underground paper. I was in the first special class placed on a regular high school campus so that the disabled students could be in regular classes and be a part of campus life. I was involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements. This was 1965…before it was popular to be against the Vietnam War. In the school paper I got into a debate with a GI in Vietnam. I was sat down and told that, because of my political philosophy and activities, I was hurting the chances of the disabled students who would come after me. I replied that the goal was to get the rights for the disabled [and for all people] to be complete and equal…and that included the right to be political. I would not surrender that, or any other, right.
3. What personal way drove you to compete for the presidency of the United States ?
I am running because no other candidate is talking clearly about the issues that people care about, nor is firmly committed to solve the problems that keep us from living together in the society that we have been dreaming of…and is very possible. I am running because there is no other candidate whom I could vote for. I’m running to reveal and explore the possibilities outside boxes. I’m running to plant hope and to zap fear. Oh, yes, I’m running to win…and to get the health care benefits that the president receives!
4. Can you tell me some key points about your program, the main ideas ?
Here are some of the most important planks of my platform…all of which people can read at http://www.frankmooreforpresident08.com/ : I’ll do away with welfare and social security. Instead, every American will receive a minimum income of $1,000 a month. This amount will be tied to the cost of living and will not be taxable. We will have universal prenatal-to-the-grave health care and universal free education with equal access. I’ll do away with all tax deductions for over $12,000 income. Instead, there will be a flat tax of 10% on annual income of less than one million dollars for an individual and less than five million dollars for a corporation. But the flat tax will jump to 75% on annual income exceeding these limits. I’ll cut the military budget by at least half.
The primary function of the government should be the protection of the health, the civil and human rights, the freedoms, and the general welfare of the people…instead of the protection and the promotion of corporate profits and interests. The government should exist to serve the people, and not to make a profit on the services to the people. My administration will be governed by these basic principles.
I will bring the troops home from Iraq immediately. Moreover, I will change this country’s self-image from that of THE SUPER POWER/WORLD LEADER to that of a member of the global community.
5. How do you view the upcoming campaign, can you give us some elements about what it represents in term of hardships, opportunities... in the US system, and what about your strategy?
Well, I’m doing it without money, without spin, without experts, without hype. My campaign is base on ideas, on how we can create the society that we want, on hope. It is an underground, grassroots campaign, bringing people into a community of active change through direct and personal exchange with me. They keep telling us this kind of campaign can’t work. But you are talking to me. A lot of people are getting turned on, inspired by this campaign. So it is already profoundly working!
6. Political fiction : It's January, the 20th, 2009. You have just been elected president ! What are your first steps, your priorities ?
I’ll start withdrawing our troops out of Iraq quickly and safely. But I will START creating our dreams as I’ve outlined in my platform. Free universal health care, free universal education, cutting the military, guaranteed minimum income, real tax reform are some of my priorities. I will forgive all the interest on loans to the so-called third-world countries.
I’ll have a repealing party at the White House to repeal all the regulations in all departments that were enacted in the last 8 years and are harmful to the environment or to the people’s health, safety, rights and freedoms. I will also throw such parties in both houses of Congress to repeal dangerous laws such as the so-called patriot act. We will restore our Bill of Rights!
7. What are America's biggest internal problems today, and what are your answers ?
The greedy addiction to obscenely huge profits of the big corporations is polluting and distorting our society. I’ll do away with all tax deductions for over $12,000 income. Instead, there will be a flat tax of 10% on annual income of less than one million dollars for an individual and less than five million dollars for a corporation. But the flat tax will jump to 75% on annual income exceeding these limits.
All patents and copyrights will expire in 20 years. Inventions, products, etc. which are developed with governmental money and/or public institutions can not be patented.
All businesses selling their products in the U.S. will have to certify that their products were manufactured in accordance with this country’s labor, wage, environmental, and safety laws… that they meet or exceed these…no matter where they were produced.
Every corporation should come up for a renewal every 25 years, at which time it must prove that it has been operating in the public interest. If it fails to do this, it loses its right to exist. Corporations that have existed before this policy will have 10 years before they will have to prove they are worthy.
All of the opt-out schemes should be illegal. If a corporation wants to sell your information, it first should directly and clearly get your permission. Before this happens, all such information is a part of your privacy, not the property of a corporation.
The selling/buying of debt should be illegal.
8. Same question for America's external problems.
Our biggest problem is we think we are THE world leader, rather than a member of the world community. We think the world is there to satisfy our “national interest” [which is really the interest of big corporations], rather than finding what the world community needs and wants. This attracts anger, etc. to us. It also prevents us from relating to the changing world wisely.
9. More specifically, what do you think should be done on Iraq and national security ?
The Iraq invasion was never in our national security or interest. So I will withdraw our troops. You don’t keep doing what hasn’t worked. It is like staying in an abusive relationship just so that you don’t need to admit you made a huge mistake.
10. What about environment ?
I will encourage a society of small villages connected by mass transit. Within these small villages, people could walk or bike to work, to school, to shopping, to entertainment, etc. Mass transit will combine these small villages within 15 miles radius into dynamic communities. Living in these villages will end gridlock traffic, will cut greenhouse gasses, will cut stress and isolation. Housing for all incomes will be included equally in each village.
We will encourage electric cars, fast trains, clean sustainable decentralized energy generators. I would shut down all nuclear generators.
I will destroy 10 percent of our nuclear weapons each year to reverse the nuclear arms race.
11. What about your political (institutions), social, economic and societal (civil rights, abortion, homosexuality...) positions ?
Government should leave marriage to churches. Instead, any two or more adults who have been living together for at least 2 years should be able to register as a “family.”
Government should stay out of religion, out of our personal decisions about who we can love, what we do in our private lives and with our own bodies. I will see that we will finally achieve real social and economic equality of possibilities for everyone by actively insuring the civil and human rights for all.
12. What should be America's relationship with the rest of the international community ?
As an equal member of the global community. The U.S. has to stop seeing itself as THE WORLD LEADER or THE SUPER POWER OF THE WORLD.
13. Political fiction, again. You're at the White House. Iran just acquired nuclear weapons, with abilities to launch them to Europe's doors. It now threatens to launch one on Tel-Aviv if the Israelis don't evacuate the territory under 48 hours. As the Commander in Chief, what do you do ?
I don’t do fiction. Things should never get to that point. I’ll work for a sustainable Israel and sustainable Palestine with the civil and human rights insured for all the inhabitants of both nations. In other words, my policies would be even-handed. I will join the rest of the world in pressuring Israel to live up to treaties, and to dismantle its nuclear arms. I will use the “special relationship” between Israel and the U.S. to motivate Israel to do this.
I will work for global shutting down of all nuclear reactors and dismantling all nuclear [and biological and chemical] weapons. I will start this in the U.S. All countries should be expected to live under the same rules….not one set for the “super powers” and another for the “developing” nations like Iran. I will push for a global development of clean, safe energy sources as alternatives to nuclear power.
But after saying all this, I am quite able and willing to confront acts of insanity with the unexpected which will be extremely effective!
14. What assessment do you make of George W. Bush's presidency, and on which points will you be inspired or distance yourself from him ?
It speaks for itself!
15. Could you tell me about you day of September the 11th, 2001 ?
We watched TV news. We watched someone giving Bush all the power. The day before Bush was a political has-been…couldn’t get anything done. But by the act of mass murder, somebody gave Bush all the cards. Now this could be an act of political stupidity. But if the goal was to generate hatred for the U.S., then giving Bush all the cards was coldly brilliant!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
From: annie sprinkle
To: Frank Moore
Subject: Re: the interview
Frank. Really brilliant interview.
If only you could win presidency. The world would be such a better place.
Dreaming it is the start. well done.
annie
From: Frank Moore
To: annie sprinkle
Subject: Re: the interview
thanks, annie! i/we are winning. the key is active dreaming...like writing me in on election day. the next step will be getting us qualified in every state to be a write-in candidate. i'll need people in some states to be my electors.
also i need groups or whatever to speak to. SPREAD THE WORD!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
posted by Lavapen | 2:34 PM
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