For the sake of minimalist verbiage and maximization of content, this writer posits the following urgently pressing issues which need to be addressed as we approach the 2016 presidential election in one year.

For those of us aspiring to have a new era inaugurated by a genuinely participative progressive democratic election the following issues are presented as some of the most urgently needed among a plethora of other pressing ones if we aspire to bring about the real change we need to be all we can be as the 99% we are and have the political power to achieve.

Given that the Republican party is now exposed as no longer a respectable constructively conservative party, as it has entered an era of intellectual, moral, and political decomposition which is exemplified by the circus of recklessly posturing nomination candidates who are mostly greedy, dishonest, classist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic, the only choice the American people have is the Democratic party, and within that realm the only trustworthy, innovative, independent, inspiring, honest, energetic candidate thus far is Bernie Sanders.  Of course if Elizabeth Warren decided to run she could likewise be thusly characterized.

So, fundamentally, what is needed is a major overhaul in priorities.

It is an imperative that once for all, we become again the United States – the republic – and abandon the destructive role of the United States – the empire builder (euphemistically AKA the “nation builder”).

We must rebuild our nation and heal from the wounds of stratification and politically instilled divisiveness for the benefit of the conquest by those who most loudly proclaim “family values” and “patriotism” unconvincingly as they lead us from war to war in a serial spree of waste of treasury and blood, a spree which only destabilizes and ruins the countries we bomb and thus creates the environment for reprisal attackers to endanger our national security.

For this to become a possibility we must end the democracy corruption undue influence of special interests, which means repealing Citizens United v. FEC,  eliminating the toxic effects of the industrial-military complex, the big pharma-hospital complex, the NRA, and AIPAC.

The trillions of dollars of our the hard-earned taxpayers’ funds as well as the hemorrhage of blood wasted by our relentless wars of aggression and destabilization,  will come to an end and the result will be lives saved and funds that have been deflected from fundamental societal needs will then enhance the reforming and the rebuilding of our nation in ways that it will address the fundamental needs of our poor and middle class citizens.

This will mean developing immediately a national health care system, a modern bullet train railway transportation network, coupled to major badly needed repairs and improvements to our infrastructure, all of which will provide us with jobs and means to improve our educational opportunities by a more accessible educational system.

If we are to be a “leading” truly democratic nation to others we must “lead” by the power of example and not the example of power, something which has ruined our image abroad by such examples as massive incarcerations without trial and torture of thousands in the Guantanamo concentration camp in occupied Cuba, and by rendition in prisons abroad.

By our politicians non-credit worthy statements about the glory of freedom and democracy we have done tremendous damage to our reputation since in reality, we have all along protected heinous human rights and international law violating regimes in Latin America, Indonesia, Philippines,  for in the past 50 years, and others more recently such as in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and most notably and bizarrely in Israel since 1967.

This writer now ends this brief foreword with a sprinkling of the most noteworthy examples of what we must no longer practice and of what we must immediately focus on and or demand our public servants to focus on.

As starters we must no longer spent more in our so-called “defense” budget which is higher than the rest of the world combined, and that means closing most of our 700-800 military bases throughout the globe.

Concomitantly we must end engaging in unnecessarily offensive provocative behaviors and/or actively support such belligerent provocative behaviors, as for instance, most recently, our sending of U.S. naval destroyers to within 12 miles of the coast of the Peoples Republic of China.    Yesterday, November 3, 2015, Chin accused the U.S. of “hypocrisy” and “hegemony” for this provocation.  The Foreign Ministry spokesperson added that the “false proposition” for this provocation in the South China Sea to the effect that free navigation was threatened was absurd as more than 100,000 ships pass through that area safely every year.

It goes without saying that our supporting of Israel as it relentlessly and obsessively provokes the Palestinians in their legal land which it has invaded and occupied in brazen violation of international law and in which a veritable ethnic cleansing campaign has been waged since it implanted itself into Palestine in 1948, further documents offensive behaviors on our part which are counter-productive, illegal, and irrational.

We must stop allowing Pentagon funds to be provided to so-called “evangelical” organizations for their infiltration and destabilization of nations whose systems of governance do not align with the objectives of our consumer capitalism system run amok by deregulation.

Case in point is the Bush/Cheney era funding of such groups as the Humanitarian International Services Group for purposes of infiltration and destabilization.

On the side of what “we the people” must demand is first and foremost a national health system of the kind that most developed nations such Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, France, as well as the Scandinavian countries, and even Cuba and Brazil have, a system that works and is not just “affordable” in name.

We must also demand an immediate end to the offshoring of trillions of dollars via corrupt schemes by American corporations which book such amounts abroad to escape paying their due taxes in the U.S.    One documentary, among many that cover this sordid practice, is “Deadly Spin ” by Wendell Porter.    It was discussed during an interview of  by legendary Amy Goodman, producer and host of the Democracy Now news program.

Another fascinating interview as regards to the imperative of our demand for the establishment of a national health care system is also one which took place on Democracy Now on November 3, 2015 and it involved the interview of James Henry, a whistleblower and former executive of two health insurance companies.    The interview related thereto focuses on his book “The Price We Pay”.

While admittedly the field of what we as a nation need to stop doing and what we instead we need to start doing, is vast.

This writer interest in writing this short article with some documentation,  is primarily to add some additional insights to some of the more important changes which must become active as fast as is our need is to undertake energy-saving and globe warming preventing measures so we can re-establish a sustainable, transparent, user-friendly, accountable and equitable participative democracy, at a time when we seem to be mislead in the opposed direction at an exponential rate by mostly our neocon Republican politicians, but as well by quite notable neoliberal ones, both of which “we the people” will have an opportunity to fire democratically in 2016 so that we can embark on a “belle époque” of an authentic human evolution in these polyfacetic wondrous United States of America.