Let me say first – this is a non-violent demonstration. I have no intention of hurting anyone – I have taken every precaution to prevent any injury to anyone, including me. There is no way I can prevent over-reaction by the authorities, but I have given them as much information and advance warning as my fuel supply allows. When I took off, I was over an hour away from the no-fly zone.
The demonstration is about restoring democracy. Corruption in Washington DC has robbed the US citizens of the representative government that is our birthright. Polls show that the public is aware of the problem and VERY concerned, but they are largely uninformed that there is a solution and there are organizations prepared to make reform a reality.
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As a result of this flight, two things will happen. (I hope.) First, we’re going to change the narrative – the story. Voters are going to quit being played like suckers with divisive hot-button issues and come together on a single issue. Honest government. Congress won’t start working for you or me when their big paycheck is from big business. Lobbyists, Special Interests, Unions. We have to make this happen. The political parties won’t. Congress sure won’t. Lobbyists love the status quo. The mainstream media (not the local media) is making a financial killing with mega-elections. It’s up to us.
Second, in every Congressional race in 2016, I want every candidate to take a stand on corruption. After this flight, we’re going to define exactly what reform means – set a written standard – and it’s that standard which candidates will have to endorse. Or the candidate will have to defend to voters why he took a lesser position. The candidate who only wants to talk ‘reform’ but won’t endorse the real deal will be facing someone who will endorse real reform. That may be in the primary or the general election. Giving you a choice is our job. The clear choice, establishment or reform, will be in place in just a year for just over 460 congressional races. You get to choose (That’s your job as a voter.) but for the first time in decades, you will have a meaningful choice.
What do I want from you? Look over your options on the previous screen or the ‘Honor Roll’ on the sidebar to the right. Rootstrikers or Wolf PAC or Represent.US. My favorite group isn’t listed there – it’s my own startup group:‘The Civilist Papers‘. Find a group (or groups) that you are comfortable with and sign up. We’re not after money – we want to know who you are and where you are so we can keep you informed.
We’ve got to get together! I, at 81, walked from Sarasota, FL to Tallahassee. You did me one better with your flight. Please contact me. Use email of phone. I don’t get all that tech stuff
Rhana
941-922-3610
See you Tuesday. I’m not out to one-up anyone, and I’m not convinced I did.
Doug Hughes, Thanx! Am sure you will attract the crazies and the supercops but doubtfully the ear of Congress. Thank you for your efforts toward Real Democracy. I appreciate it. …dg.
Tomorrow morning, 8AM MDT, my morning post nominates Doug for the Aerial Achievement Medal. He deserves it, young whippersnapper that he is [I'm 77].
Wish my father was alive to witness his dissent. He worked for the USPS for 35 years – and I don’t know how anyone survives all that takes. Especially Congressional butt for a raise.
It won’t show till that time; but, here’s the url:
http://wp.me/pg93m-FDq
typo in the comment. That should read “kissing Congressional butt for a raise”
thanks for being a hero.
its a shame that the house of the oeople talks of death even in the airspace. built by tax payer dollars, you should be free to exptess youtself. yes even in an out of a box way. thank you. sincerely
petet plavchan 845-235-2956 debary florida
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Fellow American , THANK YOU FOR YOUR BRAVERY I am a 59 year old X law enforcement officer and I fly a Benson 503, not quite as nice as the one that you just gave up attempting to save your country. I am well aware of what you just did and what you did it for. As soon as you are able to I need you on my radio program to share what you meed to share, before our gov. attempts to put you on mind altering drugs and put you away. Lets pray that does not happen. You need to tell it all the way you intend to tell it, before the main stream media attempts to make you look like a nut job and does not expose the message. My show is on Tuesday at noon central AM and FM with a large coverage area. I also assist with two shows that have over 3 mil. listeners I will git you on. I will open Tuesday the 21st if you wish
Again thank you Doug!
m
l
thank you
Dear Mr Hughes,
Thank you for delivering the mail.
Laurel Miller
Are you affiliated in any way to the tea party?
I am not aligning myself with any party or group. I am a registered democrat, but what I’m doing has inspired people across the political spectrum. It’s not about left or right. It’s about DEMOCRACY.
Good for you, Doug. I applaud your guts and determination. Virtually none of the real problems this country faces can be resolved until and unless we fix the way we pay for our elections. I have little faith that many of our fellow-citizens can tear themselves away from “Dancing with the Stars,” or “Fighting in a Cage” or “I Want to Become a Star” (or whatever it’s called) long enough to get involved — in which case I guess we deserve to lose the country that we’ve been handed. All the sentient beings can do, I guess, is to try our best. Good luck!
100% agree with your letter!
I all the time used to read post in news papers but now as I am a user of web so from now I am using net for articles or reviews, thanks to web.|
If you use your head, and you obviously are, go beyond the network media for the full picture.
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real reform !!
That flight was great…. Hey do you have any D. B. Cooper tats?? lol Any way great flight…
No tats.
The following note I sent to Mr. Montgomery, and he indicates that you have a way of supporting your defense needs – can you tell us what you need? Best Regards,
Steve
“Good afternoon Mr. Montgomery,
I am following this development with significant interest. I personally believe that this gentleman should receive a personal invitation to the White House for dinner, and be immediately released from jail. I was flabbergasted by the apparent arrogance of (I think) Jey Johnson regarding his joking and ridiculous comment about “what is a gyro-copter?”
I simply can’t believe what is happening to our country.
Mr. Hughes is absolutely correct in his assessment of the control of money on every aspect of our supposedly free government (and it’s no longer a matter of Democrat vs Republican).
The other aspect about money, but I guess a different subject is the IRS. I was very disheartened to see the long lines of elderly people, looking very unhappy, waiting at the public libraries in Colorado for tax help. These people are all terrified of making a mistake and being descended upon by the giant dragon waiting to destroy their lives. You fear what you don’t understand. My father is a WW2 vet and an aeronautical and mechanical engineer, and can no longer figure out his own taxes, and am having a lot of trouble myself.
Anyway, in talking this over with him, we would be willing to contribute to the defense fund for Mr. Hughes. Could you please direct us to where we could make more extensive comments or make more direct contact with Doug?
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Good for you Doug! Thanks for making the point to the world!
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Doug Hughes Gyro Poastal’e letter
« on: Today at 04:17:45 PM »
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The finer things to be said about a man like this wont come from him or even a jury of his peers.
If there could ever be one assembled.
It will come from those of us that dared to dream, but did not do, Looked beyond the procedural
but for wallets found wanting felt accomplished enough in the act of getting to a rally and getting home to write about current events and ancient history. There is already a page or two about tragedy and behavior, loss and inspiration. Scavengers and small men.
True or false, Slanderous or factual Mr. Hughes doesn’t give a damn about what anybody thinks now, or anytime in his remaining years on the planet. A state of grace has been earned on a daring adventure for a cause that was worth More than the risks, for the escape from the confines of the things i MIGHT DO to effect change, and the self redemption of, A PLAN, A PROVIDENCE and COMPETENT EXECUTION. And DID DO! To effect change.
Ladies and Gentlemen, i submit to you that Doug Hughes has achieved an act of valor for what he believed is right and true, manged his risks and survived long enduring introspective as to what is the balance of a man amongst humanity and in so doing at least for the self, assess redemption and apologize to no man or the agents of any nation state. He is free to envy no man. As I am privileged to envy him.
Cool VP
The Tampa Bay Times published the letter Hughes intended to deliver:
Dear ___________,
Consider the following statement by John Kerry in his farewell speech to the Senate —
“The unending chase for money I believe threatens to steal our democracy itself. They know it. They know we know it. And yet, Nothing Happens!” — John Kerry, 2-13
In a July 2012 Gallup poll, 87% tagged corruption in the federal government as extremely important or very important, placing this issue just barely behind job creation. According to Gallup, public faith in Congress is at a 41-year record low, 7%. (June 2014) Kerry is correct. The popular perception outside the DC beltway is that the federal government is corrupt and the US Congress is the major problem. As a voter, I’m a member of the only political body with authority over Congress. I’m demanding reform and declaring a voter’s rebellion in a manner consistent with Jefferson’s description of rights in the Declaration of Independence. As a member of Congress, you have three options.
1. You may pretend corruption does not exist.
2. You may pretend to oppose corruption while you sabotage reform.
3. You may actively participate in real reform.
If you’re considering option 1, you may wonder if voters really know what the ‘chase for money’ is. Your dismal and declining popularity do$#%ented by Gallup suggests we know, but allow a few examples, by no means a complete list. That these practices are legal does not make them right! Obviously, it is Congress who writes the laws that make corruption legal.
1. Dozens of major and very profitable corporations pay nothing in taxes. Voters know how this is done. Corporations pay millions to lobbyists for special legislation. Many companies on the list of freeloaders are household names — GE, Boeing, Exxon Mobil, Verizon, Citigroup, Dow …
2. Almost half of the retiring members of Congress from 1998 to 2004 got jobs as lobbyists earning on average fourteen times their Congressional salary. (50% of the Senate, 42% of the House)
3. The new democratic freshmen to the US House in 2012 were ‘advised’ by the party to schedule 4 hours per day on the phones fund raising at party headquarters (because fund raising is illegal from gov’t offices.) It is the donors with deep pockets who get the calls, but seldom do the priorities of the rich donor help the average citizen.
4. The relevant (rich) donors who command the attention of Congress are only .05% of the public (5 people in a thousand) but these aristocrats of both parties are who Congress really works for. As a member of the US Congress, you should work only for The People.
1. Not yourself.
2. Not your political party.
3. Not the richest donors to your campaign.
4. Not the lobbyist company who will hire you after your leave Congress.
There are several credible groups working to reform Congress. Their evaluations of the problem are remarkably in agreement though the leadership (and membership) may lean conservative or liberal. They see the corrupting effect of money — how the current rules empower special interests through lobbyists and PACs — robbing the average American of any representation on any issue where the connected have a stake. This is not democracy even if the ritual of elections is maintained.
The various mechanisms which funnel money to candidates and congress-persons are complex. It happens before they are elected, while they are in office and after they leave Congress. Fortunately, a solution to corruption is not complicated. All the proposals are built around either reform legislation or a Constitutional Amendment. Actually, we need both — a constitutional amendment and legislation.
There will be discussion about the structure and details of reform. As I see it, campaign finance reform is the cornerstone of building an honest Congress. Erect a wall of separation between our elected officials and big money. This you must do — or your replacement will do. A corporation is not ‘people’ and no individual should be allowed to spend hundreds of millions to ‘influence’ an election. That much money is a megaphone which drowns out the voices of ‘We the People.’ Next, a retired member of Congress has a lifelong obligation to avoid the appearance of impropriety. That almost half the retired members of Congress work as lobbyists and make millions of dollars per year smells like bribery, however legal. It must end. Pass real campaign finance reform and prohibit even the appearance of payola after retirement and you will be part of a Congress I can respect.
The states have the power to pass a Constitutional Amendment without Congress — and we will. You in Congress will likely embrace the change just to survive, because liberals and conservatives won’t settle for less than democracy. The leadership and organization to coordinate a voters revolution exist now! New groups will add their voices because the vast majority of Americans believe in the real democracy we once had, which Congress over time has eroded to the corrupt, dysfunctional plutocracy we have.
The question is where YOU individually stand. You have three options and you must choose.
Sincerely,
Douglas M. Hughes
http://www.TheDemocracyClub.org
What a story !
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Re: Doug Hughes Gyro Poastal’e letter
« Reply #1 on: Today at 04:23:01 PM »
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I think this is connected to the Gyrocopter postal’e move to amend .org
Mail carrier special delivery Smiley . what a story, he betrayed a trust in doing it and his EAA buddies will suffer beacuse of it But as stunts go this one,because of its planning and fair warning aspects is one for the record books!. What a story !
This MAN ladies and gentlemen will follow a dream. it would be wise to pardon Doug Hughes.
And a nomination for a Dewar’s Profile to boot. That,s my kind of activisem, somthing concrete and nobody gets hurt.
Grin VP
sorry about the mess, unfamiliar with the site. I am visiting from
stopthisinsanity.org/forum. was so intreuged by the gyro story that i made commentary the day after the flight and wanted to send along my condolences to the pilot in somuch as his private life is shot but that he did well HUGE!.
Where is the “E” Motives block/? Jood job to all of you @TDC
voted perot @ Stopthisinsanity.org/forum
“We need campaign finance reform. We do not need ‘heroes’ who take meaningless flights of fancy.” — Marsha Mercer, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Have you ever wondered what politicians do with all that campaign finance money? They don’t keep it (or at least not most of it). They spend it. On campaigning. A lot of it on advertising. Which means buying time and space in the media. Including the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
That media is not going to bite the hand that feeds it, is it? So, it’s a bit rich when a columnist scolds a citizen for taking a “meaningless flight of fancy.” What would Marsha Mercer do?
Labelling Doug Hughes’s gyrocopter flight “meaningless” is what Mercer did. So we don’t really need to ask what she “would” do. The job of the media is to spin and frame dissent as either trivial or terroristic. In an oligarchy, all dissent is either trivial or it is terror. Thus, by definition, no dissent can be “meaningful” in the sense of being both effectual and legitimate.
This is precisely the eye of the needle that Hughes threaded with his marvelous stunt. Superficially, it is about oligarchy and corruption of democracy by big money. But more profoundly — and metaphorically — it is about the hermetically-sealed “closed air space” over Washington. D.C. In his letter to all 535 members of Congress, Hughes quoted John Kerry on the corrosion of money in politics and it’s contribution to “the justifiable anger of the American people. They know it. They know we know it. And yet nothing happens.”
Kerry went on to point out how the corruption of money in politics “muzzles more Americans than it empowers.” How does it do this? Well, for one, those same media outlets that profit from the spending of that corrupting money to buy advertising space also get to pass judgment on the wisdom or folly of dissenting speech: “Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down! Sit down, you’re rocking the boat!”
We need a lot more than campaign finance reform. We do not need minders and muzzlers from the media to tell us what is “meaningful” and what is not.
Well said. TY
Dear Doug, thank you for putting your own life in danger to deliver your letters to every member of Congress! They all need to read it and then have the WILL to overturn Citizens United. (Korporations United, really, but they (Kochs, etc.) like to give their democracy-killing lawsuits such innocuous names!) We the People have to save ourselves. I try to spread awareness of this junk on facebook, but nobody really responds. To this or the TPP. These are not partisan issues, they deal with the survival of our democracy. Anyway, bless you for your courageous act of patriotism! I’m hoping one of the networks does an interview with you on national TV, but sadly, I guess they WANT to bury your message and only focus on the lack-of-security aspect … not that politicians are bought and paid for by both foreign and domestic interests who have little interest in We the People! Thank you again, Doug, for your actions!
Hello and Thank you! for doing what needs to be done! If we don’t get our asses moving this country is done! I’ve been saying it longer than most. I knew I was sold out at a very young age, no future, only slavery. No one listened. “Family” isn’t even family,, everything is watered down and diluted. Your criminalized for needing what you need early on and made to feel guilty for it while the Corps suck the life out of us all!
If anyone from your org would like to be a guest on my radio show called Organic News on Awake Radio, the link is above, Please let me know! I’ve been trying to get people moving and to take things seriously for over 40 years. People think life is just gonna continue on as is indefinitely,, that their complacency isn’t going to amount to something someday, that their selling out themselves and their kids for $$, isn’t going to cause some kind of blowback eventually.
I’ve had guest such as William Binney, NSA Whistleblower, Tom Drake, Frank Serpico, John Perkins, former Economic Hitman, Miko Peled and many others.
Thank you!
How can I donate funds to help advance your efforts or bail you out if necessary? You are my hero just as anyone else willing to die to get the cancer out of our government.
Thank you Doug I have been writing about the estimated $1.3 Trillion student loan debt for several years now http:projecttuitionreimbursement.com and I have created another blog shown above “where can i find the answer” because I know now because of the political cronyism The huge profits and election contributions come before our children.We have got to speak with one voice if we are to take our country back….. your courage of taking this fight just got us one step closer…….