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"When the stock market crashed again, it just seemed like we knew what to do. The first few days were quiet, it seemed like the world had finally just stopped. There was very little traffic...most of it to bars or grocery stores. Soon, the campuses started to fill up. The cameras caught on, and in interviews, the students always said the same three things: abolish the banks, abolish the pentagon, call a constitutional convention. Of course, we found out later that they had rehearsed. Soon, what remained of the labor unions called for a general strike. After that, the national mall was filled for two weeks before washington caved. And then we went to philadelphia. The silicon valley types had an idea: crowdsource it. And the so-called most important website ever went live; anyone could suggest ideas, and ideas were voted up and down by the population. Corporate influence was banned as a matter of course. The silicon types assured us the security was all very state-of-the-art, but the result spoke for themselves. The ideas that floated to the top were almost universally lauded, and by the time the document was passed to the committee, it was a matter of pride for the vast majority of the population. It seems absent the corporations and the political parties, americans didn't have all that much to fight about. Labor relations were modeled off of germany's highly successful system; a national health service was bought and paid for by a graduated tax on income. Corporate taxes were kept low, but reformatted to prevent offshoring. Income tax was graduated steeply, and when it became clear that the wealthy were trying to buy votes against the tax system, violent demonstrations were held on property known to belong to the culprits, the first truly violent aspect of the entire revolution. The military budget was drastically reduced, and it was constitutionally mandated that any military action would take 80% of the popular vote. The voting system itself was radically overhauled, and became modeled on the process used to develop the constitution. The national social security system was preserved as one of the few remaining functional systems in the old government. No parliament was deemed necessary in light of the popular voting method. The president was replaced with a council of three popularly-elected executives. They mainly just try to raise awareness about particular issues. Companies are required by law to be majority owned by their employees. Finally, twenty percent of all of the federal taxes collected in any given year is dedicated to scientific research. Because of this simple, inalienable spending, our economy has flourished and the world once again looks to america for inspiration. It took us three years. Three years, and we put the first human on mars. That was six months ago. And here we are, in the first colony ship on our way to the red planet. We have much to be grateful for, ladies and gentleman. The future shines brighter than many of us could imagine. Let us remember the time when it didn't."