"We need to reach out to every citizen in America who has an absolute right to be heard in order to insure that he or she doesn't end up as one of the herd."
My Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather, Richard Henry Lee, proposed the Declaration of Independence, stating before the whole world that the colonies were free and independent states and I am running for President to insure that the very ideals that my 6th Great Grandfather once stood up for are still cherished, fought for and expanded.
America is a great nation, but one who has lost its way due to the fact that the average American has lost faith in its political leaders and in the belief that our system of government still works for the average every day person.
This is the reason behind my campaign. I do not want to be President for four years. I do not have the ego or the belief that I should be this great nation's leader, but what I do believe is that I am a very talented individual with outstanding ideas, integrity that cannot be matched and the energy and passion to demand that our nation's leaders admit before a candid world that our system of government, as is being enacted in the 21st century is being destroyed by the very political parties that our founding father George Washington so strongly urged us to be wary of, and that we need to come together as a nation one composed of many to take our temperature, examine the health of our current political environment and operating structures and propose sustainable and holistic changes to our system of governance and political communication and effectiveness.
Once this transparent discussion has taken place by our current political leaders in front of and among our American citizens, then I will resign the office of President and my Vice President, a person of much more political experience and acumen, will take over and lead this nation.
So, who is Brian Mannix? I am a father, a teacher, a technofile, a musician, a peace activist and a realistic person with ideals. We are in an age where the power of the traditional media and even our very political infrastructure is being usurped by the very social media infrastructure that has so dramatically changed all of our lives in the last 10 years. I, as a write-in candidate for the President of the United States, believe wholeheartedly in the veracity of grand political ideals and ideas that can be implemented over the fluff of the modern day bombastic sound bite.
I believe in the American people's ability to make decisions that will affect their future and to do so effectively with the faith and science of the dedicated and demonstrated achievements that I believe my entire life demonstrates.
I changed my the university I attended by becoming President at Bucknell and transforming the way students did business there.
I changed the way a major radio station in New York worked, where I worked bringing new ideas and novel ways to transform business through event promotion and production as well as affecting the music that was heard by creating a local show to share the talents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut with the rest of the nation.
I changed the way students learned at one of the most acclaimed schools in the country at Great Neck as I led the way to integrate technology and individual personal computers in a meaningful way as an every day tool that each of my students were armed with.
I changed the way students were assessed by abolishing traditional grades at a Common Core middle school by offering individualized narrative assessments of each and every student, not offering the students a number to judge them, but a qualitative assessment of their individual strengths and weakness in the form of an overall analysis of their skills, abilities and effort to demonstrate their content knowledge.
I was recognized as Educator Leader of the Year by Tech & Learning Magazine.
I was recognized as Most Influential in Public Education with the Partnership Award by Nassau B.O.C.E.S.
I founded a Pay It Forward movement in Long Island organizing a conference which mobilized, initiated and fostered Pay It Forward Clubs at middle and high schools across Long Island.
I have conceptualized and actuated three tech companies: Babysitting Barter, Moodagu and Tourist Jenny.
I have created and implemented an Alternate Reality Game in education that has taken route globally in over 20 countries.
I flew to Ferguson the night I saw the tanks in the street and no longer recognized an America where we would need the military to prevent those from voicing their own discord. As a result of the trip I filmed a documentary and produced a hip-hop track with a music video.
I mourned with those in Charleston by flying there and standing with those who suffered with God's guidance to offer forgiveness to the very person who inflicted their suffering.
I am a man of action and right now I want to make sure that my three boys grow up in a world, in an America which does everything it can to not only insure their own success, but the success of every citizen of every race, creed, gender and sexual orientation.
A nation that stands up in the face of injustice, prejudice as well as struggles from abroad and demands that we rise to become better than we ever have been.
A nation that demands that we live up to the ideals established in our Declaration of Independence and codified in our Constitution and our incredible Bill of Rights. A nation who has suffered through its own discord on the issue of Federalism and has found that, at the end of the day, the federal government is required to guarantee equal protection under the law for all of our citizens. That is the issue that we fought for and won in our Civil War and that is the guidepost that I feel we so often forget.
We are all created equal. We all should be afforded with the same opportunities at birth, regardless of sex, race, creed or economic strata. My kids should have the same opportunities as yours. They are no better than yours. The United States Government needs to establish, in word and in deed, that we are all treated the same, regardless of privilege or upbringing or color or religious ideology. Isn't that what all of our religions preach: do unto others as you would have done unto you.
I do not believe that church and state should be joined in any way. I believe that having "under God" in our nation's pledge of Allegiance that our students say at the beginning of every school day is completely unconstitutional, but that in no way makes me believe we are not a nation "under God." I just do not feel the need to codify it, to espouse it in such a way that I believe violates our establishment clause in the first amendment preventing the establishment of a religion within our state.
To me, that is what integrity is: knowing who you are with no need to utter it, but willing to stand up and be heard when your character or values come into question.
That is what I wish to inspire in every citizen of the United States: the belief, the knowledge and the trust of self and a common commitment to fight for and serve the other, the people who are not like us, but who deserve the very same freedom of opportunity as we maintain as Americans. To me, that is what America is all about. As John Winthrop and, later, Ronald Reagan espoused, being a city upon a hill, one that others are inspired to follow as a result of the light shining upon its integrity. Our integrity is not something that we need to sing about, it is just something that we need to own and demonstrate to others quietly and with humility.
I believe in God, and believe that God can and will reflect his/her spirit on those in this world, while at the same time feel no need to scream that from the rooftops or even mention it at all. It merely is and does not need recognition. I don't think the lord will mind.
Regardless of what I believe or what you believe or whether you believe that there is no God at all, we are all in this thing together, and, if we are honest, truly honest, we can all agree that our government is not working as effectively as it once was. This is not an indictment of America or of its system of government, but merely a fact as reflected in the vast majority of our citizenry's discontent with the effectiveness of our current government structures and both of our predominant political parties.
It is easy to say that everything will work itself out just fine.
It is easy to say, "We are America and we will always come out on top because we are the best nation on this earth."
But these words are hollow, without the leadership to recognize the discontent and offer solutions to a problem that seems almost unsolvable.
That is what leaders do. They enter into challenges with eagerness and without fear and they offer solutions.
That is why I am running for President of the United States of America. I can recognize and name the fear of our needed change to our government's effectiveness with regard to our citizens and I have faith enough in the average American to listen to their problems, do my best to understand what challenges and frustrates them and then offer solutions based not only of my own ideas, but of a vast survey and inquiry into the American people's ideas.
We need to reach out to every citizen in America who has an absolute right to be heard in order to insure that he or she doesn't end up as one of the herd.
Be heard, not herd.
Vote for Mannix for President and help me find the most capable Vice President in this great land of ours who can secede me after I resign.
Do you believe that using today's social media we cannot pull this off? If you think we can't, possibly you don't know that there were 32 billion people who have watched Gangam Style, the most watched You Tube video of all time and only 2 million who watched the first Republican debates of 2015.
I'm guessing that together, we can achieve more.
I guess, either way, we will both find out if I'm right.
Either way, I hope we can work together to solve the problems that elude us and shine a light upon those solutions that are already working.
Together, we lose as one, and therefore, only together, can we win.
It seems its time to work together once and for all.
Mannix for President 2016
Peace,
Brian