Bernie Names Names

[Scuba]

[reformist2]

1. Becoming? It always has been. But the time has finally come for the people to rule.

[valerief]

7. That'll never happen, but the least the rich bastards could do is toss us crumbs. nt

[freshwest]

34. Yeah, they could have given a million to each American hoping to buy us off. Bigger game afoot here.

A million bucks per would have won the hearts of those who are short-sighted into voting to end Social Security, etc. Another another epic fail, really.

[cantbeserious]

2. We Agree Bernie - However We No Longer Have The Power (Citizens United) Or The Will To Change

eom

[lastlib]

21. FALSE--we have the power, but we have to seize it.

It's been said that politics is the skillful use of blunt instruments. We have to become skilled at using those blunt instruments, or we will be fodder for the Kochs and their ilk.

[cantbeserious]

48. Don't See That Happening - Which Means That Citizens United Has Had The Intended Effect

eom

[rhett o rick]

56. Please be specific. How do we seize power? nm

[lastlib]

62. We organize.* Demand of every candidate for every office from dog-catcher to president....

....that this corporate personhood and corporate electioneering be ended. Then we hold them to it.

*I know that sounds trite, and maybe it is--but it is absolutely fundamental to achieving the change we desire. Maybe it's unattainable, but **we have to work at it.** The corporate powers are not going to just hand their power back over to us for free. We have to demand it back, and we have to fight them for it. I wish I knew a better way to answer but all I know is--we have to work for it. We got Barack Obama elected twice over the corporate chosen ones, and we need to employ that same effort on an even broader scale to overthrow the Citizens United regime. It won't be easy--hell, it may not even be possible. But as long as we have the right to vote, the right to organize, and the right and the ability to contribute, we CAN do it. The question remains, do we have the will?

[rhett o rick]

63. "Do we have the will?" Of course we dont if you are including the American people.

Only 38% of eligible voters voted to Barack Obama in the last election. And of the 38% I would estimate that only small share are progressives. I appreciate your optimism but honestly dont think we have a chance. That doesnt mean I will give up.

[midnight]

3. Bernie makes a lot of sense.... Let's overturn that discriminatory law that favors speech for

the rich.....

[abelenkpe]

4. +1000

[JDPriestly]

11. Let's overturn that discriminatory law that favors speech for those

who hide behind the corporate veil.

Democracy should be out in the open. It is not a matter of free speech. The huge campaign contributions of corporations and the rich are not free speech. They are political pay-offs. They are bribes. Bribery is not free speech.

As I understand it,, Don Siegelman is in jail because someone he appointed to a state position had donated to a cause Don Siegelman supported.

Yet the Koch brothers attempt to buy the Republican Party and its entire slate of candidates with their political "donations" is perfectly legal in the eyes of the Supreme Court.

We need to end the vote-buying.

[bigbrother05]

23. Actually Siegelman reappointed the guy to the board

The guy was appointed by the previous administration that had no connection to Don.

It was an attempt to bring the lottery to AL that brought out Rove and his henchmen.

[blackspade]

5. +1000000000000000000000

[INdemo]

6. Its just like the oil companies swindling us on gas prices

..it will never change. It wont change because a select few are able to control the market including major banks like JP,Wells Fargo etc.
We would never get enough votes in the House or Senate to override this law so we are screwed. Even most Democrats in Washington are owned by corporate $$.Until Election laws are passed and enforced we are screwed.(hell we had such a law until corporations became people).The Land of the Free? Don't think so.
We need a real progressive party in Washington. And even with that it would be a generation before we really saw any change.
So a Constitutional amendment? We would be dreaming if we think the majority of states would approve.

[dotymed]

13. IF we could convince Bernie

to run for President (an independent is fine), I think we could get these changes must quicker. With his communication skills and honesty, even regular Americans can relate.

[INdemo]

24. We would need about 60 more

Elizabeth Warrens in the Senate and about 50 more Alan Graysons' in the House.
Its like this years election ..I voted for a guy that kept saying speech after speech that "as long as I'm President Social Security will not be cut". Then walla first thing on the table on budget cuts is SS. A Democrat goes to Washington and has all these big ideas, then they take him in a little room and read him the rules and procedures on just how to make it look good to his voters while working for the corporate dictators.
We could change things if we organized a real progressive party or if we could get term limits on Congressional members.
.....And yes I would vote for a progressive independent in a minute...But let me ask. If we could actually pull it off and put a real progressive in the White House just long could he survive.? Don't think the corporate mafia allow him to stay there long.

[xtraxritical]

26. If we had strong Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress

we would not have grand bargains and the President could be dictated to by the party. If you are going to go independent you are just going to be supporting the RepubliCONs and their Tparty. Please go away from here with your independent blather this is DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND. no dino's

[INdemo]

74. I did not author the original post or start this thread

I merely suggested that we elect or work to organize a real progressive party....the corporate mafia has taken over and own most of our elected Democrats in Washington. That is why I commented about needing more progressives as the ones I mentioned
Thank You have a good day

[tex-wyo-dem]

64. Bernie running for President?

Would never work. Not because he's not qualified or wouldn't be popular, it's that he is not in the Beltway corporate owned club...and as an extension of this club, the corporate owned media would just ignore him and he would never gain traction in an election. If by some way he were able to gain traction, the media would then go to their next tactic, which is to attack with slander, defamation and/or just plain ostracizing the candidate that isn't part of the club. Aside, the big money PTB would never allow such a progressive to get anywhere close to sniffing the WH. It's a game that we are all being fed via the kabuki theater of our election process.

Bernie does us a whole lot more good being right where he is as a senior senator.

[dotymed]

72. IMO, Bernie could have much more impact as POTUS.

As for TPTB and the "media" that is OUR job. WE KNOW what real, people first, politician he is. Yes, we would have to have his back-----all the way and then protect him from being "Wellstoned."
Then we could work on more Warrens, Grayson's, etc...
Bernie could keep his seat during the campaign. WE are the only ones stopping ourselves.

[Ninga]

8. Check out the documentary "Citizen Koch"

www.citizenkoch.com

[Blanks]

14. There's another documentary...

https://www.google.com/search?q=koch+brothers+exposed&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#itp=open1

Koch Brothers Exposed.

[Ninga]

22. Thank you Blanks!

[midnight]

31. Thanks... I could not get the link to let me watch on demand so I queued it to first place....

[freshwest]

35. Thanks. Got there and found a trailer:

Meet The Artists: Carl Deal and Tia Lessin on "Citizen Koch" Sundance Film Festival 2013.

The screenings have already been done at a few cities. There are ways to be notified when it is available at this link:

http://www.citizenkoch.com/

Going to Amazon entering in the search terms 'Citizen Koch' only shows pro-Koch brothers books. I wonder if the filmmakers used any of Thom Hartmann's research, but can't find anything further.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

9. K&R

The Koch name should be heard in every news cycle until Citizens United is gone.

[sabrina 1]

10. It's the people's fault too. They vote for people who lie to them often simply because of the letter

after their names.

But he is right of course, knowing the weakness of human nature, they know that bribery works. Maybe we have to focus on building a more moral and ethical society which cannot be bought. But money is god to far too many Americans.

[L0oniX]

17. Sometimes you don't know you are being lied to. Sometimes you don't know someone will...

not do as they said they will do. I don't need to mention names do I?

[xtraxritical]

27. Please see #26 above.

[SaveAmerica]

29. Mark Sanford in SC for example, there's someone you want

as your Representative yet they sure did bring him back in.

[certainot]

12. their most important tool is talk radio but the dems and the left ignore it. the stoprush boycott is

fantastic but there are no protests at those stations when they lie and deny global warming and threaten their reps, the universities continue to endorse those stations with their sports broadcasting https://sites.google.com/site/universitiesforrushlimbaugh/ , and even though we now have great transcription software no one but their think tank feeders knows what's being pumped out all day every day. by the time the left reacts it's already been jammed into the ear holes of 50 mil a week and it's too late.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. How, *exactly*, would you phrase such an amendment?

I think there is probably potential for such an amendment to do more harm than good.

However, I think formulating it to do so would be difficult.

[Scuba]

50. Here's some language endorsed by Michael Moore ...

I like this, inclusive, version better than others I've seen. I'll leave it to the Constitutional scholars to finish the wordsmithing.

a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.

b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

51. Some good ideas and some nutty ones.

2 and 3 look sensible, 5 and b look daft - b in particular would be tantamount to announcing "we don't want an economy any more, please take your business elsewhere".

[Scuba]

52. Banning electronic voting machines would top of my list ...

Paper ballots, hand counted, in public, cameras rolling.

I can find no valid arguments for the use of electronic voting machines.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

68. How about "if properly implemented, they're harder to defraud, and more accurate"?

Remember that there was a paper trail in Florida 2000.

[Scuba]

71. No one knows if electronic machines are accurate or rigged. That's the problem.

A paper ballot solves that.

There is NO case for electronic machines. None.

[Occulus]

81. Amend the Constitution to add "natural" before each instance of the word "person"

and we can revoke all corporate "rights" under the Constitution.

Corporations should have no rights to begin with, not as actual humans, actual citizens of this country, have. No, not even under the Bill of Rights. Take it all away and make corporations subservient to the People.

Revoke corporate rights. They should have none, and this method does that, in a very simple, easy-to-understand way.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

84. Natural persons like the Koch brothers?

Not to mention that such an amendment would be tantamount to announcing "we don't want an economy any more, thank you very much; please take your business elsewhere".

I think that distinguishing between corporations and individuals is barking up completely the wrong tree - remember, corporations don't engage in speech; individuals do so on their behalf.

I would look at restricting the right to spend money to induce others to speak, while leaving an absolute right to speak oneself.

[ReRe]

16. All the more reason...

... to seat a filibuster & veto-proof Senate and a veto-proof House in 2014. We have a lot of skeptics out today, Scuba. Eternal skeptics never did anything. We have to set this goal and over reach for it. 2014 may be our last best chance to get these majorities and pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling on Citizen's United. If we can't do this, then cue up Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?" and break out the booze.

[xtraxritical]

28. Please see #26 above.

[Fumesucker]

30. What makes you think the Democratic party as a whole even *wants* a veto proof majority?

I personally think that's the last thing the Democrats want, it would tear away their fig leaf of plausible deniability, "Oh, we can't pass progressive economic legislation because of those evil Republicans".

[xtraxritical]

36. In my day we would say "you're off the wall man".

[Fumesucker]

37. Eh, my theory handily explains the Democratic Senate not reforming the filibuster

The Dems had a chance to slow or stop Republican obstructionism in the Senate but declined to take it.

I figure if we had about 150 Dem Senators we could possibly get some progressive economic legislation through the Senate although it wouldn't be a sure thing even then.

Note that the Senator quoted in the OP is *not* a Democrat.

[xtraxritical]

38. Yeah, well it's a weak majority in the Senate and I don't think it proves anything.

That Senate majority is made up of at least 5 dino's. So what's the point? Is it vote independent? NO WAY.

[Fumesucker]

39. No, it's that Democrats won't speak out on the issue n/t

[Doctor_J]

43. nailed it, fume

Also notice how the president didn't campaign for a democratic congress. The dinos and other crooks want cover for their horrendous policies.

[ReRe]

41. Uh... you talkin' to me?

... You're calling me a teabagger? You're calling me a non-Democrat, like a Republican? I think you replied to the wrong person. Get back to me.

[reformist2]

18. More important than spending caps on wealthy donors, is public finance of poor candidates.

I'd say that if your candidate can get on the ballot, then he or she earns the right to a fixed amount of public finance or support sufficient to let his or her views be known to the voters.

[judesedit]

19. Thank you so much for not being afraid to speak out, Bernie. Obviously you don't have an owner

[OneGrassRoot]

20. What if we step outside the box altogether...

I fully realize this is seen as impossible and naive, but WHAT IF -- just entertain the thought for a moment -- WHAT IF we do away with the paid advertising aspect of campaigns, which is the primary reason for the nonstop fundraising?

I know there are other expenses, but outreach and PR seems to be the vast bulk of fundraising needs, to get one's name in front of the public when running for office.

What if candidates turn away from the old and embrace a new way altogether, a way using only free tools to get the word out.

SOCIAL MEDIA is HUGE. Forget TV and radio unless it's a free community platform. Forget paid media altogether.

I'd be much more inclined to vote for someone who refuses to keep feeding the machine and is willing to step outside the box. He/she would likely get a lot more free PR simply from taking such a stance. The grassroots could help by spreading the word via social media, and wouldn't get disgusted by the nonstop emails/tweets asking for money to compete with the other candidates.

[dreamnightwind]

44. I think that has possibilities

I've long been considering if there isn't some way, through the web, to turn the campaign spending against these candidates. Some kind of online public forum that could vet the candidates, handle their stances on the issues, allow discussion of them, allow citizens to batch requests for information from the candidates who would then respond to the largest batches, and also provide a simple look at candidate's finances, perhaps each candidate could be represented by an avatar of their physical appearance, clothed NASCAR-style with their donors and backers.

Ideally such a thing should be publicly funded from federal election money. Barring that, some organization like CREW or Common Cause could host it.

Also perhaps as a condition of leasing cable or broadcast bandwidth, broadcast and cable channels could be required, during the runup to elections, to run some summary of this information a certain percentage of their airtime, so that non-internet users would still get the benefit of seeing the information. It would help counteract the misleading political advertising.

Just riffin', it could take many forms but I agree with your post and think there is a possible solution somewhere in there. I realize your post was more about social media, whereas I have been thinking more generally about a web forum. Maybe it could take both forms, or some other we haven't thought of.

[OneGrassRoot]

47. Exactly...

A web forum is definitely a great option, along with social media and any other new approach altogether.

Grassroots. And free, to do away with the nonstop fundraising.

Also, really promoting the YouTube channels so that people can have access to COMPLETE speeches and townhall events, not the cherry-picked clips MSM tends to show.

[dreamnightwind]

49. Youtube chnnels are cool

I like Youtube channels, they're very useful.

I have mixed feelings about the value of candidates' speeches. It's good to hear them, I guess, though without debunking or putting them in the context of who their funders are, who their advisors are and what are THEIR positions, campaign speeches can be every bit as misleading as campaign commercials. So it's a problem of how to get accurate info to the voters, more than one of how to get a candidate's words to the voters. A tough problem, but we can do a lot better than we do now.

[AndyA]

25. Things would be so much better if we could take people like Bernie Sanders, Alan Grayson,

Elizabeth Warren, and others who are willing to stand up for what's right and multiply them a few times. The crazy ones seem to get most of the publicity, while the sane ones don't.

[cui bono]

32. Always agree with Bernie!

Wish Bill Maher would embrace Bernie's enthusiasm/anger rather than make fun of it when Bernie's on his show. That really bothers me when Maher does that.

[90-percent]

33. The solution is to elect somebody named Roosevelt

When the Glided Age became engorged with the overly rich and powerful, Teddy R. busted the trusts.

When the great depression needed to be repaired by the damage done by the rich and powerful, Franklin Delano got in and cleaned it up.

The rich have spent the last thirty years gaming everything in their favor at the expense of the bottom 99%. They own the media, they get fairness acts over turned, they get Glass Steagal overturned, they underwrite hate radio, they set legal precedents that it perfectly fine to knowingly lie in your news broadcasts. They've stripped almost all democracy out of our legal infrastructure to work in their favor. They've turned American news broadcasts into Corporate Propaganda.

Mitt Romney gets to put in a half million a year into his 401K and we peasants are legally restricted to, what, $6K per year?

And now they turned money into speech and corporations into people. Those with the most money have the most speech. Just what our Forefathers envisioned!

The only hope I see is that the greedy and powerful will overstep the rights and well being of the bottom 99% so nakedly and obscenely that we the people will rise up in revolt. As we will by then have nothing left to loose but our lives.

-90% Jimmy

[Smarmie Doofus]

40. Good keynote speech right there. Hopefully at the next DNC. If the party won't....

.... confront these realities, then at a 3rd party convention. ( Bull Moose?)

[dreamnightwind]

45. Here you go: FDR III

FDR's grandson. Don't know much about him. Worth a look.

http://vimeo.com/47798304

Frances Perkins Center 2012 INTELLIGENCE AND COURAGE AWARD: Franklin (Frank) D. Roosevelt, III is a progressive economist who has spoken eloquently on the efficacy of New Deal programs and the relevance of progressive economic analysis in responding to the challenges of today's economy. He is Professor Emeritus at Sarah Lawrence College.

[Egalitarian Thug]

42. 200th rec

[Initech]

46. You tell 'em Bernie!!!! Fuck those traitors!!!

[Heathen57]

53. Thank you Senator Sanders for

having the balls to tell it like it really is. Something that most of the cowards in Washington, D.C. can't or won't do.

[tclambert]

54. I love it when they call out villains by name.

The cockroaches prefer to hide in the shadows. They hate it when when a public figure shines a light on them.

[Douglas Carpenter]

55. knr

[CountAllVotes]

57. Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; my new sig. earlier today

The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others. -- Theodore Roosevelt, Labor Day speech at Syracuse, NY, Sept 7, 1903

[upi402]

60. Great sig line

[Catch2.2]

58. Bernie for President!!!

Bernie is the man! Wish there were more like him.

[upi402]

59. Wake the media!!!

uh NOPE
:crickets:

Nothing to see here, move along.

[Dawson Leery]

61. kick

[Fumesucker]

65. K&R

[HiPointDem]

66. i don't see anything new -- the rockefellers did a lot of political and quasi-political spending

back in the day (still do) as did other monied families.

we were always a country run by the rich, we just had a frontier.

[rpannier]

69. So are you suggestion we do nothing then?

Your post seems to suggest it

[HiPointDem]

70. it's what you brought to the post that 'suggests' it, not anything i wrote.

[rpannier]

85. i apologise

you're suggesting we move to the frontier

have fun

[HiPointDem]

86. i'm saying the monied class has always run the country. who did you think ran it?

[lexw]

67. I wish Bernie was president.

[angry citizen]

73. The problem is with congress and the courts.

We gave these people generous tax cuts to spur the economy and grow jobs, instead this money is being used to buy our democracy. This will only change when we have a non-obstructionist congress, and less corporate loving courts system.

[lexw]

75. Thx. I wasn't picking on Obama, I just think that Bernie is awesome.

[Scuba]

78. Both campaigns spent fortunes. One significant difference:

The Obama campaign sent a billion emails each asking for three dollars.

The Romney campaign sent three emails each asking for a billion dollars.

[Scuba]

82. We're talking $400 million. $40K is chump change for the big boys.

Koch brothers netted, you know after expenses and taxes, over $5 billion in 2010. Each. In one year.

Just how much democracy are you OK with letting them buy?

[Hotler]

77. If only our President would come out and say that.....oh well he's going to let the ...

poultry industry police themselves.

[gollygee]

80. My only complaint about that statement

is that I'm not sure it should have been put in future tense.