Election Day Alert: When Democracy Broken, Progress Impossible
Please go read the complete piece over at Common Dreams.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/11/04/election-day-alert-when-democracy-broken-progress-impossible
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When democracy becomes numb to the desires of its citizens and political campaigns become sporting events for television pundits, the ballot box becomes a sad (if necessary) expression of populist will.
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What's essential for Americans to recognize this Election Day—set to be the most expensive mid-term in U.S. history—says Teachout, is that confronting this reality of disempowerment is not something to avoid, but the key to achieving the real progressive change so many desperately desire.
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"In banking, energy, gas, cable, agriculture and search, we have a limited number of companies that have accumulated so much power they are acting as a kind of shadow government, controlling policy, vetoing laws before they can even be presented," she writes. "Candidates refuse to stump about a cable-TV merger because they’re afraid to get shut out of MSNBC. They don’t take on big banks because big banks have become too big to fail, to jail and even to debate about policy."
And the solution? Fight back, urges Teachout.
"We need a populist movement made of candidates and protests and clear demands," she writes.
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Our country needs fixing, bad.
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