2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHe's a fucking SOCIALIST for Christ's sake!
Here, just look at what he said in his public campaign speeches:
"Equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. ... When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself. ... Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. .... We must drive the special interests out of politics... For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. ... The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being."
And again:
"Of course there are many sincere men who now believe in unrestricted individualism in business, just as there were formerly many sincere men who believed in slavery -- that is, in the unrestricted right of an individual to own another individual. ... The effective fight against adequate government control and supervision of individual, and especially of corporate, wealth engaged in interstate business is chiefly done under cover; and especially under cover of an appeal to States' rights.... The proposal to make the National Government supreme over, and therefore to give it complete control over, the ... instruments of interstate commerce is merely a proposal to carry out to the letter one of the prime purposes, if not the prime purpose, for which the Constitution was founded. ... The truth is that we who believe in this movement of asserting and exercising a genuine control, in the public interest, over these great corporations have to contend against two sets of enemies, who, though nominally opposed to one another, are really allies in preventing a proper solution of the problem. There are, first, the big corporation men, and the extreme individualists among business men, who genuinely believe in utterly unregulated business -- that is, in the reign of plutocracy; and, second, the men who, being blind to the economic movements of the day, believe in a movement of repression rather than of regulation of corporations."
And still again:
"I believe that the natural resources must be used for the benefit of all our people, and not monopolized for the benefit of the few, and here again is another case in which I am accused of taking a revolutionary attitude. People forget now that one hundred years ago there were public men of good character who advocated the nation selling its public lands in great quantities, so that the nation could get the most money out of it, and giving it to the men who could cultivate it for their own uses. We took the proper democratic ground that the land should be granted in small sections to the men who were actually to till it and live on it. Now, with the water-power, with the forests, with the mines, we are brought face to face with the fact that there are many people who will go with us in conserving the resources only if they are to be allowed to exploit them for their benefit. That is the one of the fundamental reasons why the special interests should be driven out of politics.... Let me add that the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear most important part."
Need more evidence? Look at what he wrote in his own autobiography:
As regards what I have said in this chapter concerning Socialism, I wish to call especial attention to the admirable book on Marxism versus Socialism, which has just been published by Vladimir D. Simkhovitch. ... Every social reformer who desires to face facts should study itjust as social reformers should study John Graham Brookss American Syndicalism. From Professor Simkhovitchs book we Americans should learn: First, to discard crude thinking; second, to realize that the orthodox or so-called scientific or purely economic or materialistic socialism of the type preached by Marx is an exploded theory; and, third, that many of the men who call themselves Socialists to-day are in reality merely radical social reformers, with whom on many points good citizens can and ought to work in hearty general agreement, and whom in many practical matters of government good citizens well afford to follow.
As if that were not clear enough, he devoted his political career to curbing the power of large corporations, to supporting the right of workers to unionize, to passing strict and unprecedented regulations on the pharmaceutical and banking industries, and to creating entirely new federal governmental agencies for the protection of the environment (he even supported huge government land grabs to turn private acreage into public lands)!
We're still talking about Republican President Teddy Roosevelt, right?
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)PDittie
(8,322 posts)Democratic masses as well.
deutsey
(20,166 posts)It sure is lost on a lot of posts I've read here lately.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)If we only had a clue.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)Response to Attorney in Texas (Original post)
PowerToThePeople This message was self-deleted by its author.
ruffburr
(1,190 posts)Be able to run as dog catcher in today's republican "party" , Fascists everyone of them.
Human101948
(3,457 posts)The deeper story of 1912, however, was the Republican Partys rebuff of its moderate wing. Roosevelt challenged his party to embrace the Progressive movement, which had taken aim at the business trusts that were exploiting markets and labor. Factories were unregulated hell holes where children and adults worked six days a week in unsafe conditions. We Republicans, said Roosevelt, must hold the just balance and set ourselves . . . resolutely against improper corporate influence.
Ignoring Roosevelts plea to reject crooked business and embrace the general right of the community, the 1912 Republican Party Convention sided instead with proponents of unfettered capitalism, even to the extent of purging the progressives from its leadership ranks. Although they continued to call themselves Republicans, many felt unwelcome in the party, and several, including Henry Stimson and Harold Ickes, later served in Franklin D. Roosevelts Democratic administration.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/john-boehner-teddy-roosevelt-failed-to-save-the-gop-from-its-crazies-in-1912-101148#ixzz3p9WAH5Wu
appalachiablue
(41,047 posts)Thespian2
(2,741 posts)"morans" have difficulty with factual information...the GodOffalParty wouldn't let Teddy in the door, even the back door...
reformist2
(9,841 posts)demwing
(16,916 posts)Tell me your post is satire, please?
reformist2
(9,841 posts)bjobotts
(9,141 posts)Democratic Socialism ensures both our freedom AND our survival
We decide who our representatives are and we decide how we want our government to protect our freedoms and prevent the destruction of our environment by a greedy few too rich or too large to take on by ourselves individually but we can collectively. we can make sure our American dream is there for all who want it. We can protect and help those of us who are down and we can encourage others to strive for greater progress.
Freedom AND Survival...to choose our path and to make sure the path remains.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I recommend reading The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Hillary in her speech to the New School for Social Research recited all the awful, corrupt ideas that Bill put into practice: working with the oligarchs, for exampe.
Work with the oligarchs, with the leaders of our current business community and you get nowhere in solving the problems of the middle class. The oligarchs, the leaders on Wall Street and the CEOs of America's multinational corporations are often by law required to put the interests of their own shareholders and corporations before those of the country or anyone in the country. This is the law on corporations.
Bound by that law and by their shareholders' demands, they should not and cannot take the lead in proposing solutions to the problems of the poor and middle class. They can follow the lead of our progressive political leaders, but they are inhibited by law, regardless of their personal inclinations or concerns or benevolence, from really, say, offering to pay higher taxes so that our students can graduate from college without so much debt or making sure that every American has health insurance.
Business's job is to make money for shareholders and the owners. It isn't that that is shameful. It is that we as a people need to take charge and balance their mandate with a socially responsible mandate of our own. We need to be directing the commissions that set the course for steadying and correcting our economy. The corporations should work with us but we have to, as a people, be solidly in charge.
Right now, business, Wall Street in particular, is overpowering the interests of ordinary Americans. That is not to say that business is evil. That is to say that our system if out of balance and that business at this time and wealthy people (who are also not per se evil people) are overly powerful, and we the people, are not powerful enough in terms of setting national policy.
That is why I am supporting Bernie. I think he has the right approach to establishing a healthy balance between the interests of business (which must be respected to the extent that is healthy for our economy) and the interests of Americans who don't own large numbers of shares in big business or huge companies.
It's about balance. Ronald Reagan took us much too far in the direction of a corporate, big-business-run government, as have all of his successors in the White House and our majorities in Congress regardless of party.
It is time to right the ship of state -- which doesn't mean we impoverish the rich or destroy the multinationals. We just have to join together to define their appropriate roles in our society.
I'm with Bernie on this.
Feel the Bern!
reformist2
(9,841 posts)Of particular note is your point that corporate executives are actually legally bound to maximize shareholder wealth, and as a result go against the interest of the workers.
This is a shocking truth that everyone should be aware of. We need to rebalance the system.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)A lot of Americans foolishly identify with the hedge-fund managers, the very wealthiest of the corporate elite when in fact the average American has interests that clash in some ways, not in violent or ugly ways, but that oppose those of the corporate elite, the wealthiest in our country. Attempts to make sure that all Americans benefit from success on Wall Street like retirement accounts, etc. have just made working, middle-class Americans the prey of sharp operators on Wall Street. We saw how that worked in 2008. When you have millions and even billions to play with, you can be very patient in rolling out a scam over a period of years. That is what happened in the 1990s through until even the present.
We need to be engaged in our communities. That is where we need to start to make change. But that is not enough.
I fully support Bernie Sanders. He worked well with all kinds of people of different financial and social status to get elected and re-elected as mayor of Burlington, Vermont and into Congress.
He knows how to work with people, how to persuade.
This is a fascinating article about what good people like Bernie are up against in our sickly corrupt Congress.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-horror-show-that-is-congress-20050825
Agony
(2,605 posts)Thanks.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Granted some of that time I was working on a doctoral degree, but I stop reading for awhile and go back to it. I think I have about 400 pages left. It is quite long and detailed. I understand why she goes into details about the magazine and the importance of a media that actually does its job, but I think it bogs the book down a good story too much with some of the smaller details.
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)appalachiablue
(41,047 posts)Stuart G
(38,359 posts)So, I put it on my signature..then and now..and that will not change.. That is clearly one of the most profound statements on war, from a general, ever made. And that general became president. Strange as it seems, Eisenhower wasn't liberal enough for our family and we voted for Stephenson..(that is my parents) ...But Ike was still correct, and today, he would be a democrat.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)dae
(3,396 posts)Thanks for sharing.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)Hepburn
(21,054 posts)In the 1950's, Ike and the Pubbies were socialists!
Thirties Child
(543 posts)I was born under FDR, first vote was for Ike, and would so like to end my days under a progressive. I so feel the Bern.
ChiciB1
(15,435 posts)and so CLEARLY clarifies Bernie Sanders by pictures. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR posting this.
Martin Eden
(12,802 posts)I highly recommend it.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)did not have the wonderful intelligence and exceptional education that Theodore Roosevelt had.
Theodore Roosevelt was sick as a child and taught his body to be strong and to endure adversity. He became a very disciplined person who worked hard although his family was quite wealthy and he could have chosen to focus on amassing great wealth rather than helping our nation. He is one of my heroes. He, Eleanor, his niece, and his distant cousin, Franklin Roosevelt, all wonderful examples of what we can aspire to as a nation and as individuals.
Martin Eden
(12,802 posts)Up to this point Taft has earned my respect, but he plainly lacks TR's political savvy and relish for winning that game. It will be sad to see how their once great alliance unfolds into animosity.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a great history writer. I thoroughly enjoyed Team of Rivals.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)think
(11,641 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,107 posts)Thanks for the thread, Attorney in Texas.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Repubs and Dems agree. Which is why Sanders is the only logical choice in this election.
Milliesmom
(493 posts)I keep saying if everyone would call themselves a Democratic Socialist then it would become common.
Most people have no idea what it means, they need to be educated, pass this link on to all your friends and family and ask them to do the same.
http://www.dsausa.org/
WHEN CRABS ROAR
(3,813 posts)Now is the time for a real progressive populist movement, but the message needs to be clear and not overly complex and it needs to be repeated over and over to drive it home into the minds of the people.
Then Bernie will win.
progree
(10,864 posts)that I have only one REC to give (and one Kick). Maybe DU should look into giving everyone a maximum "REC" quota of say 100 Recs a month, and one is allowed to give from one to 10 Recs on any given thread. I'd give this one all 10.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)As long as you don't get a hidden post in the thread. And as long as the thread isn't locked or hidden.
Stuart G
(38,359 posts)restorefreedom
(12,655 posts)that the current crop of repubs are not only irony challenged, but are too dumb to understand the significance of your post.
then again, todays repubs would probably call him a gubmint lovin commie....
except for the gun part, of course.
demwing
(16,916 posts)And no man is beneath it.
If Teddy Roosevelt were running today, party be damned, I'd vote Republican.
Of course, if Teddy were running today, he'd be in the Democratic Party, kicking ass and regulating Wall Street.
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,436 posts)is exactly why I won't vote Republican.
merrily
(45,251 posts)I don't think kicking ass and regulating Wall Street necessarily equates to the Democratic Party. That's what we'd like it to do, but it was a Democratic President who lobbied hard for, and signed, Gramm, Leach, Bliley, aka repeal of Glass Steagall, and the Commodities Futures Financial Services Act, which allowed unregulated sale of crap mortgage derivatives. And a Democratic Congress that passed TARP, a Democratic President Elect who requested Bush release TARP II. And the Treasury Secretary of a Democratic President Elect who intervened with Dodd to make sure the Wall Street bonuses were paid.
demwing
(16,916 posts)Bernie didn't wave a the third party flag, and I stand with Bernie.
However, this is the last time.
If Bernie doesn't win the nomination, and the next Democratic Party leaders reject the need for economic justice and equality, if they don't massively switch to renewable energy sources to wage a war on climate change, if they don't expand Social Security and Medicaid to secure the social safety net, if they don't overturn Citizens United and check the drift toward corporate oligarchy, then I'm done with party loyalty.
If the party doesn't represent me, why should they get any of my support?
Breakups are always painful, but when the relationship is toxic, what the else can you do?
merrily
(45,251 posts)Wall Street and my reply was maybe he wouldn't. My reply really did not address anyone but TR. (I'm very literal.)
As far as breakups, I notice most marriages last until one or both of the spouses find someone else. I the words of Hamlet, "Ay, there's the rub!"
I just remembered that I owe you something. In the immortal word of Governor Perry, "Oops."
emulatorloo
(43,979 posts)Thanks for posting this.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)turbinetree
(24,631 posts)Honk----------------for a political revolution Bernie 2016
Mendocino
(7,430 posts)While exhibiting some progressive ideals, also was an extreme war-monger, xenophobe and borderline racist.
AOR
(692 posts)as a shining example of anything. The racist Imperialism of Teddy Roosevelt should be explored and consigned to the scrapbook of bad history not glorified as something that the people of this country should be proud of.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)He was brutal toward the Native Americans in some instances, but in that respect he was simply following most of the early history of our country.
AOR
(692 posts)Last edited Wed Oct 21, 2015, 11:00 AM - Edit history (1)
it lets people go look into the history a little more and figure out what's real and what isn't for themselves.
Mendocino
(7,430 posts)Were the Spanish any worse than what the US did under TR? It was just a warm up for Vietnam.
HassleCat
(6,409 posts)None of use were alive during the original Progressive era, but we should know a little about it and learn from it.
Marie Marie
(9,999 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
dae
(3,396 posts)I became a TR fan majoring in History at college and my respect for him has only grown since that time long long ago.
I too have read several books on his life, and he was amazing. His love for big game hunting and going to war with Cuba was something I would like to forget, but I too would vote for him. His environmental beliefs were highly commendable.
Interesting fact about Theodore (he hated being called Teddy), his mother and wife died on the same day in the same house.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
I know I, and others here, used it.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/44567.Theodore_Roosevelt
WillyT
(72,631 posts)NonMetro
(631 posts)And have been since the 19th century. Without it, millions would starve to death and the country would collapse.
markpkessinger
(8,381 posts)There was a reason the GOP establishment wanted him to be the VP on McKinley's ticket. The vice presidency was seen as a one-way ticket to political oblivion. By nominating him as VP to McKinley, the GOP establishment thought they were neutralizing him as a political force. What they hadn't counted on, of course, was McKinley's assassination.
AOR
(692 posts)Theodore Roosevelt and American Racism
By BAR Editor and Senior Columnist Margaret Kimberley
I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.
-- Theodore Roosevelt
(Snip)
" It is true today and was true in the past. The most celebrated political figures in this country, including those called blue blooded, elite or patrician, were mostly criminals. The descendants of the Mayflower ought to be ashamed of their heritage instead of bragging about their ancestors who began the genocide of indigenous people. The earliest American presidents Washington, Jefferson and Madison, earned their wealth through slave holding. Their successors in the office of the presidency either acquiesced to the slave holding interests or actively protected them until a bloody civil war put an end to their dirty work. "
(Snip)
"In the Philippines from 1901 1911, the United States killed more than 250,000 people in order to end their struggle for independence. First as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1898 and then as vice president and president, Roosevelt made clear that he lusted for death on a mass scale. I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one, Roosevelt opined. He said that war stimulated spiritual renewal and the clear instinct for racial selfishness. He defended the imperial project in the Philippines by declaring Filipinos Chinese half-breeds and surmised that the bloodshed was the most glorious war in our nations history.
(Snip)
"It isnt shocking that a man born in the 19th century to wealth and privilege who was raised by a slave holder would turn out to be so loathsome. It should be shocking that in the 21st century there is still such an inclination to sweep this easily accessible information under the rug. "
(Snip)
"It is high time for Americans to grow up and that means eschewing tales of teddy bears in favor of telling the unvarnished and ugly truth. Those who feel the need for hero worship shouldnt look towards Mount Rushmore or the dead presidents on currency. These people are invariably disreputable and should be remembered only as cautionary tales of how human beings should not behave. Theodore Roosevelt is definitely in that category."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1907/1907-roosevelt.htm
--Public Domain
Eugene V. Debs
Roosevelt and His Regime
Public Domain
(Snip)
"In the first place, I charge President Roosevelt with being a hypocrite, the most consummate that ever occupied the executive seat of the nation. His profession of pure politics is false, his boasted moral courage the bluff of a bully and his square deal a delusion and a sham.
Theodore Roosevelt is mainly for Theodore Roosevelt and incidentally for such others as are also for the same distinguished gentleman, first, last and all the time. He is a smooth and slippery politician, swollen purple with self-conceit: he is shrewd enough to gauge the stupdity of the masses and unscrupulous enough to turn it into hero worship. This constitutes the demagogue, and he is that in superlative degree."
(Snip)
"The true character of this man is being gradually revealed to the American people. He has never been anything but an enemy of the working class. He joined a labor organization purely as a demagogue. In all his life he never associated with working people. His writings, before he became a politician, show that he held them in contempt. When he entered political life he soon learned how to shake hands with a fireman for the camera and have his press agent do the rest, and it was this species of demagoguery, the very basest conceivable, that idolized him with the ignorant mass and gave him the votes of the millions he in his heart despised as an inferior race.
In his book on Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, page 10, written long before he entered politics, Roosevelt reveals his innate contempt for those who toil. After describing cowboys when drunk on the villainous whiskey of the frontier towns, he closes with this comparison, which needs no comment: They are much better fellows and pleasanter companions than small farmers or agricultural laborers; nor are the mechanics and workmen of a great city to be mentioned in the same breath.
The pretended friendship for the great body of workingmen who are not to be compared to drunken cowboys has served its demogogical purpose, but the final chapter is not yet written. There will be an awakening, and every official act of Theodore Roosevelt will be subjected to its searching scrutiny. He has always been on the side of capital wholly, while pretending the impossible feat of serving both capital and labor with equal fidelity, and only the deplorable ignorance of his dupes has applauded him in that hypocritical role.
(Snip)
"Theodore Roosevelt is an aristocrat and an autocrat. His affected democracy is spurious and easily detected. He belongs to the upper crust and at the very best he can conceive of the working class only as contented wage-slaves. And no one knows better than he how easily these slaves are duped and how madly they will cheer and follow a cheap and showy hero.
The simple fact is that Theodore Roosevelt was made president by the industrial captains and the robbers in general of the working class. They picked him for a winner and he has not failed them. Elected by the trusts and surrounded by trust attorneys as cabinet advisers, Roosevelt is essentially the monarch of a trust administration."
--Eugene Debs
JackInGreen
(2,975 posts)PosterChild
(1,307 posts)Bernie's idol , Eugene Debbs.
If you want a crypto-socialist as your candidate , you're out of luck . Bernie isn't crypto enough .
niyad
(112,424 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)On the other hand, he repulsed the Spanish from their colonies in South and Central America and from the Philippines.
One thing Teddy Roosevelt liked was the idea of a civil service.
He entered the legislature of New York as a young man partly in order to rid it of corruption, and he achieved a lot in that regard at the state, New York city and federal levels.
And today, we are facing so many of the problems that Teddy Roosevelt dealt with.
One of the major ones is whether and to what extent privatization has actually taken us back to a sort of modern day Tammany Hall situation.
Cooperation between the public and private sectors has been a good thing in many areas, but it is fertile ground for corruption and what the Germans call Freundlwirtschaft -- in which people, in this case people in the government, do favors for their friends and get favors in return. Literally, the economics of friendship or business among friends. Great in the private sector, but not democratic in the public sector and what's more often wasteful and very corrupt.
In my view, the Clintons do a lot of that sort of politicking.
I would like to see a study on the extent to which that kind of politics in which government contracts are given based on friendships or custom and not on a really competitive process is the rule.
One of the aspects of this kind of giving contracts, grants, government money awards to your friends, your buddies, the people who always get them, is in grants that are written specifically to the description of a project that the people in charge in the government wanted the money to go to in the first place. In other words, requests for proposals that are written up with a particular winner or recipient in mind so that competing companies or projects cannot quite fit the criteria.
Closed bidding for contracts is a dangerous thing because it can be used to reward the donors or cronies of the politically powerful.
I really like Teddy Roosevelt.
I think Bernie is just a bit like him.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)shame people into action. Like most he addressed this only when forced to.
Mother Jones, "Letter to President Theodore Roosevelt," 1903
In June 1903, Mother Mary Harris Jones traveled to Philadelphia to support the textile workers' strike. Of the 100,000 workers on strike, 16,000 were children under the age of 16. Among the union's demands were the shortening of the workweek from sixty to fifty- five hours a week and the banning of night shifts for women and children. Supportive of the strikers' demands, Mother Jones began looking for alternative ways to garner publicity for the strikers, when the newspapers refused to cover the strike. The newspapers' decision stemmed from the fact that mill owners held stock in the newspapers.
On July 7, 1903, she announced her plan for 100 children textile workers, with adults and labor leaders, to march from Philadelphia to New York City. A week into the march, she wrote a letter to President Theodore Roosevelt, asking for his support. Receiving no response, on July 28, 1903, Mother Jones with three children and two march organizers quietly attempted to meet with President Roosevelt at his home outside New York city. His secretary met them at the gate to inform her that the President was not in and to instruct her to write a second letter. This letter was published in Philadelphia's North American. Shortly after, she received a reply from the president's secretary, informing her that the issue of child labor fell under state jurisdiction and not federal. This assertion contradicted the fact that state child labor laws had been repeatedly struck down as unconstitutional.
...
More at: http://cuomeka.wrlc.org/exhibits/show/industrial/documents/cri-doc7
______________________________________________________________
From the newspaper clipping...
MOTHER JONES WRITES PLEA TO ROOSEVELT
Sends Letter to the President About the Evils of Child Labor.
OFFERS LIVING PROOF
Will Bring Three Boys for Him to See and Interrogate.
From a staff correspondent.
In accordance with the instructions of Benjamin F. Barnes, assistant secretary to the President, Mother Jones wrote and sent her third letter to President Roosevelt this afternoon. Although Secretary Barnes said yesterday that the letter would reach the President's hands and perhaps obtain the desired interview, the Mother does not build her hopes too high.
Their policy of putting us back from time to time, while it shows weakness, indicates to me that they will have nothing to do with us, said Mother Jones. President Roosevelt seems to be afraid of offending the capitalistic class by granting our request, and at the same time does not wish to offend others by giving us an honest refusal.
...
http://cuomeka.wrlc.org/files/original/e8ed53531daa09276cbce1a1cec0ad6d.pdf
tecelote
(5,122 posts)Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law; directors should not be permitted to use stockholders' money for such purposes; and, moreover, a prohibition of this kind would be, as far as it went, an effective method of stopping the evils aimed at in corrupt practices acts. Not only should both the National and the several State Legislatures forbid any officer of a corporation from using the money of the corporation in or about any election, but they should also forbid such use of money in connection with any legislation save by the employment of counsel in public manner for distinctly legal services.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Of course these miscreants will not willingly surrender their power. They must be forced.
Consider that the CIA overthrew one duly elected head of state in Iran clear back in the early 1950s because he, like President Roosevelt, wanted the citizens to share in the bounty of the natural resources. This coup haunts us even today.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)I'm reading the Bully Pulpit and while it is taking me a lot of time to get through the book, it is very interesting.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)If not for the invaluable assistance of individual shareholders. Each one making the conscious decision to fully support republicans and conservatives over liberals and progressives, over those trying to make life better for everyone. Over those who would wage battle against slavers. We might actually have a shot at democracy for all people instead of just for those who join hands with the most corrupt. greedy, racist and short sighted people on the planet.
Some try to ease the pain of others with the one life they are given and some are owners of the pain dealers.
SpankMe
(2,937 posts)This describes Bernie to a tee.
progressoid
(49,824 posts)Or Ike for that matter.