You do your part big time, I promise I’ll do mine big time
Posted by Michelle Moquin on April 16th, 2014
Good morning!
I’ve been wanting to respond to a few comments from a few days go, and I’m finally getting around to it.
Monroe: That is the point, the “youngsters” need to get with it. They were all so excited and participatory in the 2008 elections…but they quickly lost steam and stayed away during the midterms, which is part of the reason we lost the House. Dems, ALL Dems, need to get a fire up their asses and realize that if we lose this chance, life will be far worse than they can imagine.
As Eldon, Mildred and Stewart said, the repubs will vote during the midterms. The Dems…who knows why they don’t show up. Could be laziness, complacency…whatever. I don’t care what the reason. No reason is a good reason. Any reason is no excuse.
Readers: I am speaking to you, who read my blog, that this time it is not enough for us Dems, to just get fired up and do nothing but walk down to the voting booth and vote Democratic. If you have always voted Dem, or if through reading my blog you changed parties, and voted Dem for the first time in 2008 and 2012, more action needs to take place before it is time to vote in the midterms this year. More action in rallying up friends, family, strangers, to vote Dem and get to the polls. It may mean helping drive people to the polls so they can be sure to vote.
This is the time, where we need to do more. This is the time where Dems need to act differently than we have in the past, and surprise the heck out of the repubs, and show up big and strong, big time. This is not the time to get passive, lazy, complacent, or throw up your arms in frustration, feeling as if our vote doesn’t count. It does. Because whether you make it to the polls or not, your vote or lack of vote will count for one party. You might as well make it count for the Dem party, because a no vote will most certainly count for the repubs. And..if you think you’re frustrated and disillusioned for whatever reason, you will have plenty of reason when it gets worse and you realize you could’ve done something.
Anonymous: I love your idea. That is exactly what I am talking about when I say we need to do more than just vote this time around. Thank you!
Anyone else inspired by Anonymous? Maybe you can’t go out and buy a billboard, but you can certainly walk the streets and be your own personal billboard.
I know I can do more because, quite frankly, I am sick and tired of bitching about all that is happening on a daily basis. And worse, I am sick of the bitching from people who complain about the state of our affairs when it is us, the Dems, who are the ones to blame. Yes we are. We can point fingers at the repubs, and all they are doing, but we gave them they control. We had control and we gave it up. We’ve got one more chance with Obama as our president. Big change can happen if we retain control of the Senate and get back the House in November.
You do your part big time, I promise I’ll do mine big time.
You don’t like the fact the raving S.T.A.R.K. are in control? I don’t either. If the repubs remain in control, STARK will remain bought and paid for and this country will be at the mercy of those 5 repubs, who will remain on the bench working for the billionaires until the day they die. I’m not willing to see this country become a one party nation, and launch into a third world war. Are you? Don’t doubt that the repubs will take us there.
The question is, what are you willing to do in the coming months to prevent this? If we get control of Congress, we can set term limits on the time a Supreme Court judge can be on the bench and take away these insane “Until I die, Lifetime” appointments. Down with lifetime appointments.
If we get control of Congress we can overturn Citizens United.
From The Nation:
Bernie Sanders Raises Battle Cry Against Citizens United: ‘I Vote for Democracy!’
Citizens United is not just the default reference for US Supreme Court decisions—including the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling—that have ushered in a new era of corporate dominance of American elections. It’s the name of the conservative groupthat encouraged Chief Justice John Roberts and the most activist Court majority in American history to tear the heart out of what were already weak campaign finance laws.
Citizens United still exists as an activist group that produces documentaries—ACLU: At War with America, Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration, Fire From the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman, America at Risk: Hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich—and organizes gatherings that highlight right-wing policies and politicians. On Saturday, Citizens United hosted something of a kickoff for the Republican presidential race in the first-primary state of New Hampshire.
Organized in collaboration with the Koch brothers–funded Americans for Prosperity Foundation, Citizens United’s “Freedom Summit” attracted a list of speakers that included leading contenders (and wannabes) for the GOP nod. Indeed, Greg Moore, the director of AFP-New Hampshire, described the summit as the first “cattle call” of 2016.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul made his pitch to the Koch crowd.
So did Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
And former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
And perennial (if never quite announced) contender Donald Trump.
The Freedom Summit was not entertaining objections to the latest Supreme Court decision to steer more big money into politics—in the case of McCutcheon v. FEC—or to the political machinations of bottom-line corporations and self-serving “mega-donors.”
But across town, on the same day, the objection was raised.
The New Hampshire Institute of Politics on the campus of Saint Anselm College was packed Saturday for a town-hall meeting with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who roused the crowd with a condemnation of the money power that is corrupting American elections and governance.
“In the United States of America, billionaires should not be able to buy elections,” declared Sanders, to thunderous applause.
“If we do not get our act together, we are moving towards an oligarchic society,” he continued, arguing that, “We have got to fight to defend American democracy.”
Like some of the Republicans who will be in New Hampshire this weekend, Sanders has talked about running for president. And his visit to the first-primary state has stirred speculation about a possible bid.
The independent senator says he is months away from any kind of decision. What he’s doing now is inviting progressives to join in a conversation about how to take on the money power. It’s a conversation he’ll carry forward May 9 and May 10 in Northampton, Massachusetts, with a series of events, including an appearance with the activist group Progressive Democrats of America.
What Sanders has already made his decision about the absolute absurdity of the High Court’s approach to cases like Citizens United and McCutcheon.
“What world are the five conservative Supreme Court justices living in?” Sanders said after the McCutcheon ruling.“To equate the ability of billionaires to buy elections with ‘freedom of speech’ is totally absurd. The Supreme Court is paving the way toward an oligarchic form of society in which a handful of billionaires like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson will control our political process.”
Sanders has also decided that a constitutional amendment is needed to push back against Supreme Court decisions that threaten to make the dollar more consequential than the vote in American elections.
The “Democracy is for the People” amendment, sponsored by Sanders and Congressman Ted Deutch, D-Florida, is one of several proposed by members of Congress in response to the national outcry over the Citizens United decision—an outcry that, so far, has seen sixteen states and close to 600 communities demand that the Constitution be amended to address the crisis created, and now compounded, by the court.
Section I. Whereas the right to vote in public elections belongs only to natural persons as citizens of the United States, so shall the ability to make contributions and expenditures to influence the outcomes of public elections belong only to natural persons in accordance with this Article.
Section II. Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to restrict the power of Congress and the States to protect the integrity and fairness of the electoral process, limit the corrupting influence of private wealth in public elections, and guarantee the dependence of elected officials on the people alone by taking actions which may include the establishment of systems of public financing for elections, the imposition of requirements to ensure the disclosure of contributions and expenditures made to influence the outcome of a public election by candidates, individuals, and associations of individuals, and the imposition of content neutral limitations on all such contributions and expenditures.
Section III. Nothing in this Article shall be construed to alter the freedom of the press.
Section IV. Congress and the States shall have the power to enforce this Article through appropriate legislation.
Sanders is blunt with regard to the crisis.
“The disastrous 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United threw out campaign funding laws that limited what wealthy individuals and corporations could spend on elections,” he has argued. “Since that ruling, campaign spending by Adelson, the Koch brothers and a handful of other billionaire families has fundamentally undermined American democracy. If present trends continue, elections will not be decided by one-person, one-vote, but by a small number of very wealthy families who spend huge amounts of money supporting right-wing candidates who protect their interests.”
And Sanders is blunt about the necessary response.
“Clearly, if we are to retain the fundamentals of American democracy, we need to overturn the Supreme Court decision,” explains the senator, who argues that the time has come for “overturning Citizens United.”
It is part of what Sanders sees as a :political revolution” that has as its point the establishment of electoral landscape where the vote matters more than the dollar.
In New Hampshire Saturday, Sanders summed the concept up with a declaration that earned a standing ovation:
“I vote for democracy!”
Take Action: Tell Congress to Pass the ‘Democracy Is For People’ Amendment
*END*
Are you with me?
Ann: The LSOS feature has not ended. Go at it sister.
Vic: Nope no censoring here. The blog goes as it flows.
Helena: Is this the same Helena from many years ago? HOPE so. Always nice to see you here. If not, I still like your comment. :)
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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