Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is one of the best advocates for the U.S. middle classes and he's also becoming new technology communication savvy. Bernie is online!
Firstly, he wrote a column on the Huffington Post on the financial crisis.
Here are his very simple main points and he has a tendency to introduce legislation to accompany his words.
- Cap interest rates to 15%
- Break up too big to fail institutions
- Pass the "Audit the Fed" bill
Pretty simple huh? If an institution is too big to fail then maybe it's too big to exist? Stop consumer usary by plain making loan shark interest rates illegal. If we want to know what the Federal Reserve has done with $2 trillion, let's audit them.
But check this out. Senator Sanders has an entire online show, Sanders Unfiltered and is also creating youtubes to communicate with the public. He's using web 2.0 technologies...with feedback mind you, you can submit a video question, commentary, comment, all to communicate with his office and make requests. Sanders can also drum up support for legislation, answer questions and most importantly disseminate truth on legislative and topic details, not filtered by some cable news show or press. (I wish he would put up a bunch of his Senate and House Floor speeches, they are hard hitting, loaded with facts, same with Senator Byron Dorgan!)
Now if only a few more representatives would realize they are supposed to represent the people in their areas and not whatever corporate or personal agenda they are into....did such a nice communication system. What if more representatives were actually interested in listening to what their constituents want and offering solutions to see....if that is what they want?
Frankly my representatives simply utter some nice sound bytes, obviously written by some corporate lobbyist...and completely ignore what their constituents have to say. Since this is so common, I'll bet that's your experience too, even in town halls.
Sanders is awesome, he also had managed to navigate those corporate lobbyist shark invested waters on capital hill and squeeze through more than one very common sense, practical amendment into bills. Give him more power to help us out and check out his new site.
Another Break up the banks Rolfe Winkler - Reuter's Blog
I'm going to borrow his well done graphic:
And point to you to his blog post on asking about the same things we are, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders has said from the beginning....if banks are so big they can bring down a global economy, i.e. "too big to fail" they obviously they need to be broken up.
Great blog post (and please go read it because this particular visual takes a while to put together), noticing no one mentions anti-trust laws these days. Perhaps it's because of all of the woes with Microsoft, only to have the whole effort ignored, buried and never mentioned once the Bush administration got into office.
you're not going to believe what is being broadcast live
across cable. To "debate" to "censor" Heckler during Obama's health care speech.
Good God, if this nation can jump on the trivial or business useless, say Shivo, Clinton's impeachment and so on, by God they will.
Think CNN, Fox and MSNBC would broadcast live a floor debate on say financial regulatory reform? Or even any legislation on executive bonuses? No way.
web 2.0 populism
Robert: The Internet shifts political power. As Scott Brown (newly-elected Senator from Massachusetts) demonstrated, web tools enable populist messages to rise like wildfire and overturn the better-funded establishment. The latest example of a Web populist underdog winning a measure of advantage over a powerful adversary is Hillary Machinery Inc. This mom-and-pop business is locked in a strange lawsuit with PlainsCapital Bank, a much larger business. What do you think? --Ben
absolutely true and why so many flocked to blogs, online
The MSM is controlled by corporations, political candidates are controlled by corporations and to even sue somebody, a. you had better have a million dollar case and b. you're looking at 10 years probably to get anywhere and c. the lawyers will eat up all of the money recovered.
i.e. the courts is a money and legal game, little justice involved.
Even Academia is corrupt at this point. We have biased studies all over the place and one finds some grant by some large corporation behind the scenes or some large pharmaceutical company funding the research or trial....never mind biased "white papers" coming from clearly sponsored "think tanks" where literally I've seen assumptions and equations from theory manipulated...never mind study data.
That's really bad for without objectivity, a place where outside influences cannot bias theory and science, we're in for deep dodo for one needs some sort of social institutions and methods where one can trust there is not a bias and it's based on real objective research, real theory, real science.
Also, thank God for it. It's really the economics, financial bloggers who warned on the impending financial implosion. If it was left up to the MSM, I doubt you would have heard much about it. It gives anyone, any expert a voice and it's really the credibility of their writing, expertise which then draws readers.
It's why it is so important to protect privacy and free speech on the Internets too, it's the ultimate public square and even better one can organize the public square so it's intelligible. (i.e. if this was a physical public square you would just hear shouts and noise with no way to organize 100 million voices and topics).
Great sentiments, but ever doubtful....
I wish you were right, but I fear that isn't and won't be the case. Not the end-all panacea, simply a substitution for the completely corporate-controlled and disseminated media (newspapers, TV, cable, and so forth).
Observe Iran. The 'net and Twitter can be compromised and halted. Stealth users and operators on Twitter gave out disinformation, misleading directions and misinformation.
Observe China. Taking advantage of the backdoor into Google (placed there at the behest of DHS), they hacked them good! To the detriment of certain Chinese freedom-seeking dissenters.
Nope, I'm afraid, as a British poster said several years ago, we've enetered into a Sociopolitical Singularity, where the powerful have gotten so bloody powerful that so very many are unaware of it.
How many people realize so many of those foundations which support specific programs don't even employ anyone, they are simply financial paper constructions?
How many people realize that NPR is so very little from Foxtard? So very few people.
How many people realize that when some "guest speaker" from the American Enterprise Institute, or some other shill tank appears, he or she is working for an outfit financed and run by the owner of the largest hedge fund on the planet?
So very few people.
If it's tech, it can be altered, compromised and controlled.
Not so very long ago I heard the well-known media critic, Robert McChesney claim that we are getting closer and closer to the "Propaganda State."
Heck, we've long sinced reached that, as there are so very few who truly understand what is taking place.
Why? Because one has to invest so much darn time and resources to reach said understanding.
And while I'm not casting aspersions on Mr. McChesney, I am suspect of some of the financial backing the organizations he's been affiliated? Makes a sometimes aware person such as myself very suspicious.....