Love ya Jim! Keep it up ~
http://www.jimhightower.com/jim

No. I'm sorry. I'm 62 years old. I've been involved in one form of politics or another for over 40 years - in unions, antiwar, feminist, gay, civil rights, AIDS. Almost always as an outsider. But hey: We are supposed to live in a representative democracy. We vote for people, they run the government. Then we go after life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Millions of people donated and worked like crazy to get Obama elected and secured rather large Democratic majorities in both Houses. And we've been fucked - not minorly. Hugely.

And all these great ideas of yours sound ridiculous. I really don't know what to do, but people are not going to buy this day in, day out fighting for pathetic scraps. And I think it's really missing the point to keep pushing people in this way. It gives the message that it's our fault if we don't get what we voted for. It's not.

We didn't "go to sleep", we aren't being "unrealistic about politics", we aren't "pushing to hard from the left."

And you're sounding like a broken record.

Those who do not understand that the government is an executive committee and armed weapon of the rich have no grasp of history, the present, and are unable to even begin to guess their way into the future. Indeed, behind good intentions, they accept and hasten the emergence of fascism as a mass, popular, movement.

Don't forget that most fun and effective tool of all- The Boycott.

Nothing truly works until you pull that one on them.
Years ago, when I was a member of the Church of Christ, the Council of Churches staged a boycott of General Foods and American Home Products- on account of all the violence they sponsored on TV.
They told us from the pulpit, instead of Pam Cooking oil, we could switch to butter or oil; instead of Post Raisin Bran, switchto Kellogg's- somethng laughingly easy to pull off, and in fact 25 years later, I still am in the habit of looking suspiciously at products from GF or Post, or Jello- even though the Boycott ended about 20 years ago.
I figured I NEVER needed most of their products, and we took a significant chunk out of their profits, and years after I left that church, I read they had to beg them to call it off. ( Imagine Corporations begging anyone for anything)- well they did, look it up..
Air Travel and Big tobbacco are next. How else can we stop the insanity of having Radio Frequency Identification Chips put in our Passports, or continuing not to Legalising Marijuana.
The Jim Crow South was all sewn up and permanent, until that one fateful day in Montgomery when they discovered they didn't have to get out of their seats.
Hightower even mentionned it as the most effective in his book-"Eat your Heart out", and had we actually tried any of that in the '70's we wouldn't be as deep in the mess we are now..

BUt we have the one thing that the corporations and the wealthy don't have.

Votes! And lots of them!

We elect public officials and pay them with our taxes. We are their "managers" and, as managers, we shouldn't hire them for the job and then walk away for 2-4 years to see how they do. We should give them feedback, lots of it.

I like Hightower, but this article sounds like the Sunday supplement: it treats a systemic problem like a personal one. All the organizing in the world can't fight the power of the system. The corporate Juggernaut controls the media and the government, and the system works for the top ten percent and noone else

Single payer health care was what a large majority of Americans wanted and we all protested, wrote, gave money, organized--and it didn't have the slightest effect. The deals were all cut way before the discussion even started. Congress was bought and paid for and they delivered to the money men. Power and money trump the peoples' will every time. I'm afraid we have lost the war.

I'd like to think, like SharonAnn, that we have the votes and our votes can actually make a difference. But that just isn't true either. A candidate will not even make it to the nomination unless he is acceptable to the powers that be, and now, with the crooked voting machines in place, our votes can be manipulated any way that the powers wish.

tosome who have posted here about the uselessness of doing anything - that is what got us into this mess in the first place - doing nothing and letting the GOP and the corporations steal our government, our liberties, and our futures. Yes, it is difficult to make changes happen quickly, but here are a few other suggestions:

Start with your city councils - get them to strip corporations of their personhood within the city limits or county limits. this is perfectly legal and if the majority of the people support the measure it is binding. Check out www.celdf.org for more information how to do this.

Run for offices in your communities and get your message out. Many communities are non-partisan at the local level, so you do not need the state parties' support to run.

Run for school boards, and then push for the school districts to tell the feds and the states to take their unfunded mandates and stick them! Get parents to vote in bond issues on the premise of better teachers means smarter kids; and better facilities means better food, programs, and learning environments for their children. Point out that by dumbing down our children the government has stripped them and their parents of a future for them.

These are just a couple of suggestions that can create change across this nation if enough towns and counties act on them. If you only take part is some movement once every 4 years, then you are not going to create change, because change requires a concerted effort everyday of our lives. We can create change, and unless we do, then the likes of the cowards and criminals in Congress will continue to stop any good legislation from ever getting past while blaming Obama for its failure.

The governments of many other countries work quite well for their citizens, look at Europe for example, where most if not all countries have universal healthcare and free education, important and productive investments in their citizen base. They are also way ahead of the US in becoming energy independent and green. So why can't it happen here? Yes, it will take some effort on the part of US voters to inform themselves and vote wisely, to turn off the TVs, get off their fat asses and make a difference. It will not be easy to wean politicians of corporate money but it can be done. This is nominally a country of, by, and for the people but through inattention it has become of, by, and for only the wealthy. We can take it back, but those in power aren't going to give it up willingly!

How about this: we send petitions to the Dems putting them on notice that we'll no longer vote for any candidate who takes corporate campaign money. Then stick by that come elections, come hell or high water.

The US could learn a lot from Kenyan politics, as anyone
who has studied Kenyan history might know. So it's absolutely no shame for a son of Kenya and America to lead the US. That this could happen at all is a credit to
the US, and to the dynamic aspirations of Kenyans such as
Mr. Obama's dad. Peter Edler, member Swedish Writers Union, Stockholm.

We need to eliminate the need for candidates to accept money from corporations. Their major cost is TV time. We can eliminate this cost by providing free time to all candidates. I propse the following:
All television and radio stations and networks must give an equal amount of time to all candidates. If one candidate buys any additional time, the television and radio stations and networks selling that time must donate an equal amount of time to all the other candidates. This will be done on an area or national basis, depending on each initial purchase. If a station or network gives free coverage to any candidate, through interviews, talk shows, etc., that station must give all other candidates an equal amount of time. All equal time provisions are interpreted to mean at equivalent time slots.
Remember, the airwaves are owned by the people, and licensed to various networks. If these networks or individual stations do not agree to this public service (as required by FCC licensing agreements), they must lose their license(s).

We need someone with guts, gumption and access to the FCC to implement this.

In the United States the only good vote is a vote for recession. So join your nearest recession movement (more than 30 states have one) and stand up to be counted!!! Pete Edler, Stockholm

i will challenge Floresta on the notion of being negative. millions of people have been involved in a very positive campaign. millions of people have been involved in anti-war work, feminism, anti-poverty, civil rights, etc. etc. for dozens of years. massive changes have been made because of that. and a lot of that positive work has been done by, but not only, progressives. how dare you say that the progressives have to buck up? Prisoners have been in Guantanamo for seven years, there are now more soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq then under Bush. many of the people responsible for the economic turn down are now making decisions. the health care bill is a shambles giving more, not less, power to big insurance companies and big pharma. pointing these things out is not being negative. it's a fact. \

as someone asked when does compromise can become surrender. it feels kind of like about now.

berate progressives if you want but obama wouldn't been elected without very active progressives. now we're wondering why we bothered when things are getting worse, not better.

It will be great to watch We Will Rock You, i have bought tickets from
http://ticketfront.com/event/We_Will_Rock_You-tickets looking forward to it.