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the problem isn't them blowing it, the problem is that a right wing, pro corporate and anti-worker regime has been in charge since Reagan. It's not about too much or too little, they've always done a lot, it's just mostly been bad. Tax cuts for the rich, attacks on Unions, deregulation (especially of banks who gamble with trillions knowing full well their losses will be covered by you and me) trickle down economics, austerity for the working class and opulence for the rich and endless war to support the military industrial complex.

We've been trying right wing politics for decades, whichever party was in charge. Folks have been trying to replace "The Establishment" without being able to understand who the establishment is.

Go look up opensecrets.org. That's a good place to start. Watch Secular Talk and Shaun. Read A People's History of the United States. Listen to what Bernie Sanders says about healthcare and what Liz Warren says about the banks. Do these things and it'll start to make sense. The problem is a wealthy elite who's greed and power hunger knows no bounds. You can't just look at parties or politician or who makes you feel good about yourself. What matters is policy and who does and doesn't take corporate PAC money. Oh, and watch out for guys like Beto O'Rouke, who seems to have gotten his money from the wealthy and hide that fact by having them bundle small donations.

are these Job Creators making a better living who deserve a break? Because that's the narrative I keep hearing. If these Job Creators can't create good paying jobs then why do they deserve all the special privileges (low taxes, low regulation, extra say in public policy) that we've been giving them?

If the Job Creators filed to create jobs, isn't it time for a New Deal? That's what we did the last time, and it lead to the biggest prosperity humanity has ever seen.

On a side note, if you look into it you'll find most of those businesses you linked to are closing because they were ladened down with debt from venture capitalists who used leveraged buyouts to extract the money from successful businesses. Again, Job Creators at work.

but the bulk of the left wing will call them out. And the closest thing the left has to an establishment (the late night talk shows and maybe these guys) call the anti-vax crowd out all the time.

The right wing, by comparison, elected an anti-vaxxer to the highest office of the land. I'd say GP is correct here.

The difference is left tries to reason with our kooks. The right is using them to achieve other political ends.

Hell, if I want to take it further that kind of "ends justifies the means" is why the right wing in America can welcome both the anti-Semitic white supremacists with Trump's "Both sides are bad" comment while also being staunch supporters of Israel.

The right has goals rather than principals. Makes them strong, but it also means they let a lot of fucked up shit slide that the left doesn't.

just refuse to vote for politicians who accept corporate PAC money. Look, right here's a wing of the Democratic party that does just that. They're looking to primary the corporate, Clintonion Democrats next election too.

I'm open to hearing a GOP equivalent but, well, I don't know any. Maybe folks like that jump ship to the libertarian party, IDK. Doesn't matter.

Refuse to vote for anyone who takes corporate PAC money. And vote in your primary. Your vote has orders of magnitude more power in a primary. Politicians don't fear being reelected. They _do_ fear being primaried. Show up and give'em something to be scared of again.

is this gonna change how anyone votes in 2020? No? Then so what.

As long as we keep voting in corrupt folks they're gonna keep being corrupt. And once again I'll drop this link to the only wing of any party that makes it a litmus test to refuse corporate PAC money. As always if anyone knows a GOP equivalent I'm all ears.

Americans are making 20% less than they used to (article says "Millennials" but I don't know about you but I took a paycut when the economy crashed in 2008).

Men and Women are now fighting among ourselves over 1-3% (a percentage that might just be due to men not taking time off for child rearing) while the ruling class is laughing all the way to the bank with that 20%.

This has been modus operandi for centuries: wedge issues. You find something to divide the working class into manageable chunks. Race, creed, sex. Hell, when the Japanese couldn't do it with race because they were all Japanese they made up classes based on jobs and kept books of them by name.

Don't fall for it. Demand better pay for all workers. Support the push for higher minimum wage. Vote in your primary for pro-Union, pro-worker candidates who refuse corporate PAC money. Demand all workers get healthcare that isn't tied to your job so you can switch jobs at will.

We've got bigger fish to fry than this. Don't get into the trenches with your fellow workers fighting while the rich laugh at you

that's where the real power is. What the politicians and when they get scared. There's only one thing that frightens them: being primaried. AOC shows us it can work, but you've got to be there.

Also, and I keep saying this when voting comes up (or I'm just pissed at politics): vote for candidates who refuse corporate PAC money. Right now that means Democrats, because these guys are the only ones I know of who make it a point to refuse corporate PAC money. I don't know any equivalent on the GOP side.

Finally, I think we're pretty much stuck with left wing politics if we want to solve these problems. At a minimum Universal Healthcare and Universal College. We need a healthy, well educated population, and to be blunt right now the right wing (whether they call themselves Dems or GOPpers) opposes those things.

This is the same guy that called the bribes he takes buying into his agenda.

Like TFS suggests this is most likely just to preempt stronger protections from the states, particularly California. We've been relying on CA to protect the rest of the country from this kind of bullshit by passing laws that end up affecting the other states. Don't think the folks in Congress and their donors haven't noticed that.

The solution is and always will be to stop voting for people like Rubio who take corporate PAC money. I keep on saying this but the Dems have a wing of the party that does just that. I know of no such animal on the GOP side but I'm happy to be proven wrong. In the meantime you can't serve two masters. If your politician accepts corporate PAC money they're not _your_ politician. They belong to the donors who bankrolled their campaign. Full Stop.

And start demanding politicians who refuse corporate PAC money, like these.

We, the people, don't want Communism and Shariah law here. A lot of brave young men gave their lives to keep that shit abroad.

when you've got a government staffed with pro-corporate politicians from top to bottom. Start showing up to your primaries folks if you want any of this to change. And start demanding politicians who refuse corporate PAC money, like these.

7 years with the money we would save from Medicare for All. We could pay the rest of it in about 40 years, which would be in my kid's lifetime (not mine, I'm old :) ).

And we could do it faster if we'd stop meddling in other country's affairs for the sake of our mega corporations.

I keep on saying this, but vote, vote in your primary, and vote for candidates who refuse corporate PAC money. That's how you fix this.

how about instead we just elect politicians who aren't corrupt and who will close tax loopholes and shelters? It's not even hard, just make it a point to vote for candidates who refuse corporate PAC money.

thank the GOP. There have been a few votes to save Net Neutrality and they were lost along party lines (a few GOPers did break ranks but it wasn't enough).

I know folks don't like partisanship, but there are partisan issues and NN is one of them. Had Trump lost the election we wouldn't be reading this story today. Had the Democrats taken the Senate & House by a wide enough majority to override vetos we would be reading about the upcoming vote to restore NN. These aren't debatable points, they're just facts. Cold, hard facts.

We've got another election in about 2 years. Show up at your primary. The Dems have a wing that refuses corporate PAC money. If Net Neutrality matters to you then you know what to do.

I know I keep harping on about this in various threads, but if we want this to stop we need to vote for candidates who refuse corporate PAC money

Sure will. If I was a single issue voter

there have been several rules that uphold Arbitration agreements in EULA's recently. Congress passed a law making them binding and the SCOTUS upheld the law because Congress passed it. Employees can still sue for violations of various Labor Laws (mostly national ones) but if you're a consumer you're pretty much boned.

I know I keep harping on about this in various threads, but if we want this to stop we need to vote for candidates who refuse corporate PAC money

Yeah, it's a shame that a couple of good ideas are bundled up in a package of (in my opinion) absolute crazy.

I know I keep harping on about this in various threads, but if we want this to stop we need to vote for candidates who refuse corporate PAC money

...the immediate problem is that the "we" you're talking to here is the few hundred (okay, perhaps a thousand or two on a really good day) dedicated slashdotters that still remain, and even at that, most of them are ignoring you. Or IOW, you're wasting your effort.

It's not the only "who we are electing" problem, either. As long as people insist of electing the rich, the laws, the bureaucracy they establish, and the entire economic system that thrives beneath these will all continue to tilt strongly towards the rich.

I'm with you — really — but there's no solution to be found here, and I don't know how you'd go about convincing the vast majority of the sheep either, as they're considerably more concerned with other people's guns, abortions, Facebook updates, and what mind-numbing content they can watch on TV than they are with, you know, actually reforming the system.

there have been several rules that uphold Arbitration agreements in EULA's recently. Congress passed a law making them binding and the SCOTUS upheld the law because Congress passed it. Employees can still sue for violations of various Labor Laws (mostly national ones) but if you're a consumer you're pretty much boned.

I know I keep harping on about this in various threads, but if we want this to stop we need to vote for candidates who refuse corporate PAC money

Most Left wing candidates do not get any funding corporate PACs. See here and here. Their money comes from small donors and they have explicit litmus tests that require refusing corporate PAC money.

Now, Clinton Democrats (Schumer, Pelosi, etc) get about 50-55% of their money from corporate PACs. But since when are the Clinton Democrats "the left"? They don't support single payer healthcare, they _do_ support the 8 wars we're fighting and they voted to cut federal and state funding to colleges. How is that "the left"?

they won't hire me for programming gigs. One guy said the Indians were "Java Savants". It was mostly the new guys who didn't realize they were committing a crime. I've also seen job postings specifically asking for H1-Bs (posted where the other H1-Bs were to see it and pass it along back home).

My State doesn't really have a labor department and with a Whitehouse packed full of ex-Goldman Sachs employees I haven't bothered to report it. I'm not so naive that I think anything is going to be done. I've been showing up at my state's primary elections to try and get folks like this in office since they refuse corporate PAC money. I figure that's a good place to start, no more politicians who get bought off.

Here's an entire wing of the Dems that won't take corp PAC money. If anyone knows the GOP equivalent please post it, I've been looking for it. If there's any issue that needs to be bipartisan it's this.

Well, there are the libertarians. They don't really get PAC money (except for maybe from the Koch's and a few other rich guys.) mainly because they are universally dead-set against any kind of corporate welfare. Some strains of libertarainism don't think there should even be corporations, as they are essentially creations of the tax code, which should ideally be as flat as possible.

That's when you structure your taxes to disproportionately affect the poor and working class because your elected reps won't raise taxes on their wealthy donors. Another good example is flat alcohol taxes. You'll pay the same tax on that 50 cent can of Pabst Blue Ribbon that your CEO pays on his $3000 bottle of Chateau de something-or-other.

As an added bonus these taxes piss off working class people who then demand tax cuts. You then give tax cuts to billionaire elites and when there's the inevitable budget shortfall create another batch of regressive taxes, which cause the working class to demand more tax cuts which leads to more of them for the rich which leads to more regressive taxes to make up the difference which.... well you get the idea.

Anyway there's a really easy solution to all this: Stop voting for people who accept corporate PAC money. Make it a deal breaker for any politician in your primary. Oh, and vote in your primary election.

Here's an entire wing of the Dems that won't take corp PAC money. If anyone knows the GOP equivalent please post it, I've been looking for it. If there's any issue that needs to be bipartisan it's this.

here's a bunch of them.

Look for politicians who don't take corporate PAC money and who, when interviewed, talk about specific policies and not fluffy nonsense like "Make America Great Again".

it's a terrible idea but it's the best we can get with the current political system.

I worked for a company that made everyone come in 20 minutes early to set up their workstations and leave 10 minutes late, all unpaid. 30 minutes free labor a day times several thousand employees. It was millions. I didn't get much from the lawsuit but the company did have to start paying me for those 30 minutes.

My state doesn't have a labor board (there's one on paper but it's not funded). The threat of lawyers suing for a big payday is the only thing keeping most companies honest in my neck of the woods.

Like Arbitration this strikes me as the latest attack on that very minimal protection consumers have. Would I like to live in a world where I don't rely on skeezy lawyers getting big cash payouts for little to no work as the only protection I have from abuse by mega-corps? You bet. But I don't. I live in the real world, and I'm a realist. Until I can get folks to vote for genuine change I'll take what I can get.

and the last campaign was a little over $1 billion/each. You might get a better deal in the primary. Or you could try voting for people who don't accept bribes.

Democratic Socialist.

if you don't like it you're gonna have to vote pro-consumer, anti-corporate people in like Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Start here. It's a non-corporate PAC that makes refusing corporate PAC money a condition of membership. I'm not sure if there's a Republican or Libertarian equivalent, but if anyone's got one I'm all ears.

if any of this is going to change how anyone votes? Even a little. I realize this might not be a big enough issue to make the "single issue voter" grade, but so far as I can tell while it annoys people it's not something that even registers with even the most tech savvy voter. And so long as the FCC knows they can get away with it why stop? Especially when the gravy train of sweet post FCC cush jobs awaits.

I wouldn't mind seeing corruption be a bigger issue for Americans. They claim it is, but when it's time to vote they won't make it an issue. Not in any practical way.

What we really need is more guys like these who refuse corporate & PAC money. We should make refusing bribes a litmus test for all politicians. No refusal means no vote in the primary.

But given how openly corrupt the current admin is does it really matter? I mean, the head of the EPA was ousted for petty things like buying furniture with government funds, meanwhile the EPA is ignoring large scale pollution while working to roll back the endangered species act so that rich guys can go hunting (seriously, look it up). We've got a president who refuses to release tax returns and at least 20% of the population (and 42% of the voting pop) is perfectly OK with that as though they'd forgotten why we make presidential candidates with obvious conflicts of interest release those.

I just saying that knowing the particulars of corruption is pointless when you can see the effects of it right out in the open. If you want to see this crap stop start showing up to your primaries and demanding politicians who refuse corporate PAC money. Guys like these. Why anyone would vote for someone who openly accepts PAC money is beyond me.

shame on you, fool me twice... you can't... you can't fool me again.

Seriously though, I'd like to make the point that while the Democratic Party has a wing that refuses corporate PAC money forget a wing, I don't know of a single GOP politician who does.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but actions speak louder than words. The Republican party have done a lot of bad to me and mine. They're currently working on eliminating the protections for pre-existing conditions for Obamacare and argue that we should end Social Security & Medicare for people under 55 (they're careful not to piss off their base of older voters until it's too late). Their tax cut is causing out of control inflation and interest rate hikes. They just repealed Dodd-Frank (albeit with the help of several right wing Democrats). They cut funding to my kid's schools. They tried to take away my Type-I diabetic buddies insulin for christ's sake (seriously, I'm not even exaggerating here, the ACA and Obama made them back down when he threatened to pull Medicare for the old folks in my red state). I can go on and on.

When I see real, positive actions from them I'll give credit where it's due. But after 40 years of policy that has a demonstratively negative impact on my life you'll forgive me if I'm just a wee bit distrustful.

just bribes. They'll get big money from Amazon, Apple, Foxconn and the like. And everybody looks the other way because we've got wedge issues to worry about.

Nobody thinks they needed to give Foxconn $4 billion anymore than anybody in Kansas thought that bloody Ark think was really going to pay for itself with tourism and jobs. It's just corruption. Want this to stop? Stop voting for people who take corporate money. Here's one now. Here's a whole bunch of them. Not sure if there are any on the R side though. I don't know of any, and I know of a rather famous example of the exact opposite. If anyone knows anyone who's made the "no PAC & corp money" pledge on that side let me know.

Vote in your primary and only vote for politicians who refuse corporate & PAC money. If you have to join a party to vote in primaries join the Democrats. They've got a wing that refused corporate/PAC money.

Until we can get voters to refuse politicians who've been bought of we're boned.

How about including public employee union donations in your list of "bad" money?

They're by far the biggest political contributors in the US.

Vote in your primary and only vote for politicians who refuse corporate & PAC money. If you have to join a party to vote in primaries join the Democrats. They've got a wing that refused corporate/PAC money.

Until we can get voters to refuse politicians who've been bought of we're boned.

and everybody who runs as a Justice Democrat. They've all refused to accept corporate and PAC money. Why anyone would vote for a politician that won't pledge against corporate & PAC money is beyond me. I mean, in the General when it's too late, ok, but in your _primary_ and you're voting for politicians who openly admit to being bought? Why? Just Why?

There's the Justice Democrats. There's Bernie. There's Liz Warren. We had Alan Grayson until the 1%ers burried him because he was a credible threat that didn't back down (and had a few minor skeletons). There was Al Franklin until the right wing of the party ate him alive for a few dirty jokes (mostly so they could eliminate him from competition for the presidency).

The left wing is trying to take the party back from the Clintonians. Show up to your primary and help them do it.

and demand candidates that don't accept corporate money, like these folks. Right now almost all the candidates are cherry picked by billionaires (google the "Sheldon Primary"). You need to show up at the real primary and punish incumbents.

No more Marc Rubios, who likes to say anyone can 'buy into' him. I don't care that anyone can buy him. I don't want _anyone_ buying my representatives.

she took them for granted. Given Trump's very highly publicized flaws (p****ygate, his rambling speeches, his decades of poor business decisions) she assumed nobody in their right mind would vote for him. Hence the 'Deplorables' line. What she failed to account for is that people _want_ economic populism. They _want_ the government to take action to better their lives. Trump promised all that (even as he ran with a party who's central plank is laissez faire capitalism).

And no, that is not me. I'm a Democratic Socialist. A Bernie Bro. A Justice Democrat. All members of the working class are welcome in my tent. The aristocracy can enter too, but with some caveats. Mainly that we stop bending society to satisfy their extravagant whims and desires.

you'd have done that anyway. And besides, they don't care. You're gonna hurt a few advertisers, but unless you stop consuming content (particularly video) then your ISP is about to get a cut of everything you do online. Heck, even if you just shop they'll probably get a cut.

If you want to do something that matters vote against the Republican party, because it's _always_ the Republicans that do this crap. Then show up at your party's primary (Libertarian, Democrat, Green, Monster Loony, whatever) and _vote_ or the folks who run the Republicans will just take over whatever party you defected to to get away from them like they did with the Democrats. Right now there's a movement called Justice Democrats trying to take back the Dems. Libs and green are still too small to matter.

Yes, the 2016 Dem primaries were rigged, to a degree. The question is, what to do now? Bernie is using his energy to push reform on the Dems, to stop the rigging and allow a wave of fresh blood into the party. Others in his camp are trying to recruit him to form a third party. And there are those who are trying to elect grassroots candidates at the state and local level, nationwide.

Though you won't hear about it much on NPR or MSNBC, the progressive left is woke now, after last year's election. Just look at how many senators jumped on Bernie's Medicare-for-All bill, and how many of them are 'contenders' for 2020. When a parade forms, politicians love to jump in front of it and call themselves leaders.

Yes, they tried to screw you out of your vote last year... and yet you persisted. You won't have another chance to vote (at least not like that) until next fall. But in the meantime, you can get active at the local and state level.

They have the power, for the moment, but we have the numbers.

This one and this one. Also this

they're not left wing. They're mostly trial lawyers opposed to tort reform that would put them out of business (not that tort reform's a good thing, lawsuits are about the only thing keeping mega-corps in check). Anyway if you want to know more on the difference see here. Also look up a Youtube channel called "Secular Talk".

vs Justice Dems. We're trying to reign them in in the wake of Hilary's loss. But there's a lot of money out there.

See here.

And the difference is _all_ Republicans are in big biz's pockets. They're unapologetic about it. The Laffer curve will trickle it down. I'm not trolling saying that, it's made a comeback.