dreamnightwind
dreamnightwind's JournalNo, pay them millions, and forbid all profiteering from their service
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I've thought it through after saying so here before and getting panned for it, and I'm standing my ground on this unpopular opinion.
I hate them as much as anyone, believe me.
I favor paying them literally millions a year. The legislation authorizing the pay raise needs to also contain strict regulations forbidding them from profiting in any way from their service, while they are in office and after they leave office.
It's an extremely important job, they should be paid accordingly. They're getting paid, just not by us. Who do we think they work for? The people who pay them.
Make the liberal case, yes!
That is right on, I've been saying it for a long time myself. One of the worst problems with our party electing 3rd-way types is that the case for liberal policies is never fought for, never presented to the american people as the needed solution to any problem. Instead we're triangulated into supporting the least worst policy.
" Hillary is a politician, and that kind of means she can absolutely be pressured into doing the right thing. "
I agree that it should not stop after the election, but disagree that she can be moved significantly on any issue that takes money and power away from the monied elite.
For one thing, people say she has no real center as a politician, that she is just a poll-driven power player. I think, at her core, she is deeply and truly onboard with the multinational neo-liberal world view, favoring corporations over local rights, military interventions to secure physical resources for corporate profit, management over labor, etc., she is at heart a corporatist, as is her husband. They have long records to prove it, not to mention the Clinton Global Initiative, and their very active participation in the drafting and passing of NAFTA and the TPP.
For another thing, the kind of people she will be speaking to and including in her cabinet will be people who listen to lobbyists, not to progressive populist opinion. We will not have the leverage, nor the money, to move her, that is all concentrated on the corporatist side.
I posted these disagreements only to expand on your excellent post, and perhaps to add something to the discussion. Ideally, we will have some strong progressive candidate to support in the primary, not holding my breath though.
Making the case for liberal issues is where it's at right now, that will plant seeds in the public's mind in the same way Occupy put income inequality on the map as an important issue. Whether we have a candidate to do it for us, or whether it's up to us to do this through web participation, organizing, demonstrating, and word-of-mouth, it's exactly what we need to do, and we'll need to keep doing so against all odds while the seeds take root.
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Member since: Fri Jan 26, 2007, 08:20 PM
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