Democracy

Feeling the Bern?

Published on by Reggie Wilder

Feel The Bern PosterA lot of people are rallying around Bernie Sanders.

While this in some ways is a promising sign, 50 Million Signatures isn’t “feeling the Bern”.

Not yet anyway.

Mr. Sanders has certainly stirred public awareness for key issues on the domestic front, and taken some courageous stands which align with existing voter sympathies, in the process forcing the corporatist Ms. Clinton to tack to the left for her own publicly-shared positions. But the simple fact is that Bernie still has a hot love affair raging in his heart for military adventurism and the current imperial agenda which will doom America and his own enlightened domestic reforms.

Before we jump on the pseudo-progressive bandwagon of the self-described democratic socialist, here are the commitments in foreign policy we need from Mr. Sanders:

  • Stop the drone attacks.
  • Cut the military budget by 40%. 
  • Close 500 bases and bring the troops home. 
  • End the special ops missions which have occurred in at least 135 countries so far this year. 
  • Put a halt to our self-sabotaging aggressiveness in the world, driven by the greed of DOD contractors and stoked by the neocon delusions of world empire. 
  • Open a constructive dialogue with Russia and China to promote peace and multi-polar power-sharing. 
  • End the contentious, chest-beating encirclement of China — the silly sophomoric “pivot to Asia”. 
  • Condemn the apartheid and aggression by Israel against the Palestinians.
  • Show respect for other nations and stop the exceptionalist imperial posturing.

These would be a good start for sure.

Understand, this is not just us taking a stand voicing our own personal druthers.

Everything listed above is being directly demanded or clearly referenced in the issue feedback we’re getting in our signature drive.

The message is coming directly from the citizenry. America is sick of war and tired of being afraid.

People are waking up to the fraud that is being perpetrated on them —  the War On Terror and the constant push for aggression and intimidation all over the world — by the corporately-funded warmongers both in Congress and in the Executive Branch.

Yes, it’s finally sinking in. There will only be peace and prosperity at home if there is peace and prosperity in the rest of the world.

Thus we’re seeing a lot of excitement and support for the Peace Dividend proposal of our sister organization.

So, Mr. Sanders, if you want to light a fire over here so we can feel the Bern too, you have some work to do.

Issues Critical to the Public

Published on by Suzanne MacIntosh

Currently, our Citizens Survey critical issues options are as follows:

Raise the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour.

Increase Social Security benefits by 10%, reduce eligibility age to 62.

Expand Medicare coverage, eliminate co-pay, cap prices for prescription on drugs.

Refund to every U.S. citizen $18,064 fraudulently taken by the DOD.

Prevent banks from charging more than 8% on credit cards.

Make the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.

End the subsidies and tax breaks to corporations already drowning in profits.

Forgive college loan debt.

Make higher education free to everyone who qualifies.

Stop predatory bank foreclosures.

Require mortgage debt relief for troubled home loans

Repair schools, roads, bridges, upgrade the nation’s infrastructure.

Reduce the military budget and end all the unnecessary wars.

Initiate a constitutional amendment to end Citizens United.

We have received a number of messages recommending we make some additions to this basic list. The suggestions are good and are under review. Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that we never intended our selection to be exhaustive, but rather to key in on those challenges where a broad consensus already existed, but the clear intent and desire of the voting public was being ignored by our elected representatives. In any case, expect to see a few well-considered additions in the near future, allowing voters a more thorough say in how the laws are written after the coming election in 2016.