Ramus's Comments (338)

“I was adult and in my kitchen in New York, on the phone, and I heard the ambulance sirens going to nearby Roosevelt hospital. When I heard the news about who it was a short time later. I was overwhelmed with the loss..for all of us but particularly for his wife and young son Sean. I think John would be pleased to know Sean (now 34 or so) turned out to be a superb (though under appreciated) songwriter and musician and Yoko continues to work hard for peace and support good causes. RIP”

“True and it's immoral - bad - wrong.”

“campaign finance reform..out elected people are bought by the rich corporations..”

“Yes indeedy tbadger you are right..but which bought elected official would dare vote for such legislation?. Her/his election war chest would disappear. I can count on the fingers of two hands the people I think would have the guts to vote for such campaign fianance reform.. Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, Russ Feingold, Sherrod Brown, Sen. Whitehouse and maybe a few others...maybe Al Franken..maybe.”

“"lobbyist loot" are the key words in your smart post”

“not all of them were slave owners. One of the signers is a direct ancestor of mine. John Hart. He owned a lot of land in New Jersay and as far as I've read he did not own any slaves. He was an honest simple guy and not very religious. He had land and lots of children. He gave away land, allowed a chuch to built on the land, but was not a member. They were not all wealthy slave-holding elitists. It was their intention that our government be of and for the people who live here (though it is true they only considered white men people).”

“Because our health care industry (and other corporations) are in control of our Senators and Congresspeople. The health care industry is ONLY interested in making profits. So the health insurance corporations bribe our elected officials and that is WHY we don't have health care for our citizens as they have in the civilized countries.”

“trained to be consumers and not critical thinkers - and shucks now no money to consume!”

“Freezing the premiums..yes. The problem is that our entire country is not functioning "for the people" because of the undue influence of money. The whole bag of rules needs to be rejiggered. The needs of America's citizens are being overlooked in order to profit the very rich. So before the next Constitutional Convention we need first to just make all elections fully publicly funded. NO special interest money goes to anyone - NO TV ads allowed. Let them put their ads in newspapers (which need the money). The banning of all TV ads, issue ads, the whole bag, would be a good start. Then once we have elected people free from corporate ties, THEN we could have the needed constitutional convention to reorganize how we do business so that 51 votes in the Senate could get things done. We could begin with a population-based Senate. As it stands now, Senators from low-population states can be bought at bargain basement rates by the banking, health insurance, pharmaceutical,and military industrial complex corporations. We must break the influence that big business has over our elected people or thing will continue to spiral downward for regular Joes and Janes. Until we get the money out of politics (as much as possible) the needs of our citizens will not be a priority for our rich owners. What we have now is government by the corporations and for the corporations. This is not what our founders intended.”

“fanned and faved..yes!”

“Our goverment does not work for our citizens. It only works for the interests of the wealthy. Unbridled capitalism impoverishes everyone but the very rich..who get richer. We need to restructure the whole damn thing. Campaign finance reform should be a step A.. 100% public financing for all campaigns and NO TV ads on any issue. Let them put it on the internet or the radio. Then the Senate needs to be structured so it the Senators are apportioned by population. When we were an agrarian society it worked OK..now it is unproductive and small state Senators are cheap to buy. We have a bunch of Senators from states with four people bribed by the health insurance corporations and holding the health care of the nation hostage. And the filibuster should be outlawed. Just vote..the majority rules. So we need a Constitutional Convention to rewrite our government so it works. Now which bribed elected official will vote for this? Taxes should go back to what they were under Ike. That would be step B.”

“Serious anti-trust work needs to be done on all the media conglomerates. Sadly, nothing will happen until we enact serious campaign finance reform. As long as the elected people in Washington are able to be bought by the major corporations (and in the case of NBC/Universal and GE we have both the entertainment biz and the war biz combined). We need public funding of all elections. Free air time for candidates on TV Networks to tell voters what they propose to do. There must be No issue ads, no payments or favors of any kind to elected officials by lobbyists. All Senate and Congressional contacts with lobbyists should be made in public and recorded and posted on the internet. Until the money is removed from our political process we will be owned and operated by the military industrial congressional complex, the bankers, the health insurance and big pharma corporations. The ONLY anwser is stringent campaign finance reform Which purchased elected person would vote for this? There are precious few.”

“Thanks for this. This is absolutely what they should do and every second of it should be covered by CSPAN. The bottom line here though is we do need a Constitutional convention. The Senate needs to be apportioned by population. What our ancertors devised was all right for their time but in no longer useful in the democratic process. We really need to retink all of this if we want to some day live in a real democracy. And need to take the money out of the system as much as its possible. This would mean 100% publicly funded campaigns and NO (expensive) TV ads of any kind. With a proportionally representative Senate and public financing of all election, we'd be all set.”

“I just don't want legislation that is going to make the health insurance corporations RICHER.”

“good idea!”

“This is true but the pretense for this money making by the war profiteers is to keep Osama and his merry band from taking up residence again in Afghanistan. The Taliban distributes poppies not cocaine. These poppies should be bought by US, thus depriving the Taliban of money, and we should used these poppies for medical uses. And we should leave Afghanistan and see what can be done, without our soldiers, in Pakistan.”

“Thanks for this article. There are many many peacful thoughtful kind Muslims here and I'm sure also in the armed forces. I hope this killer's action does not ignite anti-Muslim fervor. I think he was a guy who snapped. He thought the war was were wrong (I agree with this view) and he heard all these terrible stories from people who had been there and he freaked. This was on guy gone nuts. And the kind of gun he had should not be sold anywhere for any reason.”

“Back to the tax rates in effect under IKE. Stop the wars. We just can't afford these wars, These military actions are making us less safe and we are killing ours and theirs. We, create new terrorists with each civilian we kill. We should save money by recalling all our service people from everywhere in the world and getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. We could use the saved money for food for the poor, medical care, education, bridges, high speed rail service. The wars are the reckless government spending.”

“Agree with other commenters that "The shock Doctrine" is all about this. If you have not yet read the book, please do so now. One of the early far right wingers did say he wanted to starve the social aid programs so they were small enough to throw down the bathtub drain.. or something like that. It's a good thing Nancy Pelosi has our backs. And yes any discussions about starving social programs must be made in public, not behind closed doors. The right wing demonizes Pelosi constantly. She's doing the best she can to fight against the people who would like to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.”

“campaign finance reform..publicly funded campaigns, no TV ads by anyone related to political campaigns. We may need a Constitution convention to rewrite our campaing finance rules.. The only way for our elected officials to pay attention to the people who vote for them is to take away the ability of special interests to buy their TV ads for them.”

“Pigs are smart..and clean.”

“YOU Dr. Reich should be in Obama's cabinet. You are exactly right on all this. And we should also break up lots of other corporate giants..media conglomerates. I guess the real reason this is not happening is because we live in an oligarchy and not a democracy. Our elected leaders are bought by a few rich guys..corporations. The banks and Wall Street people are among the ruling oligarchy. THEY have the power over our elected officials. We the voters don't matter to our elected officials. What mattters to them are the people who pay the millions for their TV commericals to get re-elected. We need serious campaign finance reform. Publicy funded elections. No TV ads. Until we change the way our campagns are financed we will not be living in a democracy.”

“of course we should go back to the tax rates that existed under Ike. And we need serious campaign finance reform. All elections publicly funded..no donations by corporations or individuals..and no TV ads. It is essential to cut off our elected officials from corporate MIC, health care and banking industry influence.”

“It is not about paying the elected officials it is about the money these officials have to raise in order to finance a campaign. In the bad old days the Senators could go home to their districts and listen to their constituents. These days they have to spend ALL their time getting enough money to run again. Campaign finance reform!”

“Um no. Reich is not "happy dappy" here. Reich has been calling it correctly for some time now.”