The rise of Bernie Sanders and before him Ralph Nader in 2000 was fueled in part by the perception that Democrats often are just as bad as Republicans when it comes to corporate power. It’s not hard to see why this perception exists.
After the worst economic meltdown since the 1930’s, The Obama administration ruled out quickly going after the big banks and the leaders of those banks who crashed the economy. Big talk was made of how we won’t tolerate another 2008 and how these dramatic reforms that the Democrats would drive through Congress would punish the guilty and protect the weak.
And we all know how that turned out — with a Goldman Sachs alum at Treasury, any reform legislature defanged and the banks that were once deemed too big to fail now bigger and in many ways less regulated than before the crash.
But that’s not the outrage I’m here to point out. I’m pointing out that the Corporate constituency Democrats are most frequently associated with is big copyright, including the RIAA, MPAA, and Hollywood.
In fact, the man who wrote one of the stupidest pieces of legislation ever to be defeated by the grass roots — SOPA — former Congressman Howard Berman will be in charge of writing the Democratic platform. Berman’s legislation has always been designed to bolster Hollywood at the expense of your digital rights and to make the internet into not a distribution mechanism but an enforcement mechanism for the MPAA and RIAA.
Look, if we want to draw a sharp line between us and the corporate money that corrupts and controls our politics, we have to start by casting out the corporatists inside the party. I suggest we start with the “Congressman from Hollywood” who now works as a lobbyist for the MPAA. Get someone else to write the platform. Maybe a civil rights attorney or a labor attorney or a Congressman or Senator known for advancing progressive causes. Ron Wyden? Sheldon Whitehouse? Anyone would send a better message to our constituents outside corporate America than this guy.
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