The most important question to ask our politicians - "Who's running the show - the fat cats or the People"?

You have it right,It appears you just added the Fat cats or people part.Sorry didn't mean to scare your memory.LOL!

will be those who run it. This has always been the way. And it feeds on itself because those with economic power use the political power they control to give themselves economic privilege. It is human nature for politicians to be bought.

So asking the question you ask is just more of the delusional thinking that "if we just get the right people in office" then everything will be good and we can be free. Politics is a rigged game; only those with economic power can win, so playing this game is just like a dog chasing his tail.

The solution is self government, i.e., freedom. Do everything we can privately, and then some. Avoid at all cost having government do anything but set down the most fundamental of rules and then let us privately settle disputes if we think others have not followed the rules. Private police, private arbitration, private punishment, insurance, private credentials (as opposed to licensing), private roads, private everything.

Nader sent me this email and I believe it applies to this topic:

If one central issue drove our campaign, it was subordinating corporate power to people power.

The Supreme Court underscored the urgency of this project in January, when it ruled that corporations have the free speech rights that belong exclusively to living, breathing humans. The First Amendment guarantees corporations the right to spend whatever they choose to influence election outcomes, the Court ruled.

But corporations are not humans, to state a truism apparently not evident to the Court's five-justice majority. We have to take action to rescue our democracy from corpocracy.

Please read the note below from Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, an organization I founded almost 40 years ago to confront and curtail excessive corporate power.

Ralph Nader

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Add your name to the tens of thousands demanding a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court ruling that will allow corporations to take over our democracy.

Pick up a copy of the U.S. Constitution. Can you find the word corporation in it? You cannot.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees you and me - living, breathing human beings, citizens of the United States - the right to free speech.

In one of the greatest affronts to our democracy ever, however, five justices of the U.S. Supreme Court decided in January, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that corporations have free speech rights just like you and me.

And, decreed the Court, that includes the right to spend whatever corporations like to support or oppose candidates for elected office.

We can't afford to let this decision stand!

Sign Public Citizen's petition calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn this corporate coup.

And then forward this message to five friends. We're going to win this fight, but it's going to take a mass mobilization.

If you care at all about the value of your vote and the future of American democracy, or about reforming health care, reining in Big Oil, halting climate change, reregulating Wall Street, stopping consumer ripoffs, or promoting a just trade policy, I urge you to act now and sign the petition.

Our petition calls upon Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to restore the First Amendment and fair elections to the people. It specifies that corporations do not have First Amendment speech rights.

Yes, corporations already pour money into politics. But things can get worse.

And, after the Supreme Court's decision, they will.

Consider this: In the most recent election cycle (2007-2008), a little over $5.2 billion was spent on all 468 congressional races and the presidential contest combined.

In the same time frame, ExxonMobil registered profits of $85 billion.

$85 billion.

Seventeen times the total amount spent on federal election contests.

So, in just one election cycle, a tiny fraction of Exxon's profits could be used to buy our politicians. Lock, stock and barrel.

There are measures available to mitigate the harm from the decision. We must have public financing of elections. We need better donor disclosure rules. The federal government should refuse to buy goods and services from any company with a federal contract (and states and locales should act similarly). Shareholders should be required to approve any corporate political expenditure by an affirmative vote. Public Citizen is working on all of these.

But while these measures can offset the damage from Citizens United, the only way to get corporate money out of our elections is to overturn the decision itself. That requires a constitutional amendment. Corporations are not people, and they are not entitled to the First Amendment's protections of the expressive and democratic participative rights of real, live human beings.

The only way to get that job done is with a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United and establishing the principle that the First Amendment and our democracy belong to We, the People, not Exxon, GE or Walmart.

So, please sign the petition, and then forward this message to five friends.

Onward,

Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen
...............................................

I do not agree with Weissman or Nader's solution for an admendment. I believe Ron Paul's solution is correct, "GET BACK TO THE CONSTITUTION", go retro.

Last week, David Cobb, ran for president in 2004 in Green Party, pased through town to talk about this issue. I believe it would be wise for Liberty candidates to talk about this issue, debate this issue, because I'm positive any amendment to the Constitution from the left would further erode our power as INDIVIDUALS in a Republic.

has never ONCE brought about a free-society.

Not once in all human history.

Violence has never brought about a "lasting" free-society, never ONCE in all human history.

Protest has never brought about a "lasting" free-society, never ONCE in all human history.

If we think like this we'll be able to eliminate all the wasted attempts/solutions -- this is how I came up with "community-economics"

I began a simple meditation and looked at reality and introduced NO fantasy, such as; "maybe if we vote (abdicate or steal) or lobby (purchase or bribe) we can attain liberty"

We need to eliminate oxy-moronic thinking.

Congress/Senate never had the power to give you self-rule -- oddly enough self-rule can only be had by self-rule (free-market) means.

The mechanism to keep a free-market is EXACTLY the same mechanism to attain it.

*whacks head* "Who'd a thunk it???"

It's either end the fed and restore sound money,nullification or as a last resort secession returning the states to there free and independent status.All of which will be and should be de facto when this imperial government collapses by its own deviations from the constitution,to wit we will all be better off.

http://www.iamthewitness.com/DarylBradfordSmith_Rothschild.htm

You put up better,Many below agree.

first responder health bill.

I called his office 4 times in the past & never got a straight answer on his position.

Too many people are dying from the toxic dust, caused by asbestos & the total DESTRUCTION of the three skyscrapers. Our GOV. was proven to lying to it's citizens by changing the air quality paramaters (EPA) & telling the folks it was OK to continue working.

Big Insurance & others are behind the stoppage of this bill & It sickens me that Dr.Paul would not at least make some compromise to help these American hero's who have been literally bombed & bamboozled by the Bush administration.