Fresno Famous

In light of recent developments in Egypt, I would like to encourage all those who are in any way connected with Egypt, like, say, if you have even heard of the country, to give their wholehearted support to the people of Egypt in their struggle for Democracy.

 I refer you to today's Op Ed piece in NYT Online by Bob Herbert.  He said basically that democracy in America has been overtaken by moneyed interests, and I couldn't agree more.  It's about time that we stood up for Democracy with a capital D.  The most important thing that we must do is eliminate money from politics.  

Mubarak didn't live particularly lavishly, as it says in the news; but all his family, and his familie's families, benefited to the tune of  big bucks from their close relationship by blood or marriage to the dictator.   He basically took over the government and ran it like a military dictatorship for over thirty years, with over a billion dollars a year in American money as foreign aid (basically a bribe to keep him in line with the peace treaty in the Sinai that his assassinated predecessor Sadat had signed).  We must eliminate this sort of thing from our government policy, and the only way to do that is to make our government not be so cozy with moneyed interests.

To that end, I propose a Constitutional Amendment that will prohibit the use of private money for political advertising and eliminate any payments by Congress to private interests for advertising.  

I haven't worked out the full wording yet, and I'll get back to you on that.  In the meantime, I would say to those who claim to represent the Tea Party, you'd better read the Constitution veryveryvery carefully, especially the part in the Preamble where it says, "To Promote the General Welfare..."  There's nothing in the Constitution about Capitalism.  

There's a lot, especially if you look back to the Declaration of Independence, about, No Taxation without Representation, and Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, but nothing about Capitalism.  So don't you go saying that Capitalism is so holy.  I'm not for eliminating Capitalism, because it definitely has its pluses.  But you can't argue that Capitalism should trump Democracy.