At 10:25AM on Friday December 10, 2010 Bernie started a 8.5 hour filibuster on the Senate floor to draw attention to a tax deal worked out between the White House and the GOP.
To me, this deal looks like the Democrats set the whole thing up. The White House, and the left of the Democratic Party and their allies, handed the stupid Republicans enough rope to hang themselves over Christmas. And good for them, it's about time progressives used their brains to play the big picture like the Republicans have been doing since Newt Gingrich arrived (the Gingrich agenda towards a Pre 'Great Society' set of laws and institutions where-in the now, monopoly financial and corporate interests will destroy the Republic).
This is a fantastic gambit - and as a precursor for the coming debate about austerity to reduce the deficit and the national debt that reactionary Republicans and Democrats wish to achieve through cuts to social safety net - rather than the central plank of the Obama election campaign - a re-investment in the economy through massive government intervention towards a renewed and sustainable economy - and as such is a welcome development.
Of coarse 60% of the Democratic Party are Pork Barreling sycophants - so it will fail. We'll soon be back to business as usual; gutting the Great Society, pocketing the difference, and then - as the system fails the people - yelling that the system is corrupt due to a lack of conservative values - type-Neo-Con-bullsh*t-spin.
Or as the good Senator says,
"Our (Republican) 'friends' will come here after this tax cut is law saying, 'We're Very concerned with the deficit'."
Senator Bernie Sanders filiBernie on C Span (all 8.5 hrs.):
Part 1: http://cs.pn/fmko4X
Part 2: http://cs.pn/eHTmKU
Part 3: http://cs.pn/gqr0kV
On Twitter on Friday, during the filibuster, the list tag #FiliBernie was trending #1. When I checked the tag last night about 11:00 PM EST Saturday the tag was loading about 60 Tweets/minute - 29 hours after Senator Sanders finished speaking.
At this writing the Youtube page - where the Monday speech was posted - is recording that the video is #1(Education) for the month with 699,658 views.
I 'hate' this upload by calpernia, Filibernie Mix (via BoingBoing). Everything about this 'autoproduced' video rubs me the wrong way, the lines from the speech the creator decided to input, the song, and the way the arms are see-through...
(I would have used his opening to the speech, where he talks about the origins of a coming class war, ".. I'm talking about a war being waged by the some of the wealthiest and most powerful people of this country against working families of the United States of America...")
But, it shows the wide variety of popular creativity around what Senator Sanders is saying - the corporate dominated media leaves no pinhole for the expression of centre-left and especially left ideas - which are the only ones right now with out a giant credibility-gap attached to them.
Bernie Sanders Autotune - "Stay Today" (Filibernie Mix)
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Democracy for America 'no deal' page.
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/activities/419-no-deal
Thanks to Anon. at BoingBoing for the Colonel Sanders poster link.
mh
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