Feingold 2012 - FUCK OBAMA

Russ Feingold was a different kind of senator—more committed to progressive principles than to a party, an internationalist who opposed free-trade deals because they served multinational corporations rather than multinational communities, a stalwart defender of the Constitution whose commitment to civil liberties and regard for the requirement that wars be declared by Congress led him to stand alone against presidents and colleagues.(...)

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So it should come as no surprise that Feingold will be a different kind of ex-senator. Instead of retaining his residence in Washington and signing on with some K Street lobbying firm, he packed up his apartment and headed home to Middleton, Wisconsin, where he'll live in the same modest house he owned when he first ran for the Senate in 1992. Feingold has taken a teaching post at Marquette University's Law School in Milwaukee, and he's already outlining a book that will be highly critical of recent US foreign policy (...)

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(...) What should progressives do now?

I don't know how it could be more stark or clear: this entire society is being dominated by corporate power in a way that may exceed what happened in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century. The incredible power these institutions now have over the average person is just overwhelming: the way they can make these trade deals to ship people's jobs overseas, the way consumers are just brutalized and consumer protection laws are marginalized, the way this town here—Washington—has become a corporate playground. Since I've been here, this place has gone from a government town to a giant corporate headquarters.

To me, the whole face of the country—whether it be the government, the media, agriculture, what happens on Main Street—has become so corporatized that the progressive movement is as relevant as it was one hundred years ago, maybe more so. It's the same issues. It's just that power, because of money, international arrangements and communications, is so overwhelming that the average person is nearly helpless unless we develop a movement that can counter that power. I know we've all tried over the years, but this is a critical moment. We need to regenerate progressivism and make it relevant to what's happening right now. But there's no lack of historical comparison to a hundred years ago. It's so similar; the only real difference is that corporate power is even more extended. It's the Gilded Age on steroids.

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http://www.thenation.com/article/157719/russ-feingold-speaks-out
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