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      paul wellstone

      Middle America: The Democrats' Dilemma

      Middle America: The Democrats' Dilemma

      Can Democrats win with an economic justice platform?

      Ruth Conniff
      Apr 09, 2019

      Power to the People!" blared over the speakers at Navy Pier Festival Hall in Chicago in early March, as U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders walked onstage in front of roughly 12,500 cheering supporters and declared, "We are gathered here tonight to complete the political revolution that we started three years ago."

      With rocking campaign kickoff rallies in Brooklyn and Chicago, more than a million volunteers signed up, and $10 million raised in small-dollar donations within a week of his announcement, Sanders is making a serious bid to be the Democratic candidate who faces Donald Trump in 2020.

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      Opinion
      "Free" Markets and the Attack on Democracy

      "Free" Markets and the Attack on Democracy

      The signs of neoliberalism are all around us

      John Buell
      Apr 05, 2019

      Many US citizens take comfort in the conviction that progress toward democracy has been steady even if stalled or even periodically reversed. History is on our side. Early in the post Revolutionary period the right to vote was extended to all white men, even those who held no property. Women achieved the same privilege early in the twentieth century, and the Civil Rights movement of the sixties completed the work Reconstruction had left undone. The arc of the universe is long, but "it bends toward justice." I would argue, however, that SCOTUS decisions like Citizens United challenge that easy faith. Nor are they aberrations within the fabric of a generally supportive culture and polity. Our citizens are facing a broad, multifaceted attack on democracy itself. Support for this attack on democracy is also bi- partisan in the sense that some members of both parties, albeit often quietly, support and benefit from this attack.

      Confidence that there is no going back is hard to maintain in the face of political controversies today that in many ways replay issues of Reconstruction. To take just one example, the Fifteenth Amendment declares that the right to vote will not be abridged on the grounds of previous condition of servitude.

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      Opinion
      New 'Groundbreaking' Bill Would Put Firm Pause on Out-of-Control Food Industry Mega-Mergers

      New 'Groundbreaking' Bill Would Put Firm Pause on Out-of-Control Food Industry Mega-Mergers

      "Consolidation has now reached a point where the top four firms in almost every sector of the food and agriculture economy have acquired abusive levels of market power," said Sen. Cory Booker, who introduced the legislation

      Andrea Germanos
      Aug 29, 2018

      Reviving an effort made nearly 20 years ago by Paul Wellstone, the late Democratic senator from Minnesota, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced legislation on Tuesday that would put a check on "the ever-increasing levels of corporate concentration" in the food system.

      S.3404, "The Food and Agribusiness Merger Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act of 2018," is backed by organizations including ActionAid USA, Farm Aid, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and the National Farmers Union, and would put an 18-month pause on large agribusiness, food and beverage manufacturing, and grocery retail mergers, and also establish a 12-member commission tasked with probing the causes and effects of such concentration and suggesting regulation to ensure fairness of competition in the market.

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