California Democracy: Recent Comments

Comment on It Is Time to Abolish the U.S. Senate

Mike OTW — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 01:42:17 GMT

Just a quick note to say that I enjoy your writing and have just added your homepage to my bookmarks.

I wanted to point out a typo. (I'm no perfect writer myself - just trying to help) I believe this 'to' should be 'two'.

"Each state elects to persons to the U. S. Senate"

Please continue your informative writing, it's very interesting and well spoken! : )

_ MIKE OTW _

Comment on It Is Time to Abolish the U.S. Senate

ScottS — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:44:04 GMT

As a former Senate staff, I think you missed much of the undemocratic features of the Senate. For instance, Caro, in his book on Lyndon Johnson notes how the undemocratic Senate made itself more undemocratic by the filibuster rule and the Seniority Rule. Filibusters allowed a few southern states to stop
Civil Rights Legislation for over 80 years. Seniority gave all the power to one-party (Southern) states so that at the Civil War every committee was headed by Senators from states that left the union. Electing a 1/3 of the members every two years guarantees an impossibility of rapid change -- The Republican Senate could not pass the Republican House's legislation; now the Democratic Senate cannot follow through on what the House did.

Comment on Mussolini's Corporate State

Ron H — Tue, 15 May 2007 11:46:36 GMT

I am guilty of lumping the corporate state of fascist Italy with the corporate rule in America not because of a lack of knowledge of structure but because of the similarities of characteristics that all forms of fascism share. Perhaps we can come close to agreement by stating that not all fascism is corporate but certainly all corporate entities demonstrate fascist like propensities.

Comment on Mussolini's Corporate State

Jan Edwards — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 11:57:59 GMT

Yes!Wikipedia says the famous quote from Mussolini is a hoax:
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
Your piece is a good short overview of Italian Facism and this often misused concept that US style corporatism is the same as facism.

Comment on Mussolini's Corporate State

Kirsten — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 16:48:29 GMT

This is most interesting. Thank you to the author. Who IS the author, by the way?

Comment on Regulating Thieves (A Response to the Paulson Committee)

Kirsten — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 19:34:28 GMT

Outstanding analysis, Bill.

Comment on Welcome to California Democracy

Kirsten — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 10:06:49 GMT

Cheers to Bill for setting up our blog :) Corporate dominance of our world is finding its way more and more into the mainstream. People are starting to catch on. So while times can seem very dark, they are also very exciting.