With control of Legislative and Executive branches, the Democrats have a chance to prove to the American people that they are about real change. But will they? In many ways, the win for Obama is a huge step for American politics. But there is an even taller hurdle which must be cleared if there is to be any substantial change. There must be a shift in Washington from corporate interests to that of the citizens. Unfortunately, this seems unlikely. Let us not rest easy just yet. We need real health care reform. We must be rid of the industrial military complex. We need real clean energy (clean coal? safe nuclear energy? oxymorons). We need NAFTA dramatically altered if not repealed completely. We need higher wages for the working poor. "Poor," that's a word we haven't heard much of all campaign. We need giant, greedy corporations to be regulated and held accountable for their abuses. We need to abandon No Child Left Behind and put money and resources into schools rather than tests mandated by a few large for-profit companies. Obama is better than Bush, but that is hardly enough. This is no time for complacency. Lets make sure we get real change, not slightly better. Let's hold them to their word.
Here's some evidence of a little too much corporate control of the newly Democratic Washington:
From OpenSecrets.org
as of a few days ago, top contributors to Obama campaign:
University of California $909,283
Goldman Sachs $874,207
Harvard University $717,230
Microsoft Corp $714,108
Google Inc $701,099
JPMorgan Chase & Co $581,460
Citigroup Inc $581,216
National Amusements Inc $543,859
Time Warner $508,148
Sidley Austin LLP $492,445
Stanford University $481,199
Skadden, Arps et al $473,424
Wilmerhale Llp $466,679
UBS AG $454,795
Latham & Watkins $426,924
Columbia University $426,516
Morgan Stanley $425,102
IBM Corp $415,196
University of Chicago $414,555
US Government $400,819
