The Orlando tragedy is just the latest example of what happens as a result of the American people continuing to allow Big Money to control our government. Until we stand up to Big Money and corporate America and take control of our government away from them, we will live by their rules and desires. Come to the Jean Cocteau Cinema tonight at 7 pm for a provocative discussion on Breaking Big Money’s Grip on New Mexico and America. Together, Repubs, Dems & Independents, we can revive democracy in our nation. Go to http://www.jeancocteaucinema.com/…/bruce-berlin-reading-a…/….

            Today America faces many critical problems. Gun violence, climate change, immigration reform, income inequality and terrorism are just a few of the most pressing concerns.

            One issue, however, overrides all the others. That is, the power of Big Money to unduly influence the outcome of our elections and the formation of public policy. Eighty-four percent of Americans believe money has too much influence in political campaigns, according to a June 2015 New York Times/CBS News poll. In addition, a July 2014 bipartisan study found that 74% of all voters agreed that it is necessary to fix our broken political system before anything can be done to solve other important national issues.¹

            Why do we need to get Big Money out of politics first? Because regardless of the issue, Big Money’s grip on our politicians is so strong that they invariably bow to Big Money’s legislative desires at the people’s expense, in order to obtain very large campaign contributions, which help keep them in power.

            For example, despite the fact that 92% of Americans support universal background checks for all gun purchases,² Big Money has been able to buy off our federal representatives and prevent passage of a universal background check statute that would help protect millions of innocent Americans from gun violence. Since the 2000 election cycle, the gun lobby (i.e. the National Rifle Association (NRA), the firearms industry, and the Gun Owners of America) has contributed a combined $81 million to congressional and presidential election campaigns to defeat gun control measures, according to federal disclosures and a study done for the Center for Public Integrity.³ The fact that more than 30,000 people are killed by guns in our country every year, some of which could likely be prevented by universal background checks, seems to matter little to our representatives who receive big campaign contributions from the gun lobby.

            By the same token, our congressional representatives appear more interested in the huge campaign contributions they receive from Wall Street than they are in protecting Americans against fraudulent banking practices. As difficult to believe as this may be, Congressional Republicans and Democrats alike voted to pass a section of the 2015 omnibus budget bill that eliminated a taxpayer protection provision from the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. In so doing, our representatives gave Wall Street speculators the green light to once more gamble irresponsibly knowing that Congress had restored taxpayer-backed funds for their reckless ventures, just like the ones that had caused the 2008 Great Recession. This same Congressional support for special interests that ignores or rejects the public good exists in almost all areas of government policy.

            While Big Money’s influence is quite formidable, there is, however, a time-tested solution to this problem. As noted in Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America, “when vested interests have constructed seemingly insurmountable barriers to the people’s demands for a more equitable society, Americans have come together and overcome the obstacles…(by forming) mass movements.” Like the Labor, Civil Rights, and Gay and Lesbian Rights movements, among others, now we must build a broad-based, grassroots movement, call it “the Democracy Movement,” to remove the corrupting influence of money in politics and make the government work for all the people.

            Moreover, the effort to build such a movement has already begun. Organizations like Common Cause, the Democracy Initiative, Issue One, Take Back Our Republic and People for the American Way are focusing on campaign finance reform to eliminate Big Money’s corrupting effect and establish political equity so that all Americans have a meaningful voice in our government. Please join them. They need your help.

            Skeptics will say it cannot be done. Big Money is just too powerful. But against great odds, popular, grassroots movements won women the right to vote, labor the eight-hour workday and the 40-hour work week, gays and lesbians the right to marriage, and all Americans a strong voice in ending the Vietnam War.

            Yes, we will need to come together and give it our all. And, it may take a long time. But, what is the alternative? Are we willing to let our great experiment in democracy die? Are we going to leave our children and grandchildren a country controlled by a corrupt political system that has no allegiance to government by and for the people, and no concern for the common good or average Americans?

            As noted in Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America, over the course of our history “millions of Americans have sacrificed their lives valiantly fighting for freedom and justice. While today the forces opposing our democratic way of life are neither foreign nor military, they are as strong and dangerous as America has ever faced in the past.” Now it is up to us. We must halt the push toward plutocracy and build the movement to revive democracy in America.

¹ See Parick Caddell et al, “Americans Consensus: Fix the Corrupt System,” Popular Resistance Org. July 5, 2014.

² See “Release Detail,” Quinnipiac University, July 3, 2014.

³ Alan Berlow, et al., “Gun Lobby’s Money and Power Still Holds Sway over Congress,” Center for Public Integrity, May 1, 2013.

There has been a lot of news recently about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and whether she violated the law by using an unsecured email server for official business at her home while she was Secretary of State.

Hopefully, this question will be resolved soon and not become a big issue in the election. But time is running short. The Democratic convention is less than four months away. Of course, if Sen. Sanders wins the nomination, Clinton’s legal problems won’t matter in the election. However, at this point Clinton is still favored to win the nomination.

For the sake of the country, I think Clinton should do everything she can to have this matter resolved before the convention. Obviously, she is not in control of the investigation. Nevertheless, she could request that it be expedited. Clinton should ask that she and other witnesses be interviewed under oath this month and that a decision about whether to bring charges be made by the end of May.

President Obama should also do whatever he can to get the FBI to conclude its investigation in the next couple of months. The Democratic Party, let alone the country, cannot afford to have this cloud lingering over the fall election campaign.

America is faced with many problems today: Gun violence, climate change, immigration reform, income inequality and terrorism, just to name a few.

However, one issue overrides all the others. That is, the power of Big Money to unduly influence the outcome of our elections and the formation of public policy. Seventy-five percent of all voters agree that it is necessary to get Big Money out of politics and fix our broken political system before anything can be done to solve these other important national issues.

For example, despite the fact that 92% of Americans support universal background checks for all gun purchases, Big Money has bought off Congress and prevented passage of a universal background check statute that would help protect millions of innocent Americans from gun violence.

However, there is a time-tested solution to this problem. As noted in Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America, “when vested interests have constructed seemingly insurmountable barriers to the people’s demands for a more equitable society, Americans have come together and overcome the obstacles…(by forming) mass movements.”

Like the Labor, Civil Rights, and Gay and Lesbian Rights movements, among others, now we must build a broad-based, grassroots Democracy Movement to remove the corrupting influence of money in politics and make the government work for all the people. Visit www.breakingbigmoneysgrip.com for how you can start working to revive democracy in America.

Thursday, March 17, 8 am, I’m on KFSR 101.1 FM, the Radio Cafe talking about Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America

I’m in California now. I will be giving two public talks and book signings this coming week. On Tuesday, March 8 at 6:30 pm, I will be at the Noe Valley Library, 451 Jersey Street, San Francisco. This event is sponsored by N. California Common Cause. Call 415-531-1744 or email hgriego@commoncause.org for more information and to pre-order Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America.

On March 10 at 7 pm, I will be discussing Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America and signing books at Books Inc., 2256 Chestnut Street in the Marina District of San Francisco. Call 415-931-3633 for more information.

Clearly this is a critical time for our country. While my presentations will examine how Big Money has corrupted our political system, they will focus on how we Americans can work together to build a nonpartisan, grassroots democracy movement. If you are in the Bay area, I hope you will come and join in the discussion to revive our democracy.

I’m very excited. My book, Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America: Working Together To Revive Our Democracy, is finally ready for distribution. The book is a compelling call to all Americans to focus on an extremely critical issue: The power huge sums of money has to unfairly influence U.S. elections and public policy in favor of special interests and contrary to the needs and desires of most Americans.

To order a copy of the book, go to: http://www.breakingbigmoneysgrip.com.

I want to emphasize that the book is most importantly about bringing Americans together to build a Democracy Movement to take control of our country away from Big Money and corporate America. Like the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, the LGBT rights movement, the labor movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement, when millions of Americans work together real positive change can happen.

While many of us feel disheartened and/or helpless regarding the current state of American politics, what I hope is really provocative and uplifting about the book is it provides a viable way to fix our broken political system and revive our democracy. As Randy Kehler, the former national coordinator of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign explains:

“This book persuasively argues that the dominance of Big Money not only corrupts government itself but also blocks effective action on virtually every major issue Americans care about. As Bruce Berlin makes clear, and our history confirms, the only force capable of challenging Big Money’s corrupt and powerful hegemony is a diverse, nonpartisan, grassroots movement for democracy based on a politics of human dignity and equality…Fortunately, Berlin lays out a credible roadmap showing how we can create it. I hope it’s read by millions.”

As I indicate in the book, we need to see ourselves as modern day Paul Reveres sounding the alarm to our friends, neighbors, business associates, relatives and others that Big Money and corporate America are taking over our country to the great detriment of most Americans. The book calls for people to respond to this grave threat by forming DOCs, democracy organizing committees, in communities across the country to fight Big Money’s takeover and revive democracy in America.

Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America is a guidebook on how we can come together and achieve this goal. So, I’m hoping you will want to participate with me in helping to start a new American Revolution to put control of our country in the hands of we, the people.

Now that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement has been made public some are saying it’s worse than they thought it would be. According to Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch: “From leaks, we knew quite a bit about the agreement, but in chapter after chapter the final text is worse than we expected with the demands of the 500 official U.S. trade advisers representing corporate interests satisfied to the detriment of the public interest.”

On issues ranging from climate change to food safety, from open Internet to access to medicines, the TPP “is a disaster,” declared Nick Dearden of Global Justice Now. “Now that we’ve seen the full text, it turns out the job-killing TPP is worse than anything we could’ve imagined,” added Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America. “This agreement would push down wages, flood our nation with unsafe imported food, raise the price of life-saving medicine, all the while trading with countries where gays and single mothers can be stoned to death.” See http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/05/worse-we-thought-tpp-total-corporate-power-grab-nightmare.

All this from the president who promised us “change we can believe in.” Yet, once again, Big Money and corporate America are calling the shots in Washington to the great detriment of most people. But, we don’t have to stand for it. Contrary to Obama’s corporate giveaway scheme, the TPP agreement can be the motivational vehicle for change we can really believe in. The trade agreement provides a compelling organizing opportunity for the American people to rise up and break Big Money’s grip on our government.

As I suggest in my new book, Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America,we need to build a Democracy Movement by organizing thousands of DOCs (democracy organizing committees) in towns and cities across the country. Opposition to the TPP can be the force that brings us together, liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat, Independent and Liberatarian, to form local DOCs. We can work together to take control of our country away from Big Money and put it in the hands of the people where it belongs. For more information about building a Democracy Movement and my new book, go to http://www.breakingbigmoneysgrip.com.