BEE-YOOT-I-FUL! Dang, I like Edwards more and more. This is probably my primary issue, after oil and energy - the corporate control of the american dialogue. Damn it, even tho I was thinking I wouldn't give any Dem candidates money, because they are still serving big money and the corporations instead of the american people, I've got to give Edwards some $$ just to reward him for taking up this issue. And I encourage you folks to do the same. Pull out the plastic and give Edwards some money, if you also believe that the Corporatists are responsible for most of the problems facing our country today. Here's the John Edwards campaign page, at least sign up for his newsletter: http://johnedwards.com/splash/ This is the Edwards contribution page, provided by actblue: John Edwards Contribution Page at ActBlue I only gave him $25, I'm not that motivated to give money, but still, I think what he is saying is important, and I want to reward him for it. From Alternet: —- Last week, John Edwards fired a broadside against corporate America and, more significantly, “corporate Democrats,” the likes of which hasn't been heard from a viable candidate with national appeal in decades. To Build One America - END this game - speech by John Edwards Edwards is en fuego right now, and if he keeps up the heat, his candidacy will either be widely embraced by the emerging progressive movement or utterly annihilated by an entrenched establishment that fears few things more than a telegenic populist with enough money to mount a credible campaign. “It's time to end the game,” Edwards told a crowd in Hanover, New Hampshire. “It's time to tell the big corporations and the lobbyists who have been running things for too long that their time is over.” He exhorted Washington law-makers to “look the lobbyists in the eye and just say no.” Real change starts with being honest – the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It's rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It's rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it's rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things. For them, more of the same means more money and more power. They'll do anything they can to keep things just the way they are – not for the country, but for themselves. [The system is] controlled by big corporations, the lobbyists they hire to protect their bottom line and the politicians who curry their favor and carry their water. And it's perpetuated by a media that too often fawns over the establishment, but fails to seriously cover the challenges we face or the solutions being proposed. This is the game of American politics and in this game, the interests of regular Americans don't stand a chance. It's a structural argument, and Edwards didn't pull punches in calling out his fellow Democrats, saying: “We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other.” The rhetoric was a clear signal that Edwards is going to beat the drums of reform as a contrast to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the primaries. About a third of the speech focused on the trade deals that Bill Clinton championed, and his argument that those “wedded to the past” can't provide the answers was a barely-veiled rebuke of the Clintonian arm of the party, and the media's chosen “front-runner” for the nomination. http://www.alternet.org/stories/60748/