As populists here, let's help Bernie build his platform! [View all]

I'll start with a few planks, very roughly written that come to mind immediately on issues that most Americans really want and need a leader to do, and which would distinguish him from both Republicans as well as corporatist Democrats that will likely run against him in the primaries. How about this list:

1) Vote NO for Fast Track bill, and push for full release of TPP bill to the public so that all parties affected can review before their representatives are asked to vote on it.

2) Commit to having a Department of Justice that will prosecute to the full extent of the law, illegal actions that have particularly been committed by those working for Wall Street firms that have lead to the subsequent economic devastation we're living under now. Fines aren't sufficient. Those found guilty of crimes should be looking at jail time!

3) Find ways to alleviate the truly problematic national debt, which isn't our government debt, but consumer and student debt that is at record levels now and is the primary reason for our economy being in tatters now. Look at things like debt forgiveness, having student loans refinanced to levels that banks enjoy from the federal reserve as already has been proposed by Elizabeth Warren and members of the Senate earlier, and allowing for bankruptcy processes to include student loans with other debts to be forgiven in such proceedings. Part of rolling back student debt would also be to restore greater funding to our public institutions of higher learning that we used to have so that the costs of such education won't be so large to today's students, and perhaps even can be made free at some point for at least undergraduate degrees the way other countries like India and Germany have in place, so that our populace can compete better globally in the worker marketplace.

4) In addition to being hard lined against TPP, we should be looking to renegotiate earlier treaties such as NAFTA, CAFTA, and others so that global standards protecting the world's work forces, and our environment are part of those agreements. Also look in to restoring tariffs to build back local companies and jobs if countries like China don't take down their trade barriers as well.

5) Shut down "guest worker" programs like H-1B and H-2B or at least scale them back to their original intent of hiring only those under these programs that are needed quickly and who truly have those from overseas locations that have qualifications that can't be found for domestic workers here. For those who want to move to the U.S. from other countries, we should streamline the immigration process as well as green card processes, so that we can have a more even playing field in the work place for jobs, salaries, and even allowing for these workers to be a part of unions and vote if they become citizens as we hope most of them to be.

6) Look at rolling back the Reagan tax cuts and bringing more equity for taxes such as capital gains, AMT, and social security/medicare taxes that currently skew themselves to benefitting the wealthy rather than the poor. Shut down the means for corporations and other wealthy individuals to shelter their income off-shore. Perhaps restoring the top level tax rates for high wealth/income individuals can be done in a way that added "surtaxes" are in place as long as our country is in a state of war with other countries. Such a "war tax" can serve as an incentive to cut back on the favors provided to the military industrial complex, if those who look to have it funded will see their taxes raised if they try to have a war being fought in order to provide more profit to this industry that they might profit from through stock ownership, etc.

7) Look at building a newer amendment to shore up the 4th amendment so that we have the rights to privacy in the digital age to truly protect individuals from heavily corrupt domestic spying activities by our intelligence agencies as well as large corporate entities as well.

8) Look to pass legislation to take down corporate personhood and "money is speech" judicial activist notions that have lead to Citizen's United and other corruption of our judicial system. Put back in place some sane restrictions on the amount of spending that goes on in political campaigns that we had with McCain-Feingold.

9) Revamp our voting systems to take away unaccountable electronic voting systems, and also put in place a system of public campaign financing and consider reforms to move towards instant runoff voting, and perhaps even some parliamentary reform as well to allow for greater representation of viewpoints for our elected officials and less likelihood that they will be influenced by corruption money.

10) Take away subsidies from the fossil fuel industries and redirect them to the renewable energy industries, so that we can prioritize fighting climate change problems that will be a huge problem for all of us soon.

11) Ensure that we live in a nation where people's rights for education, a job, and other things that they need for a fundamental ability to live aren't abused or taken away based on their gender, race, or sexual preference.

12) Let's federally get rid of the prohibition of marijuana, and restore it to a regulated drug status like alcohol has been since that substance was no longer subject to prohibition earlier. Also couple that with reformed laws to provide amnesty for those convicted of simple drug "crimes" that no longer would be crimes so that we could alleviate the costs both monetary and societal of our record high large prison populations that could be reduced heavily by doing so, so that this money could be spent more effectively in other areas to serve the American public.

13) Put back in place Glass-Stiegal style restrictions on banking firms, and also couple that with transaction taxes on trades so that we can eliminate the games being played with high volume trading that so corrupt our financial markets today.

14) Single Payer health care program for everyone (Medicare for all!)!

15) Bring back many of the rules that helped provide us a non-oligarchic profit-oriented "free press" in our media so that we can have news that informs rather than entertains for profit.

16) Paid sick leave and some mandatory vacation for American workers enjoyed by so many other countries.

17) Laws like Germany has that firms with a certain number of employees have it mandated that at least half of their board members be those that represent the company's work force (built in "union" so to speak).

18) National whistleblower laws that protect both average workers of mainstream companies and governmental organizations, but also those that are involved in security positions that have had a recent history of suffering from administrations of both parties of being selectively prosecuted instead of those committing crimes that they are alerting us too (John Kiriaku, etc.).

I'm sure we can add many more here. But this is a start. And I think if we really put to the top of the list those that most Americans can feel and perhaps are those that don't have ideological splits as much as possible. I think the populist issues like minimum wages, etc. that both red states and blue states have been starting to pass, are those that can get someone like Bernie elected over corporate owned politicians of both parties.

Thom Hartmann reads DU a lot for his topics at times. Perhaps if we get a good enough discussion, we can get him to talk about this sort of thing with Bernie this coming Friday the way a true populist process should work, where Bernie will listen to our concerns, sort through them, and use that to help build his agenda on what he will do for us later!