My desktop, 3:15pm PST.
[Ed note: re-edited to read in forward chronological sequence. I’m not so used to incessantly updating a post with breaking news stuff; sorry.]
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Senator Bernie Sanders gives representative democracy a swift kick in the pants by mounting an EIGHT INTO NINE HOUR, AS OF THIS WRITING (3:15pm, PST), ol’ school — yes, he’s talkin’ it the whole way — filibuster in protest of Obama’s planned give-away to the Republicans and the richest 2% of Americans.
[Ed note: finally clocked in at 8 hrs 37 minutes when he finally took his seat.]
Live C-SPAN coverage can be found on Senator Sanders’ web page. You can follow the spirited engagement and support on Twitter (the hashtag: #filibernie) here. But that’s just via #filibernie. #Bernie Sanders and #filibuster are also trending. I hope engagement in the democratic process and spirited resistance to a political system skewed to the richest 2% are also trending.
I love this guy. More for every minute he stays standing — eight into nine hours and counting, people, eight into nine hours and counting: he is 69 years old and I defy most of us to stay on our feet for eight nine hours doing ANYTHING. Receiving a friggin’ neck and shoulder massage the whole time, man. I love this guy.
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UPDATE 1: For the WOW is the internet fast file. Someone put up a website Is Bernie Sanders still talking? (yep: http://isberniesandersstilltalking.com). I’ll let you go see what it says (suitable for work, no worries!), but want to recommend it since it includes a link to a very freshly established ActBlue donation page. Bernie Sanders for president. We could totally arrange something like Bush had: younger prez, older guy behind the scenes providing both policy advice and spine. Yow!
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UPDATE 2: At 7:02pm EST Senator Sanders took a seat, after over nine hours. A New York Times piece includes some choice bits of his soaring, truth-telling rhetoric. It’s a heckuva day in American democracy that a senator’s sittng down is news. Usually it’s news that someone actually stands up.
C-SPAN marks the beginning:
He began his speech at 10:25am saying, “I am simply here today to take as long as I can to explain to the American people the fact that we have got to do a lot better than this agreement provides.â€
And from his website, this:
He concluded, “If the American people stand up and say, we can do better than this, that we don’t need to drive up the national debt by giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, that if the American people are prepared to stand – and we’re prepared to follow them – I think we can defeat this proposal. I think we can come up with a better proposal which better reflects the needs of the middle class and working families of our country and, to me, most importantly, the children of our country. And with that, Madam President, I would yield the floor.”
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UPDATE 3: Here’s the first dozen minutes of his marathon of political conviction, for any of us who didn’t catch the beginning, or (even more so) for those of you who didn’t get a listen today:
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UPDATE 4: And I swear this has got to be the last update. C-SPAN, knowing an historical moment when they roll their cameras on a whole full day of it, has posted his entire filibuster/speech/stand on behalf of the 98% of Americans who are looking for a voice for them in this debate in 3 three-hour chunks:
If I were still teaching college kids — heck, anybody old enough to be able to spell the words “filibuster,” “representative democracy,” “righteous,” and “conviction” — right now I’d be trying to find a way to fashion at least a class session, if not a multi-week unit around all the content in this man’s epic stand.