"Once in the Senate, Calhoun invented the filibuster specifically to increase the power of his plantation-owning colleagues and block any sort of anti-slavery legislation. (Calhoun not only defended the right to keep human beings enslaved; in an infamous 1837 speech he called slavery "a positive good.") [...] The filibuster was a useful tool - and excuse for racist Senators - to block any sort of Civil Rights legislation for four generations."
"Today the filibuster is used by special interests to protect their own financial interests such as keeping weapons of war on our streets, killing our children in numbers not seen in any other developed country in the world. [...] Since the 1960s, the filibuster is the favorite tool of well-funded special interests like the American Petroleum Institute, the US Chamber of Commerce, and Big Banking to prevent any sort of meaningful action on climate change, labor rights and consumer protections (among other things)."
The filibuster has always been used by the rich and powerful against the working class and the poor. That is its ONLY purpose. If we truly want a representative government of, for and by we the people then the filibuster must go. Nothing short of that will do. No excuses. Just do it.
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