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Jackpine Radical Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 03:24 PM
Original message
The whole system is corrupt.
This is not a new revelation to me, but somehow the news of the day--from the silencing of Sibel Edmonds to the new wave od discussion of the bankruptcy laws--has triggered a wave of revulsion in me.

What follows is slightly overstated (but only slightly) and not true of all politicians, but it seems to be true of enough that the few exceptions don't matter much.

Do the Democrats really offer meaningful relief from our oppression? Are there really any statesmen in modern times? Politicians in both parties sell their votes to the highest bidder. Once, even the most cynical politician had to keep in mind the interests of the common voters. In this era, the mass media have become the middlemen who deliver votes with their advertising and with their opinion-forming broadcasting. Therefore the politicians are beholden to the owners of the media and the well-heeled capitalist forces (pretty much the same people who own the media) who offer to finance their ads in exchange for their enactment of oligarchic policies. Politicians no longer bother to cater to voters. They don't have to. They only have to get the media to deliver the right messages to trigger certain voting behaviors among the electorate. Politicians do not understand the needs and concerns of average people. They don't need to know. They don't care. The voter has become pretty much unimportant to the politicians, and the interests of the average voter therefore have no representation whatsoever.
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Perry Logan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 03:27 PM
Response to Original message
1. A few things that have gotten better...
There are countless investigations going on. Healthcare is on the table. The internet is safe for now. Our wounded vets are no longer lying around in their own urine. The Senate Ethics Committee is back in action. Many 9/11 Commission recommendations are being passed. A bill to increase financial aid for colleges has passed--the single largest increase in college aid since the GI bill. The President's signing statements are being investigated. Legislation to restore habeus corpus has been approved. The Senate Armed Services Committee has passed legislation "that would grant new rights to terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay. The unions have a voice in the government now—as do gays, women, and minorities. The environment has a fighting chance. The House passed the Taxpayer Protection Act, to protect taxpayers against "identity theft, deceptive Web sites and loan sharks." It also makes it "easier for taxpayers to retrieve property lost as a result of a wrongful Internal Revenue Service levy and directs the IRS to notify lower-income people that they qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit." The House approved a bill spending $1.7 billion over five years for cleaner water. There's a new House committee devoted solely to addressing the issue of global warming. And so on.
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sicksicksick_N_tired Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 04:10 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. I am glad you have acknowledged the Democratic SURGE on all those matters,...
,...which are of concern to all of us.

In spite of our passion about bringing justice to this administration and its 'hos', if we fail to acknowledge the positive work being accomplished on our behalf, we will operate in an anger that will blind rational judgment.
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Mojorabbit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 03:53 PM
Response to Original message
2. It is not just us
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bobthedrummer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 04:01 PM
Response to Original message
3. System, sub-systems, networks-all dedicated to system maintenace not US. k&r
For convenience sake I call it the BFEE.
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blues90 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 04:07 PM
Response to Original message
4.  Politicians on TV are nothing more than forced adds
Hand picked by themselves based on who may win and who can gather the most money and who can con the people the most . The proof in this statement is how Kucinich is left out of the big picture .

If a real candidate doe not emerge then I will not vote just for the sake of voting for anyone that is a scam and a ploy and liar .

This is not what we need at all .

It's a damn game , there is no interest in the desires of the people only the big win no matter how the win is achieved and people want this running the country .

Years ago It was always said if you did not vote then you have no right to complain , well i voted everytime and with either side there is room to complain .

I voted for Gore and then Kerry because they were all there was for my choice , not my best choice but they were all that were on the ballot .

This is exactly what is happening now , the canditates are chosen for us , not the best man or woman but the best salesman .
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Imagevision Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 04:12 PM
Response to Original message
6. No need to go to far to figure that out, look what they did to Sibel Edmunds...
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chaska Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 04:51 PM
Response to Original message
7. Bingo! America is over. Corruption is the new order of not just the US but the world.
No hope. And unfortunately the end is not near.
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pscot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 08:33 PM
Response to Original message
8. Every Friday a guy goes down to his local tavern
to play poker. Every week he loses his stake and goes home to his wife, complaining that the game is rigged, it's run by a bunch of cheats, who deal off the bottom, hide cards in their sleeves and tip one another's hands. Finally his wife says, "If it's that bad, why do you keep going back?"
"Because," he says. "It's the only game in town."
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HCE SuiGeneris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 11:27 PM
Response to Reply #8
12. ...
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Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 09:12 PM
Response to Original message
9. Support your local CEO.
Like the elected, most are turds in the thrall of the war party.
The trick is finding the good ones and making their names known.
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cutlassmama Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 11:16 PM
Response to Original message
10. NO kidding???
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CK_John Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 11:23 PM
Response to Original message
11. IMO, we are too proud to admit that it takes a special talent to be a politician, which we know we
don't have but desperately wish we did.
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undercutter2006 Donating Member (287 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-19-07 11:31 PM
Response to Original message
13. this is the problem
I don't think that the precarious state we find ourselves in America today can be specifically blamed on any individual or group. I think what it really boils down to is the way we run our political system. I wrote about net neutrality in the previous post, and the truly frightening thing to me is that if some powerful corporations (like Microsoft, which stands to lose money to internet providers without net neutrality) did not support net neutrality, then the public would have no chance at all against companies like AT&T and other major network providers. These corporations seem to run our country, our government, and the rest of the world, without much restraint. So plenty of people ask the obvious question - why doesn't anybody in politics stand up to them? Is it because we just happened to elect politicians who are collectively spineless?

Consider what it is that you need to win an election. Money. A lot of money. You need a shitload of money to buy political advertisements, TV ads, pay your staff, and coordinate logistics for your campaign. If your opponent has a lot more money than you - s/he will win the election regardless of the issues, because s/he will have resources to shape public opinion in his/her favor, which is easily accomplished in the information age of our 21st century. And corporations are the ones that will provide you with the money to win, and they will certainly need something in return for all that money they have spent. So every time politicians run a campaign, they have to make those backroom deals in order to win. Now I don't think that people go into politics with desire to be corrupt puppets of big business. But what choice do they have - either lose the election, or compromise to special interests like big business (and yes, big business is the special interest much more than leftwing environmentalists or feminists). After a while they compromise and compromise in order to win so much, they eventually forget why they got into politics in the first place.

I wonder if there is actually anybody out there who trusts politicians anymore. Politician is a dirty word, more like a curse. Politicians are assumed to be corrupt and despicable liars by the public. But these are the very same people that govern us, that we are supposed to look up to; people that decide on the rules the rest of us abide by. This is not a healthy situation by any means. And I am not saying that just to put down USA - most of the countries in the world are much more corrupt than us; what I am saying is that we could be doing so much better than this, since according to our President we are supposed to be setting an example for the rest of the world.

What we really need is some way to take big money out of politics. I really don't think we will be able to change a damn thing unless we do that first. All these wars, laws, and privacy and labor rights - they will change, they will come and go; but until we have a government that represents and listens to its people, as opposed to corporations, it is all pretty much meaningless.

And it is not such unattainable goal either. The American public is fed up with corruption and will support any effort to make the government more ethical. McCain campaign finance law was the primary reason for the rise of Howard Dean, because that law limited private donation to $2000 per person, as well as banning soft money donations, which allowed Howard Dean to out raise all of his democratic political opponents by capitalizing on the avalanche of $10-$20 donations from numerous people who were anti Iraq war. And of course there are loopholes - right now corporations take advantage of the fact that most people can't afford to spend $2000 on politics, so they collect tons of $2000 checks from their top managers, and then present that bundle of checks to a politician saying - this is to you from our corporation. But it is much harder for them to do that now, because of the McCain law. That law was never supposed to exist at all in the first place, since conservatives assumed it would be overturned in the Supreme Court, and that is why they bowed to public pressure and let it get passed through Congress.

So I think we are on the right path here, we just need to keep going in the right direction, plugging those loopholes. There are plenty of ways to accomplish campaign finance reform - we can make all donation anonymous, which means that politicians will not be able to check on where their money is coming from, and for the first time in their lives will actually be able to focus on governing and legislating as opposed to to being on the phone begging people for campaign donation. We can also make sure that all candidates get equal exposure and equal amount of commercials on TV, since television is the primary and most powerful source of information for our citizens right now.

And this would not automatically mean victory for liberals either. What conservatives have to realize is that corporations play them for fools, and use their issues in order to further their own private economic agenda. When Newt Ginritch conservatives took over congress in the 90s, it was primarily because Americans were so opposed to Clinton's idea of having gays openly in the military (which was a part of his major campaign promise). So I think liberals will stand to lose on many social issues if we were to have an open and honest discussion. Americans do not want gay marriage, as was shown through passage of anti gay marriage ballots during the 2004 presidential campaign in many states. Most Americans identify themselves as religious christians and regard America as a christian nation. We might even lose on the abortion issue as well. But if we take the money out of politics we certainly stand to win on many economic issues. We could make corporations share their enormous profits that they get from pillaging the world with the rest of us: give our fellow Americans health insurance, job, health and environmental security.

That is why I do not particularly blame our democratic party for the failure to offer an alternative way to the current situation. First we have to change the system in order to make that possible. And if there is a third party that comes to power in light of the current events - the first thing they have to do is make sure they they will implement a campaign finance change which will allow them to compete on the issues - not on how much money they can get from special interests. That is why I am very interested to find out if there is a strong support/activism for some kind of finance reform. I am fairly interested in politics - I watch TV news, read newspapers, browse internet - yet I haven't really seen that much discussion regarding this issue, and that is troubling to me. If there is a strong campaign finance reform movement somewhere I would certainly appreciate if somebody could point me in the right direction, because I want to be a part of that movement.
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walldude Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-20-07 12:52 AM
Response to Reply #13
15. Good post. Serious campaign finance
reform is needed if we are ever going to get out of this mess.
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dysfunctional press Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-20-07 02:13 AM
Response to Reply #13
16. if not for that damn first amendment...
we'll continue to be strung up by our own petard.

even if we go to public financing of elections, private parties will be able to buy airtime/press/etc... to get the message out about their chosen candidates- so the ones with the most money still have the upper hand. and the 1st amendment says that there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
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whirlygigspin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-20-07 04:18 AM
Response to Reply #16
19. true
but at least with public financing, other voices have a chance.

Now...with the right President, we could re-write the FCC rules so that broadcasters using PUBLIC airwaves be required to ceed airtime for PUBLIC use, during elections.

-as for corporate personhood, your right
we need a Kucinich supreme court for that
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Kazak Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-20-07 12:32 AM
Response to Original message
14. Yeah, we're fucked basically...
:shrug:
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whirlygigspin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-20-07 04:04 AM
Response to Reply #14
18. there is hope
Getting a Grip - Episode 1

This new web-doc examines campaign finance reform through new eyes, the eyes of Deborah Simpson, a former waitress and single mother who under Maine's Clean Election law, and won!
Simpson's inspirational story is juxtaposed with comments of despair from everyday Americans.
Based on Lappé's new book, Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad http://www.gettingagrip.org/
http://www.quantumshift.tv/v/1191271814/


**************

"You need to figure out how to take on the interests, the special interests that are gigantic in their economic clout, who don`t want to see a change in the system. And that requires...public financing of elections. That would change the world."
- Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) August 9, 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDfqqKurwv8

**************

other links of interest:
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/242/index.html
http://www.publicampaign.org/
http://www.just6dollars.org/splash/
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=202895
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Indi Guy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-20-07 03:30 AM
Response to Original message
17. The whole system has been under corruption for decades. We're seeing the culmination now!..
The last honest administration was Carter's.

Reagan let the Cooperate dogs out. Bush 41 was a slave to them. Bubba Clinton caved after two years in office. Bush 43 was bought in 2000 & re bought in '04.

The problem is that the DC lobbies are not only un-American -- they're Anti-American (the bulk of the PAC $$$ comes from far beyond our borders).
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