Take the money out of politics
I’ve been rather hard on Republicans in my blogs and editorials, I suppose, but I’m really only down on the bad ones. I’m not "against" any party – but I feel I have to speak up if it’s being led astray by a bunch of fanatics. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Democrat lover either, for the same reason. Both parties have basically sold their souls, as far as I’m concerned. Except for the good people working for change within their respective parties. Of course, the need for reform goes way beyond the individual parties anyway.
Our whole electoral system needs reform, in the worst way. The first, and most important thing to change – the thing that will open the door for real healing in the political process – is to get the big money out of politics. I’ve been saying it forever, but you can’t say it too often, because it really is what everything else depends on. You get the big money out of politics and elections, and you take the corrupting influence of money out of the body politic. At that time, the elected representatives will truly become just that – elected representatives – of the people. They won’t owe big favors to big donors. They will be free to do the people’s business – indeed, they will have to do it, if they want to get reelected.
There would be no obscenely large campaign budget to buy feel-good "character" ads to fool the people into thinking you’re a good person, when you’re really just a slimeball. The power of the people will be back, because elected representatives will have to listen to, and work for us.
So, you see, I’m basically optimistic – even though I rant a lot. I still think we can turn things around – if people pay attention to what’s going on and work for change. I also strongly believe that all citizen groups, no matter what their cause – be it peace, environment, health care or whatever – should work together on this issue. They need to coordinate a unified campaign, organize all their members and go at this issue together, because everything else depends on it. People, none of your causes stand much of a chance of success, unless we clean up politics, starting with elections.
And cleaning up elections includes drastically reforming the electronic voting system – or throwing it out altogether – but that’s another column.
Our whole electoral system needs reform, in the worst way. The first, and most important thing to change – the thing that will open the door for real healing in the political process – is to get the big money out of politics. I’ve been saying it forever, but you can’t say it too often, because it really is what everything else depends on. You get the big money out of politics and elections, and you take the corrupting influence of money out of the body politic. At that time, the elected representatives will truly become just that – elected representatives – of the people. They won’t owe big favors to big donors. They will be free to do the people’s business – indeed, they will have to do it, if they want to get reelected.
There would be no obscenely large campaign budget to buy feel-good "character" ads to fool the people into thinking you’re a good person, when you’re really just a slimeball. The power of the people will be back, because elected representatives will have to listen to, and work for us.
So, you see, I’m basically optimistic – even though I rant a lot. I still think we can turn things around – if people pay attention to what’s going on and work for change. I also strongly believe that all citizen groups, no matter what their cause – be it peace, environment, health care or whatever – should work together on this issue. They need to coordinate a unified campaign, organize all their members and go at this issue together, because everything else depends on it. People, none of your causes stand much of a chance of success, unless we clean up politics, starting with elections.
And cleaning up elections includes drastically reforming the electronic voting system – or throwing it out altogether – but that’s another column.
posted by James Israel @ 11:46 AM
1 Comments:
At August 02, 2006 9:48 PM ,
Anonymous said...
You are right once again James.
The problem is TV stations and networks minting money during elections selling the public airwaves. With that money they lobby and buy votes to keep it the way it is.
I was once against public financing of elections. I thought why should I pay for it. But I see it now as a temporary scaffolding. We pay for several elections until we get enough decent people in office to change the laws so that TV stations and networks have to provide free airtime during elections as a required public service to keep their broadcast licenses. Then we can stop paying the big bucks. And it will open things up so that anybody can run. There would also be time for debate and discussion of the issues instead of 30 second spots and slinging mud.
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