Over the past 10 years, the influence of corporations and special interests in political campaigns has exploded. Each time a regulation is put in place, special interests circumvent the rules through legal loopholes or use the courts to strike down the law. The problem isn’t one particular law or judicial decision; it’s the fact that Congress can no longer effectively regulate the flow of money into campaigns. The only sure fix is a constitutional amendment that gives Congress the authority to reform the campaign finance system.
We didn’t get here over night. The Supreme Court has issued a series of bad decisions that have crowded and distorted our elections with a flood of corporate and special-interest money that can swing an election one way or the other. In 1976 the Supreme Court laid the groundwork for a broken system in the Buckley v. Valeo decision. In that case, the Court incorrectly decided that imposing modest restrictions on campaign expenditures violates the First Amendment right to free speech. This established the flawed precedent that money and speech are the same thing – something I strongly disagree with.
More recently the Supreme Court issued an even worse decision in Citizens United v. FEC. In this case, they granted the same free-speech rights to corporations and other special interests that the Constitution guarantees to individuals. With Buckley v. Valeo equating money to speech, and now Citizens United giving Free Speech rights to large corporations and interest groups, the political system is becoming evermore unbalanced.
While the average American only has one vote and limited resources to contribute to political candidates, these organizations can now pour vast sums of money into advertising that influences the outcome of our elections. As a result, in the elections of 2010, New Mexicans and all Americans saw a new breed of attack ads from out-of-state interests. The vast majority were negative. These new organizations raised and spent unlimited funds for the first time since before there was television. In the upcoming 2012 election, you can certainly count on even more.
[T]he Wall Street protest movement hopes to implement a November 5th walkout, the effects of which could have a far greater impact than months of sit-ins and protests. Being billed as Bank Transfer Day, and as of two weeks ago having attracted 14,000 RSVPs via Facebook to the national event, the campaign is urging Americans to close their accounts at large banks and move their money to credit unions.
I believe most people in government are decent public servants. I’m very reluctant to believe a large number of members of Congress take out-right bribes: “Give me $$$ for my vote.” However, it is clear that the cost of elections is corrupting everyone at every level, down to the local TV stations selling ads. Either there should be no political advertising (Free speech! Yeah, right.) or it should be free (x hours per candidate; no ads for causes; if you want to promote your cause, run for office).
[W]hat happened to us? Our financial industry has grown so large and rich it has corrupted our real institutions through political donations. As Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, bluntly said in a 2009 radio interview, despite having caused this crisis, these same financial firms “are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they, frankly, own the place.”
Our Congress today is a forum for legalized bribery. One consumer group using information from Opensecrets.org calculates that the financial services industry, including real estate, spent $2.3 billion on federal campaign contributions from 1990 to 2010, which was more than the health care, energy, defense, agriculture and transportation industries combined. Why are there 61 members on the House Committee on Financial Services? So many congressmen want to be in a position to sell votes to Wall Street.
I’m as confident as I can be that death is the absolute and final end of the individual. Yes, our atoms continue to exist as part of the world. Yes, our energy dissipates. But our personalities, identities, minds wink out forever and completely.
It is a depressing thought, which explains why so many people refuse to think it. For those who imagine an afterlife, how can it be that the dead aren’t miserable? If you were ripped from your family and friends, what would it take to make you not care at all about that? Seventy virgins? (All one needs to know about the misogyny of Islam. But don’t be smug: all religions distort women, even Wicca.) In Christian Heaven, you are reunited with everyone you used to love (is Grandpa still 99 – forever – would that be his idea of heaven?). Is that reunion enough to make you wait for the not-yet-dead to follow? Is Heaven like pausing in the shade on a trail, waiting for a straggler to catch up?
I know I’m verging on mockery: nonsense lends itself to that. If my beliefs hurt or anger you, believe what you will. If we meet on the other side, I owe you a Coke.
Friday night, Halloween weekend, 1981, Robert Coontz brought someone new home for dinner (probably spaghetti). I stood in the living room to meet her and she walked around the far side of the coffee table, nose in the air. She wasn’t avoiding me (she said), just sniffing her surroundings, having been a dog in a former life. That was my introduction to Merri Rudd, my belovéd-to-be.
[photo: mjh & MR in Landmark Shopping Center photo machine, Alexandria, VA, January 1984.]
This time of year, I see merlins almost daily in the middle of Albuquerque, and the Cooper’s hawks less often. This one was having breakfast. I took quite a few shots before he lost patience with me, as you can see. www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/tags/merlins/
If Americans were to realize they’ve been the victims of Republican-style redistribution — stealing from the poor to give to the rich — the whole political atmosphere might change. I believe that’s one reason why the Occupy Wall Street protests have struck such a nerve. The far-right and its media mouthpieces have worked themselves into a frenzy trying to disregard, dismiss or discredit the demonstrations. Thus far, fortunately, all this effort has been to no avail. …
First, the system is rigged. Wealthy individuals and corporations have disproportionate influence over public policy because of the often decisive role that money plays in elections. If the rich and powerful act in their self-interest, as conservative ideologues believe we all should do, then the rich and powerful’s share of income will continue to soar.
Second, and more broadly, the real issue is what kind of nation we want to be. Thomas Jefferson’s “All men are created equal” is properly understood as calling for equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes. But the more we become a nation of rich and poor, the less we can pretend to be offering the same opportunities to every American. As polarization increases, mobility declines. The whole point of the American Dream is that it is available to everyone, not just those who awaken from their slumbers on down-filled pillows and 800-thread-count sheets.
So it does matter that as the pie grows, the various slices do not grow in proportion. We’re not characters in one of those lumbering, interminable, nonsensical Ayn Rand novels. We believe in individual initiative and the free market, but we also believe that nationhood necessarily involves a commitment to our fellow citizens, an acknowledgment that we’re engaged in a common enterprise. We believe that opportunity should be more than just an empty word.
