Politicians For Sale!

I have said before that we have the best government money can buy. It is surprisingly simple to thwart the will of the majority. You do not have to buy a majority of the legislators to do it. With the filibuster rule in the senate, all you have to buy is a large enough minority to defeat a cloture vote that would end the filibuster. Obviously, the drug companies, insurance industry, Wall Street and other special interests have more than enough money to do that. Their lobbyists prowl the halls of Congress and throw money around like confetti. The drug companies and insurance companies threatened, cajoled, and bought the defeat of the public insurance option. Other special interests took note of that, and they are poised to defeat any meaningful reforms that would keep them from indulging in the risky behavior that nearly put us into another great depression.

Not being content with the power the special interests already have, the right wing injustices of the United States Supreme Court have given money even more power to rule. In what is arguably the worst decision since Dred Scott, those injustices have decided that there are no restrictions on how much the special interests can spend on candidates or issues. In other words, the court has placed our politicians on the auction block. There is nothing to keep the special interests from buying the election of politicians who will do their bidding, thereby defeating the responsible politicians who actually want to represent their constituents. Make no mistake about it. This is not a conflict of ideas or philosophies. This is a direct threat to the concept of majority rule, and that concept is the very essence of any democracy. The Republican Party is in favor of the rule of money because the special interests are already supporting members of that party. All that this ruling means to Republicans is that they can raise their price and reap even greater benefits from their masters!

The only thing ordinary people have to combat this travesty is the disclosure rule. Every CEO of a company paying for an advertisement supporting or attacking a candidate or proposed legislation must be forced to appear in those ads, state his position with the special interest, and say that he approves of the ad being run. Furthermore, those executives must not be allowed to hide behind some supposedly non-profit organization. Any advertisements run by such an organization must feature verbal disclosures of its major contributors who must also appear in the ad to approve of the statements being made therein. We must make such advertisements as expensive, burdensome and transparent as possible! We cannot allow the real rulers of this country to hide in the shadows while purchasing the government they want. The citizens of this country must have the right to know who is buying whom, even if many of those citizens are not bright enough to figure out how that impacts them.