Written by Joseph J Kusnell
Want to buy a vote or two? Want to buy a Senator, Congressman or President? They are all for sale in America.
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UPDATE: January 8, 2007: It is estimated this coming year's presidential elections will cost nearly ONE BILLION DOLLARS for the two sides! Taking care of the campaign contributors after the election is going to end up costing you and me and the other taxpayers a whole lot of money. Count on it.
You see, as long as we have a system wherein people can BUY votes with their campaign contributions, your government doesn’t really work for you; it works for the people with the biggest checkbooks. You don’t think rich people donate all those millions out of the goodness of their hearts, do you? If so, the joke is on you. Read on:
UPDATE: December 3, 2009: In the 2008 elections, Obama raised over 600 million dollars to McCain's 300 million. Obama told the public this money came from individual small donations but that was an out and out lie. Less than 15% came from small donors; the rest came from very rich individuals, very rich corporations and very rich foreign donors, some of whom were illegal. Most of the billionaires in this country actually supported Barack Obama and their support contributed mightily to his winning. He now supports legislation that will repay those supporters for their generosity. After all, what goes around -
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That's why I am titling this article:
America Is For Sale to the Highest Bidder
Because it is and it has been for a very long time. But we CAN stop it if we have the will.
Most rich and powerful people are betting you don't.
A CALL TO GRASSROOTS AMERICA
Money buys votes.
Don't fool yourself; politics is all about the money needed to run for office. That’s what runs our government and that's what undermines our government, the need for huge amounts of campaign contributions!
But we can stop it. How, you ask? Well, it's really rather simple: let's fund all our national elections with public money! Tightly controlled, fair rules and binding regulations along with taxpayer funding will kick the money changers out of the temple. And we all will be better off for it.
You’ve heard it before: money talks and bullshit walks! Sorry about that, but it's the most graphic way to make the point. Our politicians are bought and paid for every single day starting the day they take office. And if we don't wake up and stop it soon, it will be too late if it isn't already.
You can see it happening right now [2008]. A presidential election is coming up. Lots of people want to run for the nominations from our two parties but it takes millions to run an effective campaign. So where do they get it? They get it from people that support them?
Fine but let me ask you this:
Question: Why would an individual or an organization donate tons of money to a political candidate so that HE can get himself elected to a very nice job? No matter what his political likes and dislikes are.
Answer: Because they love their country and think this guy would be swell in the job?
No? You think that’s a bad answer? Okay, how about this one:
Answer: Because they expect a quid pro quo arrangement in return.
And what exactly is a quid pro quo arrangement? That’s a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" arrangement.
Aha! You agree! You get the picture. They donate that money to gain influence with the newly elected candidate. And why do they want that influence? Oh that’s real easy: they want to use their new found evidence to make more money for themselves – more even than they donated. That’s the rule. After all, as we all know, there is no free lunch.
And it’s the same for all parties and in all elections. They are all expensive and if you want to have a chance to win anything anywhere, you need to find the money to run. And what do you – the candidate - have to offer for this money? You offer the only thing you have – your vote.
You offer FAVORS in return for that money.
And that’s what’s wrong with our system of government. It's bought and paid for and because of that, once the election is over you will be forgotten and those who contributed will be remembered. The more they gave, the more they will be remembered.
At this point, let me explain to you that I am not here solely to blame the politicians. I think most of them really hate having to beg for money. But they have no choice. They have no choice because the system is set up this way – money talks. For that reason, I say it’s the system that has to be changed even more than the players. Why today, one half of every congressman's day is spent soliciting money for his or her NEXT election. Did you know that? Well, now you do.
Instead of doing the job for which you pay him (or her), your congressman is entertaining special interest groups every day of the week in order to solicit money from them so he can pay for his next political campaign. Whether that election is next month, next year, or five years from now, he is raising money for it, today.
Which is why I opened this article with the words: "America is for sale to the highest bidder".
But before you head to Washington to do in your congressman - or worse yet, your President – please remember what I told you, it's really not their fault – it’s the system that is at fault.
If they don’t want to retire young – and few do – they have to do what everyone else is doing.
So that's our problem. The current system encourages corruption and dishonesty and no one gets to escape. If you want to run for national office, you need money. To get the money you need to sell something. What you have to sell is your vote. So learn to deal with it or find another line of work.
Okay, so that’s our problem, how do we fix it?
Well right now it’s February of 2010 and I am going to announce today that in the 2010 elections, we are going to vote out of office everyone who is in office. They all are on the take. I for one am sick of slick lawyers in our government. They are too slick and too dishonest for me. I want to take a shot with regular Americans in our Congress and see how we do with them.
I will therefore vote against all incumbents running this fall. They are all history. I want this message loud and clear.
Then I will try to get Washington to change the rules.
One thing I know is, it won’t be easy. It will in fact be very, very difficult. You see, tons of wealthy people like the system just the way it is and they will fight like hell to keep it this way.
Who are these people? Who do you think they are? The people who control your government by donating big money to political campaigns, that's who they are. Americans and foreigners alike, internationalists, corporate CEO's with dollars for souls – big time labor leaders - all of them.
Remember the Chinese money in the Clinton elections? Why do you think they were shoveling money to an American for an American election? I’ll tell you, they were buying influence. I call it buying America. Notice what China has gotten in return? It's sickening. The Chinese are now making billions out of trade with America. It turns out to have been a good investment for them but a bad one for us.
Obama is another one who got big money from foreign governments. And once again, they benefited while we lost.
Look, I am not going to belabor the point. I am sure by now you understand what is going on and how dangerous it is. So you must be asking what can I do about it?
The answer is work for controlled national elections paid for by the taxpayer with no outside money whatsoever, neither hard nor soft.
Can we do it? Can we actually change the system? I don't know. Every special interest group in America will be united against us? Broadcasters and telecasters and maybe some of the talk show hosts and the print media people will scream out against it. They are all part of the current dirty system. They will call us names, say we are stupid, say that we are flirting with national economic suicide. Whatever it takes. They may even call us racists and say that somehow this is an attack on minorities. How? Who knows?
But they won't care. They will say anything to stop us from changing the system. But we can do it. We can win despite them.
How? By banning together to demand change. Demand (1) Federal funding for all national elections and (2) that in the last 30 days of a campaign, the only one that can speak for a candidate is the candidate.
The people - you and I - have to come together and bring pressure on our congressmen to pass this legislation. No democrats, no republicans, no liberals, no conservatives – just Americans trying to take back their government from the greedy, vicious, money-grabbing thieves who now control it. (This would be the folks with the money, not the ones taking it.)
Once your congressmen and even your president is no longer dependent on these people for campaign money, everything will change and for the better. Useless 'payback' fat-cat legislation will be eliminated forever. So will self-sustaining subsidies and pork barrel 'earmark' legislation. Congress can stop begging for money and go back to working full time for the people who elected them, instead of the people who bought them.
And the cost of government will go down, not up. Once they are sure it will get done, the politicians will welcome the change with open arms. No one likes to beg for money least of all the people that work their way to Washington. After all, they do have their pride.
But the sad truth is that most of the people in Washington believe the American people are too dysfunctional, too apathetic, too wildly diversified politically, too DUMB to ever come together for any one single purpose including this one. They count on that.
In fact, they depend on it.
And they're probably right. Special interest groups will stay in the fight as long as it takes while “We the People”, with so many other things to do, often tire and quit under pressure. That’s why nothing ever changes.
But it doesn't have to be that way. All of you start calling or mailing your congressmen and women to vote for taxpayer funding of national elections with appropriate controls. Then, if they refuse, tell them you'll vote them out of office.
If they believe you they will listen. But will they believe you? Probably not, not yet anyway. So we need to wake them up. And the way to do that is to vote every incumbent out of office in the 2010 fall elections. That will most definitely get their attention.
We don’t need a bunch of lawyers or Ivy School left-leaning, reluctant-Americans in our halls of Congress. We’ve had that for years. Let’s try it this time with the local folks. I think we’ll be better off.
Then, let's throw the moneychangers out of the temple and start over again. This time we should know better what to avoid. It can be done.
Elect regular folks and then chance the rules of the game. It may help and it sure as hell can’t hurt.
JOEY
Welcome to Joey’s Newspage, where people come to exercise their minds
http://www.blogger.com/profile/00659050837324784709
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