The Love Affair Between Big Money and Politics Will Soon Be Over
There must be 200 posts here since 2GE’s inception in 2009 dealing with the imperative to remove Big Money from U.S. politics. The reason? Though we happen to be focused on renewable energy here, the American people will never get any of the things they want: clean energy, Wall Street reformation, universal healthcare, tighter background checks for prospective gun owners, better public education or whatever, until our lawmakers become responsive to our needs and not those of the huge moneyed interests.
I have to say that I’m blown away with the Democracy Spring movement. I hope you’ll check out the video linked above, and how the spokesperson says that he’s getting support from people across the entirety of the political spectrum, including Donald Trump supporters. (I’ll ask those right of center to forgive me for quoting the admittedly far left “Democracy Now.”)
For anyone who doesn’t understand how sickening all this is in its current state, I offer this: 89% of Americans favor tighter background checks for prospective guns owners, but their continuing demands fall on deaf ears in Congress. 89%. Almost 9 out of 10.
But the momentum behind change here is huge; one has to think the times they are a changin’.
Probably there will be a change but it is impossible to predict when. I see history repeating itself; we’ve been there before.
The problem we are presently calling “money in politics” or rule by the 1% used to be called rule by the upper class or rule by the aristocracy. It is essentially the same thing.
Those who wrote the US constitution were so distrustful of the popular opinion that they created a less representative second legislative body called the Senate, a high court that is appointed for life, and the electoral college for voting for a president. That distrust survives today and is given new life in the “super delegates” of the democratic party.
But rather than dictate a contrary course of action for a more democratic modern government it gives me pause to wonder about the aspect of human nature that also gives us mob mentality, fads and a tendency for corruption.
We seem to spend too little time discussing the present weaknesses of human nature. When we do it is most often to say that in ancient times we needed some quality that is problematic today. Greed likely played an important part in the survival of the species. It also seems part of our nature to look for the “cheat codes” of existence. When the cheat codes are applied to an acquisition of wealth we seem to get monopolies, monetary policy, and banking.
We might beg for relief from our present situation. I am curious to see if it will require a revolution or if a shift in governments as has been taking place in the UK and Canada will be sufficient. Perhaps global warming is just natures way to start fresh with humanity 2.0.
Craig,
You seem to have so little regard or faith in your fellow citizens.
Bizarrely, you point to “a revolution’ in UK political life. The recent UK elections have shown an increasing rejection for the policies of the left, and a yearning for less radical, more stable conservative politics.
UK voters are primarily concerned with the economy. On issues like immigration, acceptance of the EU (especially the European Court of Human Rights ) are being rejected by record numbers of UK citizens. 20 years ago the concept of a referendum to determine UK membership of the EU would have been unthinkable, but today a very real possibility exists for the UK to leave the EU this year.
With nearly 20 trillion debt, and an economy kept afloat by a domestic energy boom, it’s not surprising that the average US voter put’s the economy as No 1 priority.
Meanwhile, that doyen of socialism, Venezuela is sinking under a deluge of mismanagement, corruption, and wasted opportunities.
When any party or politician fails to gain the confidence or support of a majority for a policy, instead of recognizing that the politician failed to sell the policy sufficiently, or the people just don’t like the policy, or, to claim that it was due to the people being cheated by “big money” etc.
In other words, anything but accept reality !
Huge corporations are a fact of modern life. They are products of large populations and increasing technology. Large corporations represent the interests of millions of people. Wall street is simply a trading exchange. “Wall Street is not a small cabal of plutocrats, but a huge and complex world representing the involvement of millions, even billions of people.
The world is no longer consists of small villages. Society is hugely competitive, and the US must concentrate on becoming economically competitive or it can’t afford any other reforms. For the first time since the Second World War the US is facing determined economic competition, this is not the time for the US to become pre4occupied with internal dissent and self doubt.
Young demonstrators demanding an end to “corporate influence ” in politics, can’t coherently explain what would replace those corporations. Corporations have every right to be heard by those in charge of public policy, since policies directly affect the millions of investors,employees, communities that the corporations are responsible for providing economic survival.