A true American patriot sounded a seminal warning about campaign finance forty-five years ago. Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 Farewell Address, spoke of "the military-industrial complex," saying that the potential for a "disastrous rise in misplaced power exists . . . We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted." The military-industrial complex is a product of our defective campaign system. And Eisenhower's is the paradigm statement describing the "complex" symptom of the larger disease--campaign finance laws. (The original draft said "military-industrial-congressional complex," making the case even more explicit.) America did not heed Eisenhower's warning. Now there are a number of "fill-it-in"-industrial complexes, (like the media-political-congressional industrial complex) besides just the one that serves military suppliers and war profiteers. With its penetrating insight, so relevant today, history will regard the Eisenhower Farewell Address as one of the most important American speeches of the last century.
Without campaign finance reform, we default to a form of legalized bribery--the worst democracy money can buy. And without a real media, a balanced media, our democracy suffocates. The crisis we face prompts me to recall an important historical question: "Well, doctor, what have we got," Benjamin Franklin was asked after the Constitutional Convention in 1787. "A republic, if you can keep it," responded Franklin. Can we?
Where we are now, with this system and this media, with Bush in office and the neocons in power, controlling all the branches of government, is where Nixon's Attorney General John Mitchell, in 1972, predicted we would be. In a moment of exultation, Mitchell boasted "This country is going so far to the right you won't recognize it." It's thirty-four years later. Among other things, Bush has taken us into an unnecessary war, the world despises us, we have the biggest deficits in history, Bush is engaging in mass spying on America, and arguing for torture and the elimination of habeas corpus. Do you recognize the United States in all that? And there's much further to fall. We may well be on the brink of something much worse-- a man-made or, rather, Bush-made, American disaster.
I've been told by many of the supposedly better minds in politics that reform is hopeless, that we must live with our bad system and try to make the best of it. You know, the kind of thing the DLC says. Americans who love this beautiful country cannot accept that. We must engage to make things better, individually and collectively-- where, how, and when we can. I believe our nation is in peril and that we all must try, despite the odds, to preserve, protect and defend it. Isn't this what patriotism means today? For me the "where" is the California's 44th congressional district, the "how" is being a candidate and the "when" is now. If you can help(http://www.vandenbergforcongress.com/... ), please do. More later.
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