It's about to be a brave new world out there folks, not the one depicted in Aldous Huxley's novel of 1932, but one that makes a mockery of "we the people".
Yesterday's New York Times article, "Lines Blurring Between PAC's and Candidates" by Nicholas Confessore made the case that "Super PAC's", so called private political action committees that are separate from a candidates electoral committee, "can raise and spend millions of dollars in unrestricted campaign donations", in support of their candidates, "that is changing the way presidential campaigns are financed and executed".
Simply put, every candidate, Republican or Democrat, in the upcoming 2012 presidential sweepstakes will have "Super PAC's" supporting their chosen candidates and though prohibited from "coordinating expenditures" with the candidates "actual" campaign committee, can "indirectly" underwrite political campaigns of candidates where there are no monetary limits on how much these "independent" PAC's can raise and spend. All this brought about as a result of the Supreme Court's decision in "Citizens United v/s FEC" that unleashed the floodgates of corporate largesse whose contributions overwhelm the election process.
To put it more bluntly, our electoral process has been hijacked by deep pocketed financial interests and made legal by the action of the Court.
Essentially, what independent candidate whose primary interest in running is to serve the interests of the people and refuses to accept PAC money (directly or indirectly) can compete in such a corrupted, skewed process? They can't!
In the past it may have been possible to make the case that a candidate accepting limited corporate support would be able to say honestly (let's give him the benefit of the doubt) they weren't unduly influenced by these donors in enacting laws and regulations, conducting oversight and making sure they were enforced, which may have gone against the interests of these donors.
But now only a fool can believe ANY candidate accepting and working with these PAC's will act independently and not support the interests of these deep pocketed donors, first and foremost.
It is all too blatant and only the supremely naà ¯ve can believe the current electoral system can still work for we the people.
Our electoral process must be scrapped, root and branch. The "Citizens United" ruling must be overturned by a Constitutional amendment and a citizens funded, publicly financed system be installed to replace it.
Every issue this country faces, every policy we have in place, the wars we fight, the imperialist militarism we engage in has its roots and tentacles intertwined in the current electoral process that is antithetical to we the people and our interests.
It doesn't matter whether it's a Republican "tea party" conservative or some liberal Democrat on the ballot in our current corrupted electoral process. They are all the same favoring moneyed interests over the people's interests.
The electoral franchise, people's vote in the current electoral process is worthless, a personal deception as long as the current electoral process remains in place. It's that simple.
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