The American election process is corrupted, rigged and exists for one purpose only: the massive concentration of wealth and power into the hands of banksters, defense contractors, fascists and bureaucrats.
We the People? We aren't part of the equation and our contribution to approving our own enslavement is to participate in the rigged system to validate and provide electoral legitimacy to the Republican and Democrat crime syndicate that lords over us with an iron fist.
There are 2 primary components of the American election process: 1. money and 2. the rigged 2 party system itself. It's the big money that facilitates Republican and Democrat monopolies over all elections.
Money
Very few Americans even understand that the lions share of political money is dirty special interest money and it's anything but transparent. The small contributions raised by We the People are no match for the BIG corporatist money interests of plunderers, banksters, oligarchs, plutocrats and fascists. Every time a campaign finance bill is passed by Congress and there have been many over the decades, the end result is always more secrecy and less transparency. It's why we have these dangerous PAC's super-PAC's. Special interests can funnel money into the RNC and DNC machines through PAC's.
The RNC/DNC lock on political money doesn’t bode well for Americans seeking to raise new candidates and get rid of the “same old, same old” congressional institutionalists who thrive on power, greed and fraud. If you find a candidate that you like and would like to support, you are legally banned from contributing more than $2,500 to that candidate; contributing more than the legal limit makes you a criminal who can be prosecuted for violating campaign finance laws. But you can give millions to the DNC and RNC machines through its PAC's who don’t have that limitation and this vastly contributes to the absolute power of special interests.
Special interests own and control American elections because they control the money. Independent thinking candidates are routinely squashed. Big money only flows to those who can deliver the taxpayer largess to special interest campaign contributors and it’s nearly impossible for any honest politician to ever raise sufficient money to compete with the RNC/DNC money laundering machines. Corporate contributors don’t fund candidates who campaign on “I promise to reduce government power and end the fascist marriage of big business and big government”.
Progressives and liberals went ballistic over the Supreme Court
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that essentially ruled that corporations and labor unions have a constitutional right to contribute money to political campaigns. The Supreme Court decision was right because corporations are legal entities that pay taxes while being subjected to a myriad of government regulations. Accordingly, they have an absolute legal right to have their interests represented in the election game.
So how do we get around the legal right of corporations outright buy elections and thus control legislative outcomes for its exclusive monopolistic advantage? Personally, I favor banning all political contributions except for individual contributions which should have no limits whatsoever. The limits on individual contributions drives the corrupt system underground and into a legal quagmire of undisclosed political contributions while giving both the Republicans and the Democrats extraordinary financial powers to squash We the People at all levels in the process.
The solution to the problem lies in lifting ALL restrictions on personal political contributions and mandating that all political money goes straight to the candidate by bypassing the parties and their legendary fund raising machines. Do I care if George Soros directly gives billions to Obama? No because it's his absolute right to fund the candidate of his choice.
Do I care if the Koch Brothers gives billions to Romney? No, because it's their absolute right to fund the candidate of their choice.
However, what the American voter really needs is real time disclosure of all political money. Every website of every candidate for public office should be required by law to have a link on their websites that lists in real time all political contributions, not by the date received but by the amount of the contribution.
If they can get the money to the bank, they can disclose it in real time. Right now the system is rigged against disclosure because of quarterly filing requirements and the fact that a whole lot of political money is exempt from disclosure.If anything, Americans are nosy about money and you better believe that they'd be checking out who is bankrolling candidates.
Furthermore, America needs to ban all RNC and DNC fundraising activities. Because so much of the BIG special interest money is raised by the RNC and DNC machines through a complex legal maize that facilitates non-disclosure and secrecy, there will never be financial transparency in the election process for voter review until political monetary transparency and disclosure are achieved.
The top 10 corporate PAC contributions for the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, were as follows:
Obama: Goldman Sachs $739,521, UBS AG $419,550, Lehman Brothers $391,774, Citigroup Inc $492,548, Morgan Stanley $341,380, Latham & Watkins $328,879, Google Inc $487,355 JPMorgan Chase & Co $475,112, Sidley Austin LLP $370,916, Skadden, Arps et al $360,409
McCain: Merrill Lynch $349,170, Citigroup Inc $287,801, Morgan Stanley $249,377 Wachovia Corp $147,456, Goldman Sachs $220,045, Lehman Brothers $115,707, Bear Stearns $108,000, JPMorgan Chase & Co $206,392, Bank of America $133,975, Credit Suisse Group $175,503.
Those figure are far from definitive and the same players funneled a whole lot more money into the campaign finance cesspool through mechanisms not requiring disclosure. There is also the issue lobbying and its monetary influence far exceeds campaign contribution influence.
Opensecrets.org reports the top spenders on lobbying for 2008 were:
US Chamber of Commerce $91,725,000
Exxon Mobil $29,000,000
AARP $27,900,000 PG&E Corp $27,250,000
Northrop Grumman $20,743,252 American Medical Assn $20,555,000
Pharmaceutical Rsrch & Mfrs of America $20,220,000
Koch Industries $20,023,000
General Electric $19,379,000
American Hospital Assn $18,902,684
Verizon Communications $18,020,000
Boeing Co $17,540,000
National Assn of Realtors $17,340,000
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $16,220,165
Lockheed Martin $15,981,506 AT&T Inc $15,076,675
National Cable & Telecommunications Assn $14,500,000
Southern Co $14,080,000
Altria Group $13,840,000
General Motors $13,351,000
They don’t sprinkle that kind of dough around the District of Crime without getting big paybacks. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is so powerful that it outspends the #2 biggest spender on lobbying by a margin of over 3:1 with a whopping $92 million. What the Chamber of Commerce gets for its $92 million investment is the ability to load up America with cheap third world labor that drives American wages down while shifting the social costs of impoverished “slave” wage earners to the unemployed, broke and suffering American taxpayers. Basically, it's the systematic wipe out of the American middle class.
The Banksters are always lavishly rewarded for their campaign contributions. Barry Ritholtz, a financial author and pundit, who runs the website Ritholtz.com, put out quite an enlightening article that calculated TARP money (Bankster Bailout Bucks) as a return on lobbyist dollars spent and campaign contributions. The Ritholtz list (prints to 7 pages) listed the banks that received TARP money and included political contributions and lobbying expenditures to arrive at a return on investment.
Campaign Contributions: $37.4 million
Lobbying Expenses: $76.6 million
TARP Payment: $305.2 billion
Return on Investment: 267,208%
There are a gazillion other special interest groups that are also engaged in the “pay to play” game at the DC Wheel of Fortune. With a $3.7 trillion pie, those seeking a slice or a crumb descend upon the pie like hoards of hungry cockroaches.
I wonder how many folks would have voted for Obama or McCain in 2008 if they had known upfront that they were heavily funded by Wall Street? Do you really think the American people would have voted for Bankster and corporate welfare?
The Best Government that Fascist Corporatist Bankster Defense Contractor Money Can Buy Wall Street and the banksters are far from the only larcenous and felonious gang of plunderers at the taxpayers gate nor are they the only financiers of political campaigns and lobbying.. Defense contractors and rent seeking corporations demanding subsidies, loan guarantees, protectionism and monopoly rank quite high and are extremely powerful influences. Entire industries like Big Agriculture and Big Pharm are major power brokers in the Pay to Play Game that reigns supreme in the District of Crime and within our own state legislators and city councils.
Most Congress Critters spend their taxpayer funded time hanging out with special interest lobbyists and favor seeking campaign contributors although most voters don't know it. We the People have become We the Sheeple and we are laughed at and mocked by those in power, except on election day when politicans pledge their undying love to the people.
How can lobbying and influence peddling be minimized? Again, disclosure could play a key role in scaring politicians away from those who routinely bribe them for a vote. Of course, in America there is no such thing as bribery as bribery is now nothing more than a legal campaign contribution that is codified into law.
What if Congress Critters and all other elected officials were required to make their schedules public on the Internet? By making their schedules public I mean putting their calendars on the office holders' official website for the world to see. Moreover, not publishing a meeting or contact should be a crime because it implies that a public official is engaging in something so underhanded that it reeks of bribery and secrecy.
Wouldn't the American voters just love to know how their elected leaders spend their time and who they spend it with? I suspect that the American people would be shocked and so angry that they'd want these bought and paid for elected representatives voted out of office.Republican, Democrat, Liberal, conservative or independent, the American people have been denied openness and transparency by the big money games of the RNC and DNC. Whatever our political and ideological stripes, no one will escape the fascist tyranny until this corrupt fundraising system is dismantled and outlawed.
While we will never be able to fully solve the problems of big money interests and their ability to buy entire legislative bodies, in the Age of the Internet we can certainly accomplish a whole lot more than We the People could ever have hoped to accomplish in the past and before the Internet.
The liberty movement is strengthening and I'd say it's moved from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane. The politicos and power brokers that controlled us for so many decades are finally running a tad scared and liberty will only be achieved when there's a Category 5 hurricane facing our oppressors.
The Internet is the new portal to liberty as evidenced by the stupendous growth of alternative media that is very successfully putting truth and facts into the hands of ordinary folks. The once powerful propaganda machines of the government and its media partners in crime are rapidly collapsing.
To be continued with: What's Wrong With the Primary and General Election System Besides the DIRTY MONEY?
