Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Pay to Play
David Sirota has a must read article over at commondreams.org. Moveon.org recently had a list of problems to address and one of the items was campaign finance reform. That was the one I put at number one, believing that everything else hinges on divorcing corporations from government. Sirota's article confirms this for me.
Money, of course, does not just buy favors -- it makes sure that the concept of corruption is only presented to the public by political leaders as anecdotes about a few bad apples, not a narrative about a broken system. Why? Because an indictment of the pay-to-play system that produced the bad apples could mean structural campaign finance reforms that challenge the power of the Big Money interests that underwrite our politicians. Thus, in the aftermath of recent congressional scandals, all we get is a pathetical discussion about weak lobbying "reform" proposals and even weaker sanctions against individual lawmakers.
Written at 9:01 AM by Lynne.
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