How we lost America

There was a time when elections in America were free and open. There may have been only two strong parties, but any competition was welcome to run for office on a level playing field. That was the law. Our representatives had to answer to us, the voters. Does anybody want to argue that such an America still exists? If so, stop reading, you're beyond hope.

How did this happen?

One of the benefits of being such an old fart is that I remember this stuff. I was here. So listen, my children, and consider what I have to say, and if I'm wrong, then go back to listening to CNN or Fox, as you choose. Soon enough I'll be in a rest home and I won't remember either. So bear with me, I'm going somewhere with this.

I remember when the IRS laws were changed to allow us to establish Individual Retirement Accounts. It seemed like such a good idea - we could defer taxation of some of our income and put it into an IRA until we reached retirement age. The net effect to the IRS was nil, since they simply raised the tax rates, and since they eventually get to tax your income when you get old enough. The effect on you, the taxpayer, wasn't as great as you imagined, because (yes) they simply raised the tax rate, but also remember that if you didn't put some money into that Mutual Fund then you just got socked a little harder than otherwise - so you kind of had to do it. But the effect on corporate America was amazing. Once things got going, they could count on investments from millions of workers - workers who can't take back the money for a long, long time. More important, those were workers who were very unlikely to show up at board meetings and question the actions of the CEO or the board members.

I also remember when any voter, or citizen, could donate to any political campaign as desired, and print political posters and distribute them with no government oversight. This was the essence of Freedom of Speech and of the Press, as per the First Amendment, which we used to cherish. But as the corporations began donating to political candidates, parceling out the money depending on who is friendly to them when it comes to legislation, we began to hear complaints about how money was corrupting the political process. Somehow we didn't notice that the money was coming from corporations - it was just "Big Money" buying the elections. So we began to see a series of Campaign Finance Reform laws. Soon, you could no longer just print up some posters - you had to have an organization with a treasurer, and you had to state on each poster who had paid for that poster. Such limits, of course, didn't inhibit the Big Money interests - just the average Joe Voter.

But there was still "too much money" in politics, and it had to be reformed, and so eventually we had laws that limit how much an individual can contribute to a political campaign. I think right now your limit is $2300, but I'll need to research that. It isn't really relevant exactly how much; the point is that you are limited.

Yet you can look at the campaign donations and you'll see that the candidates are receiving millions and millions of dollars. And if you look even closer, you'll see that the bulk of it comes from corporations. And if you look still closer, you'll see that those corporations are donating to both parties. Why would they do that?

Let's step back and consider the whole picture. We now have a system where the individual voter can only offer the candidate one vote and a maximum of $2300. But a corporation can offer him millions - without which he cannot possibly get elected, especially if his opponent is getting similar financing, which he is. Even better, a third party has no chance at all, or rather so little chance that we don't have to worry about him.

And that means that any man or group of men who owns 51% of a corporation can control the way the laws are written. And they don't even have to use their own money. They simply use yours. They take money that should have been paid into your retirement fund, and offer it to a politician, and that politician cannot afford to refuse it. This means that your representative owes you his rhetoric, but not his vote.

But it might be a bit much to expect a corporation owner to fund any third parties who may appear. And that could happen as more and more voters realize that the lesser of two evils is still an evil, though that strategy has worked well so far. Voters keep switching back and forth between parties, and they see their liberties disappearing, and they keep responding to the wild claims that get spread with each election. It's the other party's fault, you have to keep electing our party, not them over there, or it will get even worse!!! But the Republicans never end a single government program as promised, and the Democrats never get us out of a single war. They just promise to. Nothing changes, except for the worse.

But remember that they can't afford to allow a third party to get any traction, because if you actually have a choice, you might reject the parties they own. How do they prevent that? Well, besides rhetoric like calling them  "spoilers," it's really simple: they do it with ballot access laws in most states. Take Oklahoma, for instance. In that state,  your party cannot get on the ballot unless it has received a given percentage of the vote in the previous election. And that's hard to do, since they also made write-in voting illegal. The only way to do it is to collect a given number of signatures and submit them to the state during a narrow window of time. You can only hire signature gatherers who are Oklahoma residents, just to make it harder. And even then, the state can invalidate your signatures on a whim, which means you have to go back and prove they were valid. That's why they always gather about 20% more than the law requires. This is not a free and open election in any universe.

Now you're thinking "why don't they file a lawsuit? The state constitution guarantees free and open elections!" Well... they did just that. A joint lawsuit by the Libertarian and Green parties, possibly others, was filed, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court simply ruled against them. No explanation, really. Just... nope, these laws are perfectly Constitutional because we say so. And we are the law.

This is how dedicated to open elections you can expect your two parties to be. I guess it's no real surprise, since they depend on the money coming in from the corporations, who stole it from you.

So expect your Congressman to tell you what you want to hear. Don't expect him to represent you.

Now... what can you do about it?

In terms of legislation, we should throw out most if not all of the campaign finance laws enacted during the last four decades. Replace them with one law: no candidate for public office shall be permitted to accept a contribution from any person or entity who cannot legally vote for him. (Matter of fact, I'd like to see that as a Constitutional amendment, but for now a mere law will do).


Of course, our representatives will never enact such a law without some serious pressure. Anyone who introduces such a law is dead politically. Anyone who votes for it is, too. Rush Limbaugh will declare that money is speech, and Mitt Romney will declare that "corporations are people, my friend." But if money is speech, why has our own speech been limited to $2300? And the idea that corporations are truly "people" is laughable. They are not. They are merely owned by people.

The Democrats are no better. They are possibly worse, depending on how you look at it. Not that it matters. They're owned by the same people.

But what you can do now is to stop rejecting a candidate based on the idea that he cannot win. When you are told that a candidate cannot win, you are being told that he has no money. You are being told that he does not enjoy the support of Big Money. You are being told that he just might represent you rather than Monsanto, or the other corporations that run this sad, tired world.

Vote for people who lack the support of the TV networks. Vote for people even if you hear them called loons, idiots, wack-jobs, and so forth. Those accusations are ultimately coming from the Powered people. Listen to their positions for yourself. Examine the reasoning. Think! Stop letting Corporate Power tell you who to vote for. Their aim is to screw you and screw you big.

Anyway, that is how we lost America. And you have a hint how to get it back.  Your play. This crazy old man will now go back to sleep.