. there's a petition at GetMoneyOut for
a constitutional amendment based on this:
"( No person, corporation or business entity. I signed this pretty easily,
of any type, domestic or foreign,
shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly,
to any candidate for Federal office
or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to
any type of campaign for Federal office.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law,
campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office
shall not constitute speech of any kind
as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution
or any amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Congress shall set forth a federal holiday
for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office.)
and was asked to tweet the following:
"(I just signed a petition to #GetMoneyOut of politics
via @DylanRatigan )*
but while deciding how I would re-word it,
I realized I had no idea how they intended to
fund our federal election campaigns;
so, I researched and wrote this essay .
. the implied idea here is public funding
where every candidate has equal access to
eno' money to speak to the public;
and, run a debate through advertising .
*:
@DylanRatigan refers to The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC
the current situation:
. BigMoney is claiming that elections financing
is a form of free speech,
but if mass media speech translates to votes,
then BigMoney has more votes per person;
something like when slaves were allotted
only a fraction of a vote .
. shouldn't we have an equal right
to free speech ?
. the courts have sided with BigMoney
but judges tell us only what's constitutional,
therefore, we need to amend the constitution .
. what is the money used for besides ad's?
hosting luncheons for political motivationals .
. we have a free lunch for your vote?
how many free lunches do you have, BigMoney?
details of an amendment:
. if the going rate for advertizing
depends on what the market will bear,
then unlimited private funding
could impede equal free speech
by making advertizing unaffordable .
. in that case,
public funding doesn't support
equal access to free speech;
what is needed is mass media quotas:
each party gets an equal amount of
donated mass media air time .
problems with this campaign:
. one thing that concerns me about this drive
is that its examples of "(Our gov' is bought)
include "(Bailouts. War. Unemployment.)
. I thought a jab at Bailouts
could only be meant to hypocritically attract
the Tea Party, who is focused only on
reducing federal power,
and not at all concerned with corruption
or lack of regulation ...
(well, that's not quite true!
the TeaParty is basically pro-lifer;
so, the election of a liberal pro-choice Obama
was a huge upset;
that's when they decided that the fed's
just didn't deserve to tax them .
. they want to strangle the fed',
and, since I believe the fed's are
the best place to regulate pollution;
I assert the TeaParty strangles regulation).
Bailouts were motivated by BigMoney?
. the Bailouts actually prevented Unemployment:
if you save the banks, you save the business cycle,
and that saved a lot of jobs .
. ok, so unemployment happened anyway,
but was it because of corruption?
or was it due to the very obstructionism
that is endorsed by a near-majority coalition of:
# Corporate Republicans(privatise everything),
# Christian Republicans(anti-liberal),
# the Tea Party(smaller fed) ?
. a depression is not the time to
reverse the deficit;
if you have good credit, then you should be
temporarily suspending capitalism,
and creating millions of gov'jobs .
. granted, that could hardly be temporary;
and, so Corporate Republican's do have
a reasonable case against doing that!
. people keep expecting gov' to
expand the economy
just so they can continue to
expand their population;
but, this is not sustainable;
because, we are in a high-tech new age
that simply needs fewer workers, not more;
so whatever fix the gov't provides
is one they will have maintain;
because,
they can't expect new-age capitalism
to ever generate those lost jobs .
Unemployment motivated by BigMoney?
. unemployment is caused by overpopulation,and utter lack of any consensual social contracts
to replace traditional extended family structures .
. BigMoney should not mind funding welfare
except that a free lunch is inevitably taken as
a ticket to reproduce more such poverty .
free parenting + capitalism = unemployment .
there are only 2 paths to full employment:
# isolate your markets from global competition,
trading only with those with same standards;
and controlling population .
# compete with China by
rolling back high standards of living
and controlling population .
. perhaps BigMoney does push for
completely global Labor-cheating trade
but they hardly do it without a majority
who appreciate the consumer value .
war is caused by BigMoney?
. while war is classically imposed by elites
upon an overpopulated Labor class;
most of usa's wars have been popular
esp'ly among religious groups and Zionists
whose archenemies are the communists
and anti-democratic islamic theocracies .
. perhaps BigMoney does push for
big contracts in nation-building;
or, are they simply supporting stable democracies
that promote more free markets?
conclusion:
. I do agree that this petition is
improving our democratic process;
but it can't save us from war or unemployment!
-- that hole is all in our head .
history of publicly funded elections:
. the idea was first introduced in 1907:
President Theodore Roosevelt recommended
public financing of federal elections
and a ban on private contributions.
. A subsidy formula would have determined
the amount of public funds available to eligible candidates.
. after President Nixon's campaign corruption;
Congress, for the first time, passed a bill for
public funding of presidential campaigns .
TeaParty's history on this issue:
House Votes To Abolish Public Financing:
. that House was TeaParty-motivated,
and reasons they gave for wanting to
end public financing of fed'elections
include:
# public financing costs taxpayers
$617 million over ten years,
# less than 10% of taxpayers choose to
contribute a few dollars of their income taxes to
the presidential campaign fund .
# President Barack Obama
became the first candidate in history
to decline federal funding in 2008.
--. the dem's point out that Reagan
relied heavily on public financing .
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