Politics in the USA is a circus in a cesspool.
The circus is the clowns you get as candidates for public office-the cesspool is the money that sloshes around and floats the whole system. The Koch brothers and other assorted 1% worthies intend to use the Citizens United court decision to finally turn the USA into the Potterville of “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
When Benjamin Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention of 1787 he was asked by a woman what type of government they were to have and he responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Jump forward to 2016 and he seems like a colonial Nostradamus. But John F Kennedy said that “Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man.”
Let me offer a simple JFK style solution to complex campaign finance laws that block the voice of the people from being heard:
Only individual persons who are US citizens can donate money to a candidate for public office, and individual persons can only donate money to candidates for public office that they are eligible to vote for.
Now that doesn’t solve the problems in the presidential race but it would have a hell of an impact on elections for Congress. The Koch brothers could only buy one congressman and two senators each, instead of buying them all in bulk.
Just a thought:
1. Since Congress passed a law making it a crime to lie to a federal investigator, shouldn’t they pass another law making it a crime for a member of Congress to lie to the American people?
2. Too much secrecy? Every government document that is classified must be signed by the person who classified it and classifications can only be for 5 years. And why can a corporation hide its’ true owners?
3. Big banks too big to fail? I don’t think so. There are 12 geographically located Federal Reserve districts in the USA that “supervise banks”. Pick a district-any district-but you can only operate in one.
4. And finally-all federal judges must take Senior Status at 75 years of age. That means that they can still work as judges; just not sit on the Appellate Courts or the Supreme Court. They tend to get a tad crotchety after 75-and congress can do that with a simple law.
Depressed enough?
Sorry about that, nobody ever said that change was easy. I don’t want to leave you totally bummed out, so the best .99 cent book on Amazon is “The Birds of Baghdad.” And try Tulley’s French Roast coffee-it’ll snap your head back in the morning and get you ready to go out and slay some dragons, or take back your country.
Frances's grandson
marie.frances,[email protected]
in the belly of the beast-Washington DC