Super-Disaster Tuesday Ahead

The excerpt below is posted with the full knowledge and permission, even encouragement, of the author, who wants his essays to be read by as many people as possible. From The Hill:

Super-Disaster Tuesday ahead

By Brent Budowsky

It is time to revolt.

Progressives, conservatives, reformers, and all who believe America faces serious challenges that require serious discussion should open their windows, as Howard Beale suggested in the movie “Network,” and say: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Super-Disaster Tuesday warps our presidential campaign into another travesty of democracy: First, the early stage of the campaign turns presidential candidates into carnival barkers for the obscene amounts of campaign money that now dominate and distort our democracy.

I know countless members of the House and Senate, as well as would-be presidents, who are disgusted with the lifestyle of perpetual fundraising. The American people are appalled by the corrupting power of mass money over a system whose integrity they no longer trust, and whose corruption they will no longer tolerate.

Second, virtually all of these Iraqi-like tons of cash will be dumped into our living rooms, compressed into a period of days, through a massive deluge of television commercials drenched with negativity, character attacks and smears.

Finally, almost any weird, strange, sick, crazy, extreme, unexpected event occurring in the hours before Super-Disaster Tuesday will totally dominate the outcome; and of course there will be no rational process of discussion or response to any such last-minute event…

We now have the near-total domination of money over our democracy, and the near-total domination of television over our politics…

Brent Budowsky is a former aide to U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), then chief deputy whip of the U.S. House. He is a contributing editor to the Fighting Dems News Service and posts regularly The Hill’s Pundits Blog. Brent can be reached at brentbbi@webtv.net.

Click the title of the article, above, to read Brent’s solution to the problem of Super Tuesday. And send a message about this essay to letters@thehill.com. If your letter is good enough to be published, it may be read by your senators and congressman!

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Our government has morphed into one of the corporations, by the corporation, and for the corporations and we scarcely have much of a representative leadership or legislature.

With compromised transparancy and accountability with a voting technology, how this all can be corrected is an enormous challenge of which far too few are focused.

I'm prayin' that'll change very soon.

Thanks for posting and K & R'd

All is for naught if our votes aren't counted as cast. No amount of campaign reform is gonna change that.

There is some movement towards a correction in how votes are counted, but if we can't get more DUers working toward that end then progress will cease.

How to make a difference? Each one of us needs to go to our local elections office and poke around, ask questions, and demand accuracy and accountability. Believe me, it works. The effort will bare fruits.

The vote you save may be your own.

Odd that this thread isn't garnering more responses.

And I know you've done your part.

Did you know today is a good day to prune to encourage growth?

People are apparently tired of important things.

Howard Dean is at this very moment in France, and is, among other things,
checking out the French system of campaign financing (all get the same,
and it's publicly financed). They are highly innovative with their use
of the net and videos on the net to compensate, and both major US parties
are taking good note of it. The Republicans are not deaf to the calls from
our side for major election reform, and they know full well that as of January,
2009, there is a good chance some of it might get enacted into law.

gets to cash-in for being good lackeys to King George. Anyone attempting to oppose this corrupt administration must do likewise or sink like a stone.

Made possible by a corporate media that puts the party line and bottom line over truth and justice.

I wish this issue would bust out and get massive support and attention.

The overall campaign/election/media complex is obviously the issue that determines all others. Long as money for commercials determines the outcome, long as we do not have a fully transparent and guaranteed way of counting (and private corps control the counting), all other dreams of change are just dreams.

for using our airwaves for free all these years. That would solve the problem.

Only the Government can do something that powerful. And we don't have one right now. Whoever we get in 08 better be damned prepared to change our election structure. (Edwards!)

two incredibly unrepresentative states, deciding who gets to run for president. They are more rural, more conservative, and more ethnically non-diverse than the nation, and yet they have a veto on who runs for president.

Having big states move up is bad, but the current situation is worse. The best solution would be to persuade Iowa and New Hampshire to postpone their primaries/caucuses, rather than have big states move up. Maybe this is a bargaining chip that will cause IA and NH to rethink their stupid schedule.

Public financing of all campaigns and paper ballots.

Simple, no?

These two things would do more to clean up politics than anything else. No need to whore for money and all the votes get counted. Then we can move on to the last part of the trifecta - corporate immortality and personhood.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

First, how do you compel someone to accept public funding? I believe you'd need a constitutional amendment limiting the 1st Amendment to accomplish this.

Second, how do you prevent interested third-parties from buying airtime or newspaper ads? Again, you'd need a constitutional amendment limiting the 1st Amendment.

Third, there is a real political problem in convincing Americans that their tax money should be used to pay for all campaigns.

compressed primary schedule? Fate? Confluence of events?

Hmmmmm. Does anyone benefit? Someone must. Seems like it must be folks who value power more than principle. Who could that be?

Anyone?

... the big liberal states got upset about the Democratic nominee being chosen by Iowa and New Hampshire. Those states don't exactly represent the whole country. Once a few states moved their primaries up, more of them piled on.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

bonus, this makes Dr. Dean's 50 state strategy worthless, something the corporations and the OG power brokers have always hated and tried to stop.
:kick: & R

from a large one-day primary, but I don't understand calling it "un-democratic". People still get to vote.

... because only people who have already built national name recognition and a huge war chest will be able to run.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com