Hightower -- Here's who is buying America's democracy

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/2603

In 1986, Richard Kimball, a Democratic state legislator in Arizona, was running for a US Senate seat. In a televised debate, he did something that absolutely astonished his opponent and completely confounded his campaign consultants: He looked directly into the camera and spoke the truth about the money corruption of big-time American politics.

"Understand what we do to you," Kimball said to viewers. "We spend all of our time raising money, often from strangers we do not even know. Then we spend it in three specific ways: First we measure you, what it is you want to purchase in the political marketplace--just like Campbell's soup or Kellogg's cereal. Next, we hire some consultants who know how to tailor our image to fit what we sell. Lastly, we bombard you with the meaningless, issueless, emotional nonsense that is always the result. And whichever one of us does that best will win."



Unfortunately for Kimball he was not the best bamboozler on the ballot--he lost big to John McCain, who's presently in his 25th year as an Arizona senator. Ironically, McCain himself became a champion of campaign finance reform for a while. But he totally abandoned that pose about three years ago and has now wedged himself tightly into his senate seat with the very same kind of special interest campaign cash and vacuous politicking that Kimball had so rightly condemned.

The corporate money of 1986 was like a light drizzle compared to the torrential downpour in last year's congressional elections. And, sure enough, the 2010 campaigns (including McCain's ugly re-election bid) bombarded voters with a level of "meaningless, issueless, emotional nonsense" that even Kimball could not have imagined. Nor has this ridiculous, inherently corrupting campaign money system come anywhere near its full power--a tsunami of corporate cash is already rising for 2012.

Much more at the link --

[SpiralHawk]

1. Republicon Occult Black-Ops Mindf*ckery of America

Is what it is.

Something wicked this way has come.

[highplainsdem]

2. K&R. I wish I could rec this 1,000 times.

[CrispyQ]

3. Great chart at the link.

I love Hightower.

[The Doctor.]

4. We're in deep shit, and the teabagger/wingnut/cons are too brainwashed

to help, much less get out of the way.

They can't wrap their tiny little brains around the ugly reality.