With what is going on in American politics these days with Super PAC’s, we really cannot call what we have DEMOCRACY anymore since in essence a select group of big money folks can gather together and buy themselves a President.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44402386/ns/politics-decision_2012
And, it’s all legal since the Supreme Court does OK it. I’d say it’s a pretty good reason many Americans have disengaged from the political process and don’t believe their vote matters.
If votes don’t matter, why do PACs spend so much money and effort trying to influence votes?
They flood the airwaves and shut down as much of the opposing discourse as is possible and lead unsuspecting folks to think that the information they’re giving them is the truth or the only information available on a candidate… then they and their corporations reap the benefits when that bought and paid for man becomes President.
For the most part, what they use their Super Pacs for is to tear down candidates with lies.
So is it the case that the vast majority of elected representatives in government today, from Barack Obama to Eric Cantor, and Bernie Sanders to Michelle Bachmann, are the people who corporate America conspired through campaign activities to put into office?
As ranty as the OP is, to be fair, all of those people were originally elected to office before the SCOTUS decision in the Citizens United case.
What I’m proposing is an acid test of what the OP says is going to happen. If current politicians of various stripes – Obama, Bachmann, Sanders, whomever – are already corporate stooges, then they should pretty much all be re-elected.
If they are not corporate stooges today, then one would suspect that most of them would be defeated in their re-election bids by the awesome power of Super PACs.
Actually the system is still democratic, in the sense that it is the voters who determine who gets to hold power. I am not aware of instances in which Super PACs are paying people to vote a certain way. If people choose to believe what the big money folks say, that’s still their choice as voters. It’s not as if the other candidates don’t have the ability to use the relatively inexpensive new technologies, not to mention the old-fashioned free press, to get their message out.
One more time really slow. Super PACs are brand new. They didn’t exist yet when any of those people were put into office.
Aaaahhhhh, got to be why these Super Duper PACs are going to spend a few Billion to get their man nominated so that they can then use the courst and other machinations to elect their President cos we know the one with the most votes does always win.
There is no question that the real problem with Democracy in America is our election process where the electorate may think they are getting the man they voted for only to find out that he’s been bought and paid for by a wealthy few to do their bidding.
This is not a Democracy.
Just because Super PACs are new does not exclude the possibility that the OP thinks that a few, some, most, or all politicians are not already corporate stooges.
Do you really think that nobody in the history of the United States thought that their elected leaders were in the pockets of Big Business until last year? Is that what you’re trying to say?
In relation to my earlier question, does this mean that you already think that most (perhaps all) politician who are currently in office are already in the pocket of corporations and big business?
Sure it is. You just don’t like the advertising, but that doesn’t make it “not democracy”. Funny thing about free speech-- you have to allow even the kind you don’t agree with.
This is a representative democracy.
It is incumbent upon us who advocate for those who have less to be more energetic than those who blindly follow those who have more to get our message out, it is true. But there is no law stating that the public must vote for the candidate who raises more money. If enough well-financed heels lose, we have a paradigm shift that no amount of campaign donations can touch.
It would be better if some voters among us did not fail to notice the difference between candidates who try (even if they initially fail!) to promote changes for the better and those who simply count on cynicism among those of us who want better to keep us home on election days so that those who are more hierarchially-minded as the ones who come out to vote.
As of yet, there is no law stating that the better-financed candidate has to win. Ask Carly Fiorina.
So much wrong with this it’s hard to know where to start.
You pre-suppose that corporations want those in office today to still be in office tomorrow.
You pre-suppose that no one in office today has done a poor job, for whatever reason of toeing the corporate line that you pre-suppose they are already toeing, and that thus the corporations they supposedly serve would not want them back in office.
You pre-suppose that all of those in office were already bought buy the corporations.
Your whole “acid test” depends on a litany of conditions that many pre-suppose will be brought about by entirely new conditions, but for some reason you think they are already in place.
Your premise, argument, conditions and conclusion are flawed. Go back to the drawing board and start with new crayons, please.
Are you able to design a falsifiable hypothesis on whether corporate overlords will end the system of government we’ve worked under for 225 years?
Plus, I’d ask the same question to you as I did to the OP: are most (if not all) of the current crop of elected politicians there by the grace of corporate masters? It seems like a rather simple yes or no question.
I might be able to, if it were something I was going to try. I’m not trying to, tho.
I’m sure it does seem like a simple yes or no question to you, and it might actually be. I don’t have enough information to even begin to think I could accurately answer such a question, tho.
Ah. So you have nothing useful to contribute, but just thought you’d drop in to criticize an effort to bring some rigor to debating the OP’s rather fantastic claim that democracy no longer exists in our country.
Thank you very much for your contribution. It has been given all the thought and consideration that it deserves.
I don’t know why you are having such trouble with this. The rules of the games have changed considerably in just the last few years. It’s not relevant what happened before the rules changed. You’re the only one stuck on that.
Sure it is relevant. If you want to say that something is getting worse, then you have to establish the state of things at present in order to make a comparison.
The OP clearly believes in this elementary feat of reasoning. Before, we had democracy. Then the rules changed. Now, there’s no democracy. I disagree with the premise, but the reasoning is sound.
So, I’m essentially asking: to what degree does corporate America control our government now? And, after the rules have changed, how can we measure how much more corporate America will control the government after the next election?
Y’all are making it out like I’m asking you to believe in palm reading and magick.
You’re putting waaaaay too much thought into analyzing the OP’s rant.