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| Source:PDX Justice- New-Left political journalist Greg Palast. |
From PDX Justice
In a liberal democracy like America, you want the people and that is everyone who can vote at least, be able to not only question, but lobby their public officials including Congress, the President, as well as their state and local public officials. Lobbying by itself is not a crime, a sin, or even a problem. Giving money to politicians, is not a crime, or sin, or a problem by itself.
It's when lobbying and financial contributions, go underground when politics goes underground it's when it becomes a problem. To use a hypothetical: When Senator Smith (or whoever) takes millions from the oil and gas industry and constantly votes against clean air standards and most people including the people who Senator Smith is supposed to represent, don't know that their Senator took all of that oil and gas money, then his or her voters don't know why their Senator is voting for big energy all the time and against clean air standards and they don't have the whole story.
The Senator Smith example is just a hypothetical, but if you're desperate for me to be bipartisan or even nonpartisan, how about Senator Jones who consistently votes against public choice and even public school choice and then it later turns out that Senator Jones takes millions of dollars from teacher unions who of course are against any school choice and even private schools at all. And of course Senator Jones constituents don't know about those campaign contributions.
In a liberal democracy like America, you want the people and that is everyone who can vote at least, be able to not only question, but lobby their public officials including Congress, the President, as well as their state and local public officials. Lobbying by itself is not a crime, a sin, or even a problem. Giving money to politicians, is not a crime, or sin, or a problem by itself.
It's when lobbying and financial contributions, go underground when politics goes underground it's when it becomes a problem. To use a hypothetical: When Senator Smith (or whoever) takes millions from the oil and gas industry and constantly votes against clean air standards and most people including the people who Senator Smith is supposed to represent, don't know that their Senator took all of that oil and gas money, then his or her voters don't know why their Senator is voting for big energy all the time and against clean air standards and they don't have the whole story.
The Senator Smith example is just a hypothetical, but if you're desperate for me to be bipartisan or even nonpartisan, how about Senator Jones who consistently votes against public choice and even public school choice and then it later turns out that Senator Jones takes millions of dollars from teacher unions who of course are against any school choice and even private schools at all. And of course Senator Jones constituents don't know about those campaign contributions.
People who are what I call blind or coin flip voters, people if so-called Voter ID laws ( which are really Democratic voter suppression laws ) have any use for at all it would be for non-educated voters. Not talking about people who didn't go to college or even finish high school. But people who don't know who they're voting for or against. Because they haven't done their homework on perspective political candidates. Perhaps their dog ate their homework, or perhaps they simply just fed their dog their homework. And decided not to do their homework, because they were too busy staring at their i-phone, or worried about missing their favorite reality TV show.
Again, I'm not against lobbying or even private sector and individual campaign contributions. It's when they're blind because either voters are too dumb and irresponsible to follow the money ( to use a cliche ) or the politician is not required under law to disclose those political contributions. And of course they wouldn't do it voluntarily especially if they have a consistent voting record backing the groups that they take money from.
Again, I'm not against lobbying or even private sector and individual campaign contributions. It's when they're blind because either voters are too dumb and irresponsible to follow the money ( to use a cliche ) or the politician is not required under law to disclose those political contributions. And of course they wouldn't do it voluntarily especially if they have a consistent voting record backing the groups that they take money from.
In any free and open liberal democratic society like America, you have to have disclosure and it has to be enforced responsibility, to prevent politicians from being bought. And you also need smart educated voters to hold their public officials accountable.
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