By Bill Moyers, Bernard Weisberger: Where Is the Outrage over Money in Politics?

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/where-outrage-over-money-politics

As the Republican National Convention roars on, the real outrage is happening behind closed doors--and no one is talking about it.




We might wish the uproar from the convention halls of both parties these busy weeks were the wholesome clamor of delegates deliberating serious visions of how we should be governed for the next four years. It rises instead from scripted TV spectacles — grown-ups doing somersaults of make-believe — that will once again distract the public’s attention from the death rattle of American democracy brought on by an overdose of campaign cash.

No serious proposal to take the money out of politics, or even reduce its tightening grip on the body politic, will emerge from Tampa or Charlotte, so the sounds of celebration and merriment are merely prelude to a funeral cortege for America as a shared experience. A radical minority of the super-rich has gained ascendency over politics, buying the policies, laws, tax breaks, subsidies, and rules that consolidate a permanent state of vast inequality by which they can further help themselves to America’s wealth and resources.

Their appetite for more is insatiable. As we write, Mitt Romney, after two fundraisers in which he raised nearly $10 million from the oil and gas industry, and having duly consulted with the Oklahoma billionaire energy executive who chairs the campaign’s energy advisory committee, has announced that if elected President, he will end a century of federal control over oil and gas drilling on public lands, leaving such matters to local officials more attuned to industry desires. Theodore Roosevelt, the first great advocate for public lands in the White House, would be rolling in his grave, if Dick Cheney hadn’t already dumped his bones in a Wyoming mining shaft during the first hours of the Bush-Halliburton administration.

We are nearing the culmination of a cunning and fanatical drive to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual and cultural frameworks that were slowly and painstakingly built over decades to protect everyday citizens from the excesses of private power. The “city on the hill” has become a fortress of privilege, guarded by a hired political class and safely separated from the economic pressures that are upending the household stability, family dynamics, social mobility, and civic life of everyday Americans.

[jamesatemple]

1. Wow! This article paints a grim picture.

But, I'm afraid that the possible consequences it predicts are accurate. The questions in my mind: Where can we find the will to make the changes necessary to prevent a sordid outcome? How can we mobilize the forces necessary to do so (money, citizenry, power)? And, most importantly, is it too late or are we too weak to effect the necessary changes?

[bemildred]

2. Hey, they are all businessmen, selling laws to the highest bidder is their business.

Socialize the costs and privatize the profits, that's the goal, and Mitt is totally the exemplar of that sort of "economics".

[Blue_Tires]

3. Citizens United helped start the avalanche

and we haven't even seen the worst of it yet...