Potter and Penniman: “The System Is Rigged Against Regular People ( Nation on the Take )

[Jefferson23]

In their new book, Nation on the Take, Wendell Potter and Nick Penniman portray a government and politics polluted by big corporate dollars. But the authors also offer solutions.

By Michael Winship | March 18, 2016

Few are as qualified to tackle the massive topic of money in politics as Wendell Potter and Nick Penniman. Their new book, Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy (read an excerpt), is a comprehensive and important examination of the many ways our lives are affected by the stranglehold corporations have on our government and society. And it’s a look at how we can fight back.

Wendell Potter is senior analyst at the Center for Public Integrity, an ex-newspaperman and a former executive with the health insurance industry who dared to come in from the cold and become one of our most knowledgeable and forthright champions of health care reform. Regulars here at BillMoyers.com will remember his 2009 appearance on Bill Moyers Journal, when he first told his remarkable story.

Nick Penniman, a former journalist, was co-founder and director of the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, publisher of Washington Monthly and founder of the American News Project. He is executive director of Issue One, a bipartisan group working to reduce the influence of money in politics and to put everyday citizens back in control of our country.

Our conversation began with Wendell and Nick talking about how their book Nation on the Take came to be. Listen using the streaming audio above, or read the transcript, slightly edited for clarity, below.



TRANSCRIPT
Wendell Potter
Nation on the Take
Credit: Emily Potter

Wendell Potter: I guess I’m known most for leaving my job in the insurance industry and becoming an advocate for health care reform. And it became pretty clear to me toward the end of that health care reform debate that nothing would really get done that really benefits consumers in the way that it should until we do something about money in politics.

My first book, Deadly Spin, began to explain why we didn’t get the health care reform that we needed and so this book that Nick and I have written goes a bit beyond that and also looks at other industries and it attempts to connect the dots to show how big money in politics affects us on a daily basis.

Nick Penniman: I came to this because I had spent more than a decade in Washington doing long form reporting and investigative reporting as a publisher and magazine editor. And most of the good stories that we did ultimately led back to some policy dysfunction, which ultimately led back to money in politics. It was a combination of that and watching the sausage making around Obamacare and around the attempt at financial reform that made me realize that we’ve reached a point in this country in which the money power is so significant that it’s hard to truly fix anything. So Wendell and I, after many soulful discussions about this, decided to team up and do this book.

Michael Winship: It’s a stunning indictment of the corrosive influence of money in politics. In the introduction, you have a sentence, “We the people are losing our faith in the dream of democracy as our collective power is increasingly eclipsed by a rigged system of politics and governance dominated by a handful of billionaires and a phalanx of well-financed special interests.” Which is quite a statement.

in full: http://billmoyers.com/story/potter-and-penniman-the-system-is-rigged-against-regular-people/

[Armstead]

1. I used to live in a townhouse near the Capitol

I wonder if that's now one of these offices....OT I realize but an excuse for a kick

[Jefferson23]

2. I appreciate the kick..it won't change the minds of Hillary supporters but I always post

for those who lurk and hopefully will reconsider voting Sanders.

[Armstead]

3. That whole matrix of interlocking interests is IMO exactly what this election is about

Hillary will keep it in place. Encourage the public to ignore it, Let it continue to metastasize.

Sanders will at least shine a light on it, and put public pressure on to throw it off. That's what the "political revolution" is about, IMO.

[Jefferson23]

4. That's exactly what this movement is about, we'll get there eventually. Hillary represents

the worst of neo-liberalism, she is not alone of course...but she is the one
vying for the WH.