Voter Disenfranchisement, Capitalism and Obama's Unprecedented Campaign Contributions

[Bonobo]

Obama's campaign has seen an unprecedented amount of cash coming from small donations. It has exceeded all hopes and expectations.Why? What does it signify? Is it merely the "rise of the internet"? Or is it something deeper. It must be remembered that these contributions are coming at a time when the average American is feeling very gloomy about the economy and are holding onto their dollars very tightly indeed.

My explanation is that as voters have been made to feel more disenfranchised and powerless (there are SO MANY ways that this has happened that it would be the subject of another thread), they have, as you might expect, turned to the ONLY WAY that they have been trained to feel that they get anything -through the power of the purse.

Simply put, confidence in the influence and effect of one's vote is down to almost nothing and, in a society where everything is for sale, people FEEL NATURALLY that money is the only thing that can influence the "system".

These contributions are telling a huge story that is being essentially ignored by the media.

These dollars are the cries (and screams) for help from the middle-class as we go down for perhaps the final time.

[Adelante]

1. It's OUR turn

Is what it is.

[Bonobo]

2. Dollars and votes=Bullets.

They may be rich, filthy rich.

But we outnumber them (barely).

[Selatius]

We have the votes, but in terms of money, we don't even come close.

They call it the L-curve:

http://www.lcurve.org/

If they thought Obama was as left wing as MLK was, they would have done something by now. Martin Luther King, even though history books conveniently omit it, was a democratic socialist.

[Bonobo]

4. Oh my lord.

Thank you for the link.

I was off by about 100 orders of magnitude.

[uponit7771]

3. I think the danger to what Obama's done is people like Russert spinning like he did this....

...weekend in saying Obama WAS taking contributions from lobbyist and their wives and CEOs etc (not verbatim).

Obama has sent a message to all who are willing to pay attention: Have a good message and a way to collect money from grass roots = a lot of money for elected office.

That to me means he's ALREADY changed Washington.

[Bonobo]

5. We shall what the condition of the "People's bullshit detector" is.

I have long suspected people have rather refined bullshit detectors, and the politicians and MSM have not yet realized it.

When someone tests it, as Obama is doing, he will either fail or succeed. In succeeding, he may accomplish a great deal in closing the "Media Gap".

[uponit7771]

6. True, Something to believe for!!