Soaring PAC donations may fund a shocking $6 billion 2012 election

[G_j]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/03/pac-donations-fund-6-billion-2012-election/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Soaring PAC donations may fund a shocking $6 billion 2012 election
By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, November 3, 2011

One year before the November 2012 elections, White House hopefuls are awash in more money than ever before, thanks to new federal laws loosening restrictions on campaign fundraising and spending.

Money has always been a necessary lubricant for any successful US political campaign, and some observers estimate the 2012 elections — presidential and legislative — could carry a $6 billion price tag.

American candidates know well that one of their most important responsibilities is raising campaign cash. But that won’t be a problem for some of the 2012 presidential campaigns, thanks in part to the advent of powerful money-making groups called “super PACS.”


The super PACs — ramped up “political action committees” — are flooding campaign coffers and rewriting the rules on how candidates raise cash.

..more..

[classysassy]

1. Democracy my ass

the wealthy citizens own this country and its citizens,we are the new surfs.The castles are protected by moats aka congress.Their property the banks are also protected by the police,we the people are here to serve and serve at cut rates.I predict in twenty years there will be zero unions in America and most workers will make less then two dollars an hour,we will not have access to our congress men and women,,capital hill will be a fortress protected by the military,laugh at my predictions if you dare but that day is very real and near.

[Douglas Carpenter]

2. this is like the final nail in the coffin of anything that anyone can plausibly call democracy

Of course washing politics through and through with money so that only moneyed interest have any say in matters of government is nothing new. It has been with us for some time. But now the scale of it must surely remove any rational claim that we live in anything that any reasonable person can possibly call a democracy.

[sabrina 1]

3. And that is the root cause of all of our problems and the

reason for the Occupy Wall Street Movement. This is obscene, and before anything can be done for the American people, this poison has to be removed from the political system.

A political market-place, everything, I mean, everyone is for sale. And the competition for those dollars must fierce. How many promises do candidates make regarding what laws they will support the passage of to get their hands on some of that money?

The rotten roots of our political system are right there in that report.

The first step towards fixing this problem will have to be taken by the people. There will have to be a huge movement to make Money from Corporations POISON for any candidate. There are many ways this can be done, but the goal should be that no candidate will want to risk being called a 'Wall Street Candidate'.

Disgusting, undemocratic, and the reason why we have Democrats now joining Republicans to push legislation that will cut Social Programs. It is not because there is a crisis with these programs, it is part of the Global Capitalist Plan to destroy social programs which they view as money wasted which could be used in the Big Casino known as Wall Street.

[G_j]

4. +1000

obscene, rotten and poisonous... and absolutely tragic..

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Yup.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Time for Demarchy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarchy

Demarchy (or lottocracy) is a form of government in which the state is governed by randomly selected decision makers who have been selected by sortition (lot) from a broadly inclusive pool of eligible citizens. These groups, sometimes termed "policy juries", "citizens' juries", or "consensus conferences", deliberately make decisions about public policies in much the same way that juries decide criminal cases.

Demarchy, in theory, could overcome some of the functional problems of conventional representative democracy, which is widely subject to manipulation by special interests and a division between professional policymakers (politicians and lobbyists) vs. a largely passive, uninvolved and often uninformed electorate. According to Australian philosopher John Burnheim, random selection of policymakers would make it easier for everyday citizens to meaningfully participate, and harder for special interests to corrupt the process.

More generally, random selection of decision makers from a larger group is known as sortition (from the Latin base for lottery). The Athenian democracy made much use of sortition, with nearly all government offices filled by lottery (of full citizens) rather than by election. Candidates were almost always male, Greek, educated citizens holding a minimum of wealth and status.

In the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario, a group of citizens was randomly selected to create a Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform to investigate and recommend changes to the provinces' electoral systems. The Old Order Amish use a combination of election and sortition to select church leaders; men receiving two or three nominations to fill a vacancy (the number varies by district) are then asked to select a psalm book containing a slip of paper, one of those slips being marked to indicate who will take on the burden of the position.

[rjj621]

7. That's disgusting

Politicians from both sides of the aisle are bought and paid for. When you have that much cash to get elected you owe a LOT of favors that are likely NOT in the best interest of the country and average citizen.

[justiceischeap]

8. Think of all the jobs they could create with that money. nt

[xchrom]

9. Kick