Gary Younge catches this moment in American politics well today at the Guardian -- the moment, that is, when the next round of $$$ is just starting to flood into the political system. The fact is that we now seem to be moving from what, back in 2012, I called the !% election to the .01% election. Its an amazingly inane and bizarre development, but certainly a boon for the wealthiest Americans (and for TV outfits which are going to float in a sea of dough in the $3-4 billion presidential election of 2016)! Tom The finance chairman of the Republican national committee, Ray Washburne, travelled to Chicago last Wednesday to solicit money from two big funders who had reached their donation limit for this election cycle. While he was on the plane, the supreme court ruled that there would no longer be any limits. Washburne told the New York Times that when he landed and heard the news, he said: Eureka. He came back with promises of more cash. Its the American Way. Just as the constitution ostensibly requires that AK47s be available on demand, it was also apparently designed to open the sluicegates to money in politics, until the entire landscape is flooded with cash and cynicism and the border between what is unethical and what is legal is washed away. Its what the funding fathers intended. There are lots of areas of American society that could do with more money: preschools, infrastructure, mental health clinics, homeless shelters. The one place its not needed is in politics. theguardian/commentisfree/2014/apr/06/money-bought-elections-us-donation-rules
Posted on: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 15:32:22 +0000