Just felt like venting. There is a lot of complaining going on about the biasing of news organizations and the inaccessibility of quality information on candidates, legislation, etc. There is also a lot in the realm of opinion that makes the statement: “I can’t do anything about it, and ‘my vote doesn’t count.’ However, the truth is this; you do not need unbiased news. You need to know how to decide fact from rhetoric in any news story. If you cannot do that, you have no business reading or listening to anything (or being human for that matter). Here is the problem with a republic, it requires an informed and motivated public to have meaningful discourse (not the sensationalizing of non-issues and the inability to compromise or collaborate due to party or non-party loyalties). This problem is why we probably will not keep a republic for much longer. We are not motivated to put the work into understanding the world beyond a propaganda machine. We forget who has the power to change the status-quo and how they change it. There are those people who still remember where the power is, even if we have forgotten. The FEC claims that all 2012 campaign spending equaled 7 billion dollars (this includes dark money). That is approximately 70% of the federal deficit in October of that same year. All 7 billion dollars went towards one goal, to influence and control voting behavior of the American public. This proves a simple point. Before ‘they’ can ‘buy’ a politician, ‘they’ have to ‘buy’ us first. For those of you who want some direction on where to start trying to make a difference here is some info for you. Do what you want with it. Everyone else, its a free country complain and do nothing all you want. • News: The only thing the news is good for is to let you know what is going on. North Korea is being belligerent, There was a shooting in this state, or this is what is going on in the Middle East, etc. Do not get bogged down in opinion focus on the factual elements of the news report. Forget the rest. • Sources of Information: If you want to know about some piece of legislation, you hear about on the news (i.e. Obama Care or the Patriot Act). Then you should look those bills up though the Library of Congress. Before anyone mentions the difficulty in reading laws I will remind you that it is in English and that if you run into a word that you do not know and you do not have a dictionary handy you can always go to merriam-webster to start with. If you want to know about a candidate, (a good thing to know besides their platforms and political ideology is their historic voting record) There are websites you can visit. Here are a just a few good sources of non news information: o house.gov/ o senate.gov/ o thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php o census.gov/# o fedstats.gov/ Now, how can we change things? That is a bit easy; vote. FEDERAL: 1/3 of the Senate is up for reelection every 2 years. Therefore, every two years the Senate can change 33% of its body. In the House, all 435 seats (If I’m current on the number of Reps.) are up for election every 2 years as well. This means that over half or our Federal Legislative body is elected every two years. And of course we all know the President is every 4 years. STATE Every state has a website that will tell you how many members it has in its legislative body and what the legislative process is. You should also read your state constitution. About 26 states use initiative/referendum process that is a popular ballot on legislation. This in those 26 states there is legislation that the people directly vote on and not the lawmakers. This whole thing only works with an informed and active citizenry. I also recommend you make your decisions and form your opinions logically and by thinking in terms of what is good for the country or the state or the people. Try not to think of red or blue and left or right. This is your mark not somebody else’s. You should make it count.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 00:12:19 +0000
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