Broken Promises And Business As Usual

this snippet caught my eye, toward the end of the column:

"Some say serious campaign finance reform is the answer but the current system grew out of the post-Watergate "reforms" of the 70s. [emphasis mine' Reform will not fix our problems and neither will a few resignations or a handful of convictions. The system is rotten to the core and the rot is too widespread to just be cut out and thrown away."

i'd like to request some of the more "seasoned" folks here on BB, who were adult and politically sentient in that era, to chime in with some historical perspective. did the current system for finance reform really start with Watergate?

i was but a wee moppet back then; the quickie sound-byte summations of the reverberations of Watergate leave out so much historical context.

Watergate wasn't about campaign finance issues. Watergate was about using the power of incumbency to punish one's political enemies and retain power.

Campaign finance reform is a separate issue, though it's related. Both parties are guilty. It's not about Democrats vs. Republicans, it's about incumbents vs. "the other." The person in office to begin with has an unfair advantage over any challenger because he or she is already positioned to influence policy. "Give me money, because I know how to GET THINGS DONE (meaning, I can do what you need me to do to advance your selfish interests)."

The challenger has no such power...all he or she can do is say, "I'll change the culture." But that means fighting an entrenched system, wherein the people with seniorty have the power. "Mr. Smith can go to Washington," but the system he confronts when he gets there favors entrenched interests.

Either term limits must be imposed (who will vote for that?), or the seniority system must be scrapped (who has the power to do that?). Money follows power, and money at once creates power. It's a vicious circle.

When labor unions had power, there was at least a balance. Big labor vs. big business. Now the unions are weak, and business has control. Don't ever think for one minute that any corporate honcho will place the public interest over his own financial interest. Won't happen, folks. Not ever.

Robert Lockwood Mills #3 said:

"Don't ever think for one minute that any corporate honcho will place the public interest over his own financial interest."

But that's not what Sam Walton and company tell us! - "Walmart is great for the community" don't you Know!

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IF YOU MISSED IT...

This Is Some GREAT WRITING by Georgia

PLEASE READ THIS and THEN DO SOMETHING

... On Saving This Government

by georgia10 Sun Jan 08, 2006 at 06:45:34 PM PDT

http://www.dailykos.com/...ory/2006/1/8/204534/2589

Also a Link at
http://www.RogerART.com

Thank U, RogerART.com
.

Good news for the trolls!!!!

Law has been changed so trolling on message boards and harassment now means jail time!!!

I guess that means Ann Coulter and all the crazed fake christians really CAN go to jail like Michael Scanlon now, and its *NOT* just a figure of speech!!!!

Keep it up trolls, the eyes are watching everything.

Doug Eldritch

Congressman Bob Ney is/was chairman of the House Administration Committee.

He has single-handedly kept Congressman Rush Holt's bills, HR 2239 (from 2003) and HR 550 (now) hostage in committee, so that they could not be voted on.

Let's hope this means that soon he won't be able to block voter verified paper ballots anymore. Of course, there is Chris Dodd and Steny Hoyer, democrats against voter verified paper ballots.

Oh darn that Corporepublicrat party!

Bob Ney, Chris Dodd, Steny Hoyer made sure this bill got squashed in committee

Read about how Bob Ney created HAVA

Corrosive corruption in Ney's office

They all are going to get whats coming to them, and the voting machine issue aka HR-550 will finally be voted on.

Doug E.

Wayne Madsen Report is on the mark with this:

January 6, 2006 --- The faux "liberals" and Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), Fox-viewing neo-cons over at Democratic Underground and Daily Kos won't like this but WMR has been cited by the venerable French Communist Party newspaper L'Humanite. Time for neo-con trolls over at those two "liberal" web sites to put their "liberal" credentials on the table or shut up. (They know who they are, some of these neo-con lickspittles and poppinjays go by screen names like Meteor Blades, DHinMI, tritium, leveymg, GTPinNJ, Shumard, Lestatdelc, mcjoan, Skinner, and deepthroat). [Can someone help WMR identify these people? Find out where they work. Who pays them? What are their agendas? To what political campaigns they've been attached? Are they even U.S. citizens or possibly dual nationals? They've viciously attacked some of WMR's most reliable sources, people with years of experience in the intelligence and military communities. Now its payback time]. [Thanks to a reader, we are told that "Skinner" at DU is one David Allen. Another reader has discovered that "Meteor Blades" also uses an email address that may include his actual name, T. Lee Lange. This is a good start].