tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3815669116611238697.post1413345335788041780..comments2023-10-23T10:09:53.540-07:00Comments on And The Question Is.....: Why Is It Always Greed That Triumphs Over All?lokywokyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07161829557049639875noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3815669116611238697.post-33381439950226623072011-04-26T10:46:25.223-07:002011-04-26T10:46:25.223-07:00@ David
The reason all politicians need so much f...@ David<br /><br />The reason all politicians need so much funding to run campaigns nowdays is due to the problem of audio-visual advertising. Although the airwaves are 'owned' by the public, since the death of the Fairness Doctrine, the public has lost any say over how those airwaves are regulated.<br /><br />All big media corporations are now free to - and do - charge many multiples of the price they normally charge per minute for political advertisements. It provides a revenue boom for them and they take advantage of it for all they are worth. Print advertisers do as well, just not to such an extreme.<br /><br />IMHO, the public should be put back in charge of the public airwaves. The campaign season should be shortened first of all - most other countries manage to do it in three months - not this endless thing we have going on. And second, A certain number of time slots should be made available to each candidate for advertising. They get to decide whether to use them in 15-seccond sound-bites or 15-minute story-telling, but the total amount of time would be equal among the candidates for each office. The media outlets would receive a lump sum payment that was based on their normal revenue for the time allotted. That would be it. <br /><br />Or what I like even better - the time would be free - it is after all, the PUBLIC airways.<br /><br />And finally, unions. Unions are not the same problem as big corporations. Big corporations tend to have sums of money that even the biggest unions cannot accumulate even in their wildest dreams. These big corporations are run by a very small group of very very wealthy people with an almost singular point of view. <br /><br />OTOH, unions are run by a democratically elected bunch of officials, usually people who have come up through the ranks and have been workers just like the ones they are representing. The workers represent all different political points of view - not just one. And the workers do have a say in how their dues get spent - if you don't believe me you have never attended a local union meeting.<br /><br />Unions get outspent in elections by about 7 or 8 to 1. Well they did before Citizens United. In the last election that went up to 10 to 1 and in 2012 I expect that ratio to more than double as the Republican Party has made its mission to destroy the few unions that are left and gear up their money machines now that all restrictions are off. So yes, I failed to address the 'problem' of unions - because there isn't one. Or at least not one that makes any difference in the grand scheme of things.lokywokyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07161829557049639875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3815669116611238697.post-67225979231066685462011-04-26T09:23:24.893-07:002011-04-26T09:23:24.893-07:00I agree with nearly all you wrote here. Up to the...I agree with nearly all you wrote here. Up to the 'Big Corporations and Rich Guys. Corruption is on both sides of the aisle. Can our President get re-elected without $1,000,000,000 in campaign money? Remember, he turned down public funding of his campaign because he could secure so much more otherwise.<br /><br />But my bigger question is this, can we push enough corruption out of politics if the politicians had to live by the rules they make for others? What would ObamaCare look like if they had to live under it as well?<br /><br />I like your idea of public funding, but Unions are just as much the problem and I get frustrated when bloggers like you fail to address this every time.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16454375508523770658noreply@blogger.com