Friday, January 29, 2010

Murray Hill Corporation running for Congress - by David

Murray Hill Corporation for Congress
Thank you Supreme Court!  Maybe now, finally, it's time for the American people to really start talking about the power of "special interests" in our democratic political system. Rest assured that Murray Hill Corp's run for political office is "fake". But let's take it as a call to action before it's too late. Right now, as it is, special interest money is so powerfully ingrained in our system that corporations, churches, professional organizations, business organizations, social clubs, and unions might as well be allowed to run for office. They already own the system.

Here's the problem. First, too many people are oblivious blobs, representing themselves as politically astute, yet beholden to news sources controlled and funded by those very same special interests. Second, still more are aware, yet feel that as long as THEIR personal special interest has a dog in the fight, everything will work out to their advantage. Third, and worse still, are those that believe their own personal special interest is NOT a special interest, while everyone else's is.

There's nothing, nada, zip, zilch, NOTHING wrong with having or being a "special interest". Every individual is his/her own special interest. Every corporation, church, professional organization, business organization, social club, and union is a collection of special interests that represent a collection of individual special interests. Fine.

So let's get special interest money out of our so-called democracy. It's time to stop the bickering and name-calling. It's time to re-establish, once and for all, that corporations, churches, professional organizations, business organizations, social clubs, and unions are not persons. It's time for voter financed (publicly financed) elections.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Another Great Moment, and Why It's Happening - by David


They just won't stop! President Obama is being roundly criticized for waiting 3 days before publicly responding to the Underwear Bomber incident. Is there a historical standard for how many days a president should wait? Yes, there is! President George W. Bush waited 6 days to publicly respond to the Shoe Bomber incident.

Face it. There is a blatant, well organized smear campaign to discredit anything and everything that can be even remotely connected to the current administration. Three days vs. six days does not matter. To Rush "I Hope He Fails" Limbaugh and the rest of the "right-wing" there is both no time and no need to vet such trivial data. It's all about the quantity and the volume. They know that a lot of it will get through to the lazy, intransigent, and uncaring among us.

Is this administration the first to suffer such a campaign? Of course not! There was a well established newspaper and radio campaign against Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930's. The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (1943) was one of the first (if not the first) neo-conservative "think tanks" to act as a collection point for special interest monies, and a leader in such campaigns. The number of such organizations exploded during and after the Nixon administration. Most of us now have forgotten (or never even knew!) the impact of these special interest organizations on the Carter and the Clinton administrations.

Is there a counterpart situation to this on the left? If you think there is, Id love to hear about it.