March 19, 2009
ANP senior producer Harry Hanbury set out to visit every Congressional fundraising party on Capitol Hill in a single day. He met a cast of characters in the process, encountered more worthless spin than could fit into a one-hour press conference, and ended up wondering if fundraising — not legislating — was the true work of Washington.
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As a non-American may I point out that that many or probably most other countries do not allow such a system of money-based influence over political representatives. There are political systems extant elsewhere that could provide a model for a more effectively representative system.
Freedom must be actively maintained. The US is – regrettably – no longer a model of political freedom to the world because its formerly effective institutions have been subverted by moneyed interests over decades, and spin, the withholding of facts and barefaced lying have taken the place of substance. The wealth of America has become concentrated markedly in the top few per cent in recent years, via policies undertaken deceitfully in the name of freedom. The world has woken up to this. The US, with its main media owned by the same people who benefited from the policies that promoted their gain in wealth, apparently has not.
The US needs a revised political paradigm right now, to be created and discussed and promoted by thoughtful readers of this and similar forums, because it will be too late to create one when a slowly rising public realisation that it has been betrayed reaches a boiling point in some not too distant time, probably in fewer than five years.
If some viable new American paradigm can soon be born and nurtured, there is a possibility that a more authentic and more inclusive American political model, one already discussed and promoted over years, may exist in the future as an alternative to some savage and authoritarian response to the carefully engineered monetary / political crisis that threatens the end of political freedoms in America.
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They’re dirty, filthy, slimy, scum bags, in the pocket, time to throw them all out, baby too.
“We went to Washington to change washington”, but the money in Washington is easy, so compromise is a nesscesity.
Serious campaign financing needs to take place. The politicians bow to their corporate sponsors, not we, the people. Shameful.