There are a lot of problems in America: anyone who is paying attention can quickly rattle off a handful of social and economic issues in need of tremendous reform efforts. Traditionally, we have focused on fixing these problems through government action and envision elections as a primary means of dictating our course of action. By most accounts, though, this strategy has failed. Elections have often produced candidates who are unsatisfying or worse, and even when progressive legislation is attempted, it is often watered down through regulatory or judicial channels. In my view, the key element that stymies progress -- whether through elections or effective legislation -- is the amount of money in politics. The ability to curry favor with influential people gives a decided advantage to powerful, monied interests with very little recourse for the everyday person. Movements like Occupy Wall Street strive to bring this issue to the fore, but significant campaign finance regulations have been few and far between. In this longread, Andy Kroll of Mother Jones traces the history of campaign finance reform and reveals many of the key players who circumvent it at every turn.
"Follow the Dark Money" by Andy Kroll
Published in Mother Jones, July/August 2012
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/history-money-american-elections
Eric
Looks like the same story over and over...it's never going to stop I think what would be good would be to determine what is done with that money. A lose lose culture of negativity and image has been created with zero focus on issues. Imagine if that money was used to inform and drive positive change as opposed to tear down.
ReplyDeleteThe more you read about this stuff, the more it really does feel like beating your head against the wall. So much of this money is poured into TV spots (think of the windfall for local news stations, for example) and all other manners of advertising for campaigns.
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote in the introduction to the article, I think solving the problem of money in politics is the lynchpin to broader progressive reform. There are many issues to deal with, but I think campaign finance reform is necessary to effectively take most of those on. I'm going to try to find some other articles that look in more detail at proposed solutions. Hopefully I'll get some of those up on the blog sooner rather than later.
Eric
As the article states though in any law/rule there will be loopholes...Until people stop exploiting (which won't happen) you won't be able to close it which is why influencing behavior and how the money is used could be valuable.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I follow. What is an example of how you would influence behavior and how the money is used?
ReplyDeleteEric
I don't know i haven't put any thought into how it would be done...however continually closing loopholes to see the exact same problems pop up doesn't seem to be working really well so i would say finding different solutions would be helpful. every behavior and be influenced and in this case the behavior is using money to be destructive, my thought would be change that so it is being used in constructive fashions. there are people that spend their careers on this issue, i'm new to it and off hand don't have a lot of thoughts
ReplyDelete