General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Party Loyalty [View all]cascadiance
(19,537 posts)I've seen efforts to try and get it pushed even through local ballot measures fail, because people just look at it (by direction of the media and other money people of course) as more "wasteful spending". What they don't realize until you ask them to think about it, is that they should ask themselves the question of why there would be so much "wasteful" campaign spending by private parties on our election, if they didn't expect to get MORE money and favors providing them more equivalent money and power back. The money we would put aside with public campaign financing would be a lot less than what politicians ultimately give back in terms of power and money to those who "contribute" (give BRIBES to) their campaigns! Ultimately we waste a lot more money and take away more power from our lives by not having a way to have campaigns paid for by means that doesn't corrupt the system.
It was sad for me to see just two days ago a local resolution to put in place public campaign financing in our local county democratic party meeting. Now, part of it was that I think the resolution could have been better written. Because we need to at this time be careful not to make it a REQUIREMENT to have all candidates be restricted from spending their own money or other donors' money without a choice of whether you are in the public campaign financing program. Because the opponents are right that the Supreme Court would overturn that in a day with their notions that "money is free speech". We already have to find ways of creatively working around the present SCOTUS decisions to take away the matching fund rules that Arizona had in its public campaign financing system some years back that really limits publicly financed candidates against well financed candidates that are privately financed.
I think we really need to seek out those events where communities come together and work against the corporate oligarchy that can, if we publicize them in a strategic way, seek to unite us in different parties on important issues, and not use other issues that have been amplified in our environment to divide us.
That's why I think Elizabeth Warren really needs to run. I think she's been very strategically smart in focusing on the huge issues of banking industry and other corporate influence accountability and others like student loan debt, that I really thinks is a huge bipartisan issue that is unrealized yet as being such because the media intentionally avoids talking about it with its ownership and lack of regulatory bodies today. She's also been smart to not focus too heavily on social issues, so that she can't be pigeon holed on one side and have opposition focusing on those issues rather than ones that she can appeal to the masses on. Much as I love Sanders and would love him as president, I think that he would be too vulnerable with his stances on many issues to getting slammed by a focused corporate media attack.
I think that ultimately that Elizabeth Warren will support many of the social issue stances we have too, but I think most important is that she supports a system where nation is all allowed to speak on these issues, and that it supports inherent rights to NATURAL persons that our constitution supports as well, which I think ultimately a majority of reasonable Americans (right or left or in the middle) really want to happen.
I think we must keep dreaming, and we can't give up hope either. If we do, we lose our democracy. We just need to work and look hard for ways to find and support paths to the future that we want.