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red dog 1

(27,820 posts)
Fri Jun 5, 2015, 06:25 PM Jun 2015

Join the spreading rebellion against the Big Money political game -- by Jim Hightower

Jim Hightower
June 5, 2015

I think we can all agree that news stories about the ever-rising flood of big money in politics do not tend to have a lot of laughs in them.

But a recent item from the New York Times unintentionally got a guffaw from me.
It was a seriously serious piece about how Karl Rove's Super-PAC of corporate political cash has been surpassed both in cash and clout by the billion-dollar electioneering network of the Koch brothers.
The reporter stated that the Kochs have "leapfrogged" Rove.
There's nothing factually funny in that, but the image of the multi-billionaire brothers, Charles and David, laughing and leaping over a bent-over Karl Rove is the delightfully-ridiculous stuff of slapstick.

In fact, today's whole political game, run by an absurdist's nightmare of moneyed elites,
is ridiculous -- a game in which corporations are people and money is magically empowered to speak; candidates trek to the corporate suites and secret retreats of the rich, shamelessly selling their political souls; super-wealthy interests clandestinely pump unlimited sums of money into disgustingly-negative campaign ads that turn off most voters; candidates "win" with only a small minority of the electorate choosing them; winners then claim to have a democratic mandate to enact the plutocratic agenda.

This could be hilarious in a slapstick routine, but it's tragic in a country with democratic aspirations.
But don't despair; for a backlash is building all across the country among voters who're fed up with the money-rigged game that excludes them.

One group called the New Hampshire Rebellion is bird-dogging presidential candidates in that state to demand action to get Big Money out of politics.
To help start your own rebellion, you can get a free, on-line toolkit from these modern-day Paul Revere's by going to:
http://www.nhrebellion.org

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Join the spreading rebellion against the Big Money political game -- by Jim Hightower (Original Post) red dog 1 Jun 2015 OP
Another way to help get big money out of politics 99th_Monkey Jun 2015 #1
I agree red dog 1 Jun 2015 #2
Unrec. This is one of Lawrence Lessig's libertarian groups. FSogol Jun 2015 #3
 

99th_Monkey

(19,326 posts)
1. Another way to help get big money out of politics
Fri Jun 5, 2015, 06:44 PM
Jun 2015

is to donate $100 to Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.

red dog 1

(27,820 posts)
2. I agree
Fri Jun 5, 2015, 07:21 PM
Jun 2015

but there are many Sanders supporters who can't afford to donate $100, or $50, or even $25

Like Howard Dean a few years ago, when many thousands of people donated as little as $10 each

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