What If It’s Worse?


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Hanion’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, but don’t rule out malice”. Robert J. Hanion

I’m going around the country and presenting my program, Money, Politics & Democracy: You Aren’t Getting What You Want, and I never get push-back from audiences. Mostly, they tell me that they appreciated my program, that I did a great job and that they didn’t realize things were as awful as they are.

While I appreciate the kudos, I’m mostly struck by their realization of how they personally are being affected by our pay-to-play politics and that they are just beginning to get it. This morning I got chills, as it dawned on me,

What if it’s worse than I thought and I’m just beginning to get it? What if all I’ve been seeing is the tip of the iceberg of our legalized system of political bribery?

What I know is that freshman legislators are instructed by the RNC and the DNC to spend 4 hours a day dialing for dollars and another hour or two daily pressing the flesh of big donors.

What I know is that industries that invest a lot of money in our legislators get favored in our laws and regulations.

What I know is that you and I are not getting:

  • – the gun safety legislation we want
  • – the legislation to deal with global warming that we want
  • – the healthcare service delivery and outcomes we want
  • – the student debt reform we want
  • – the job training and job growth we want
  • – the reform of our prison-industrial complex that we want
  • – the voting rights we want
  • – the lead-free drinking water we want

And that’s just a small sampling of the list of things that we Americans overwhelmingly want and are not getting. It’s all because our pay-to-play politics makes otherwise good people in Congress vote contrary to the desires of we the people.

Vote for the reformers.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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2 Responses to What If It’s Worse?

  1. Ed April 10, 2016 Reply

    Face it, Jack, we live in a plutocracy, with a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. To paraphrase the Borg from Star Trek, when a new person is elected to congress, “Resistance is futile; they will be assimilated.”

  2. dominick April 10, 2016 Reply

    Jack,

    If you think that voting for “reformers” is important, have you considered the value of voting in our 19th century political system? This corporate-funded private political party system has blinded the ability of most voters to critically question the decisions they make outside of politics. For example, as a business owner, do you hire employees based on their promises to “work hard” for you? Do you guarantee their salaries and expense accounts for the next two to four years, but accept the fact that once hired, they have no obligation to listen to you, or respond to your requests?

    This is what otherwise intelligent and informed voters do when they show up at the voting booth. They completely ignore our readily available 21st century technologies to vet the people they vote for, relying mostly on their promises. These promises are often called policies, plans or platforms, but never contain a specific bill they would sponsor if elected. This is because politicians of one party are afraid of being criticized by the other party. In literally 99% of all elections, you get to choose between two corporate controlled candidates, because big business doesn’t want other parties to muck up their investment strategies for future favors.

    Vet before you vote, especially for candidates in local elections. Ask incumbents, who are proud of their political “experience”, how many of their constituents did they poll before making a decision that affects their constituent’s lives. How many of them have a forum on their web site dedicated to their constituents, and how many town hall meetings did they have during their last term of office?

    TrueDemocracyNow.org