When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to dissolve the bonds that have bound us to corporations, it becomes time to take this country back. Or take it, for the people. We have power. In numbers. Its time we began to speak.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, but that corporations, many times more powerful than individual people, should stop masquerading as people. In fact, they are trampling people, even as they pretend they are people. We need real change.
With the new Supreme Court decision, it may be time to consider the constitutional option. A constitutional amendment. To state that corporations cannot use the first amendment to guarantee them a right to turn our democracy into a farce. And that elections should be publicly funded, so as to get money out of politics for good. And finally establish democracy in this country.
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This amendment could in fact fix the entire process. It should create publicly funded elections, and ban fundraising, of ANY sort, in our election process. Many argue that donating a dollar is a form of speech, that it expresses support for a candidate. But using this logic, those with more dollars get more chances to express support, and create change. And corporations do this the most.
With publicly funded elections, there would be no PAC's, no fundraisers, no attack ads that don't mention their opponent by name. If candidates were prohibited from accepting money from anyone while in office, or needing to raise money to get elected, they might actually vote their consciences again.
Some say this wouldn't work. But variations of it work in Europe. But if all you needed was to get signatures, and then the government covered the cost of debates, discussions, and buying some equal time in the media for the candidates to express their views, then we'd have democracy, real democracy. And I bet that Americans would all offer to pay, say, $10 a year extra on their income taxes to pay for this. Imagine how much they'd save from all the missing pork in the budget the following years, and the lower taxes that would bring. An investment well spent.
Of course, some details, like the specifics of public elections, would need to be figured out in bills put before congress. And of course, we'd have to pay our elected official a little more, because a lot of perks will vanish this way, and then no-one will want to go into government rather than leave the corporate sector. Oh wait, maybe some people who AREN'T already millionaires, or want to become one quickly, might then run for office. Maybe some normal folks will run again.
We need to cut the tie between money and politics. Our democracy - oh wait, we haven't had one of those in ages. I'm not sure if I'd know what American democracy would look like. Because in fact, business has influenced it from day one.
Can we start a democracy in this country, finally? For people, not corporations? If we need to amend our constitution, then lets do it. But if we can do it through congress, there's that approach too. Oh wait - they've already been bought.
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to dissolve the bonds that have bound us to corporations, it becomes time to take this country back. Or take it, for the people. We have power. In numbers. Its time we began to speak. A constitutional amendment to say 1) corporations aren't people, and 2) all elections should be publicly funded.
And with this new Supreme Court decision, we have a reason, a cause, and the possible start of a movement. Let's give it a name - Money Out of Politics amendment, or MOP.
The MOP Amendment, to mop up the corruption in our government! The time to start is now.