Are the citizens really running our national government? That is the theory, that we the people call the shots. As imperfect as our system has always been, it has been getting far worse in recent years. Exhibit A: large oil companies getting huge tax breaks at a time when they are raking in exhorbitant profits. Amoral corporations are now pulling most of the big levers at the national level, while election day gives citizens the illusion that they are still in charge.

Unless we want to make a COMPLETE mockery of everything we teach our children in civics class, we need to adopt clean Money campaigns. One such campaign is underway in California: Link See also, Public Campaign’s site at Link .

Bill Moyers has passionately expressed why clean money campaigns are necessary.

A few years ago, my own state (Missouri) trounced a clean ballot issue that would have applied to statewide races (the proposed law is described at Link). The commercials aired by those opposing clean money elections stressed that we shouldn’t be “giving any money to politicians.” The cost would have been less than $10 per year per taxpayer.

That was too much for the voters, apparently. To put this all in perspective., the cost of the Iraq war, to date is approximately $3,000 per household. See Link .