This insane statement about the US Military action in Afghanistan (where we blow $2 Billion/Week) was made by a senior adviser to Mitt Romney:
A senior adviser to Mitt Romney declined to provide more specific details on the presumptive GOP nominee's plan for Afghanistan on Thursday, saying it was a distraction from what "real Americans want to talk about."
Colin Beavan became made his mark as No Impact Man (and see here). That was his first grand experiment, and it taught me how threatening it is to most people to suggest that we should take concrete steps to live in a truly sustainable way. Now Beavan has begun his second grand experiment: to run for Congress as a member of the Green Party. Beavan is not a polished politician; rather he talks like you and me. He speaks from the heart and with thoughtfulness. He bemoans that Americans lack meaning and purpose. He notes that we've lost our ideals. He repeatedly points out that our warmongering country is run by the people who have most of the money and that they will do anything to keep it through the use of their financial resources and their lobbyists. Here is the question that haunts me. Assume that we didn't have a history of two main parties (Beavan calls them the "old-fashioned parties) running on corporate money and warmongering, and assume that it was NOT the case that one of those two parties invariably prevailed in Presidential elections. Assume, then, that you were asked to vote from one of the slick candidates with the heavy corporate ties, or for a thoughtful candidate who is not beholden to corporate money and who stands for the ideals listed below. In that case, it would be my belief that Colin would have a substantial chance to win the election based on his ideas and his utter lack of corruption and corporate ties. The problem is that he doesn't have hundreds of millions of dollars or a slick party machine, and he is not buffeted along by that intractable American assumption that it is preordained that one of the old-fashioned party candidates will be the winner. Immediately below, you'll see Colin's 18-minute speech at the Green Party National Convention. Below that video, you'll see Beavan's main talking points, which he sent to me today in a mass emailing.
Here is the speech I made at the Green Party National Convention on Saturday. It's 20 minutes long so if you don't want to watch it but you want to know the themes: 1. Democracy works on the principle that wisdom is collected from a group in order to make decisions that result in the greatest good for the greatest number. 2. The two old-fashioned parties have betrayed that ideal and are so frightened by the crises that face us that they no longer trust the people. 3. Instead, they meet behind closed doors with their corporate campaign contributors and make decisions from there how our country should move forward. [More . . . ]
Per the National Climate Data Center, the drought in the continental U.S. is the worst in 56 years. As growing your own food is apparently a big issue (Be careful that you don’t piss off your neighbors by living sustainably), expect some seriously jacked prices...while the big boys rake in record profits. NPR had a segment today on the drought and they talked to a small farmer in Ohio about her crop. Ms. Bryn Bird raises sweet corn. Listen to the segment. At just after the two minute point, she calmly says she's looking at a $30-40,000 loss this year. And because sweet corn is not a commodity, she can't get crop insurance! According to the NY Times, politics is killing the Farm Bill overhaul, but as it stands,
...farmers who grow corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton and other crops receive about $5 billion in direct payments.$5 billion...whether they grow crops or not...and that's not even the insurance subsidies. Now, the new bill is supposed to eliminate those direct payments, but the House elephants are divided, so it won't happen until after the election. I always thought something was wrong with paying people not to grow crops, and I'm not sure how much of the current or future farm bill goes to that specifically, but the U.S. supposedly spent
$7.4 billion last year on federal crop and revenue insurance premium subsidies for farmers....and at a minimum, $90 B over the next ten years for insurance premium subsidies. Meanwhile, the small, real food producers absorb not inconsiderable losses because they can't get insurance for such unsexy crops as sweet corn. It's okay to be outraged now.
At The Atlantic, Lawrence Lessig explains that those who run America, those on both the left and the right, are much fewer than the 1%:
[W]e give the tiniest fraction of America the power to veto any meaningful policy change. Not just change on the left but also change on the right. Because of the structure of influence that we have allowed to develop, the tiniest fraction of the one percent have the effective power to block reform desired by the 99-plus percent. Yet by "the tiniest fraction of the one percent" I don't necessarily mean the rich. I mean instead the fraction of Americans who are willing to spend their money to influence congressional campaigns for their own interest. That fraction is different depending upon the reform at issue: a different group rallies to block health-care reform than rallies to block global warming legislation. But the key is that under the system we've allowed to evolve, a tiny number (with resources at least) has the power to block reform they don't like. A tiny number of Americans -- .26 percent -- give more than $200 to a congressional campaign. .05 percent give the maximum amount to any congressional candidate. .01 percent give more than $10,000 in any election cycle. And .000063 percent -- 196 Americans -- have given more than 80 percent of the super-PAC money spent in the presidential elections so far.
Senator Al Franken is dismayed that Congress, won't even consider passing the DISCLOSE Act. It's up for a vote again, and Franken is not at all optimistic. What is DISCLOSE?
This bill doesn't overturn Citizens United. It doesn't limit how much money individuals or corporations can spend on independent expenditures. All it does is require that this spending be disclosed publicly. It reflects what used to be a bipartisan consensus around the effectiveness of transparency and disclosure in avoiding corruption.
Why do we need to pass the DISCLOSE Act?Already in 2012, we've seen a single individual write multi-million-dollar checks in support of his favorite presidential candidate. We've seen corporations spend tens of millions of dollars on attack ads. We could see $1 billion in outside spending before Election Day.
Worse, there is little sunlight to be found in the post-Citizens United political system. Corporations that want to hide their spending can create shell corporations to contribute unlimited money to a group -- so that when you look at the outside group's fundraising records (which are published only occasionally), you'll see the shell corporation but not the original source of the money.
And that guy who wrote all those seven-figure checks to support his favorite presidential candidate? We only know about that because he announced it himself (adding that some of his future spending would remain secret).
And because none of this spending is transparent, none of these spenders (or the candidates who profit from their spending) can be held accountable. We simply don't know who is wielding all this financial power in this year's elections. We just know it isn't us, the people. That's a system in need of disinfecting.
There's a lot of people out there who think that as long as they have the right to vote, democracy is alive and well. This is dangerous thinking. It's like arguing that as long as I can choose to buy one of the two brands of bread at the grocery store, I still retain meaningful choice. But what if both brands of bread are corrupted with bugs, pesticides, mold and chemical additives? Would you really waltz out of the store announcing that you had a meaningful choice, just because you were allowed to choose between Brand A and Brand B, where both of them were bad choices? These huge secret campaign contributions corrupt our candidates. They are given to buy access and special attention to the donor's wish list. If the candidate fails for follow through with the promises that WERE made in order to get these big contributions, the candidate's OPPONENT will get that money next time. And by the way, when was the last time that your President, Representative or Senator invited you out to Washington D.C. to discuss the important issues of the day? Maybe you need to get a job that pays 100 times as much as you are now making, so you can make a huge contribution, which might get you on the political radar.