Don’t Hold Your Breath for Obama

A friend of mine wrote today that 99Rise is protesting Obama’s visit to Los Angeles to raise funds at a $32,500 per plate event. Anyone who knows me knows that there’s no love lost between me and Obama. It won’t surprise you when I say that I’ve given up any hope whatsoever of Obama using the bully pulpit to stand up against the privileged few who have that kind of money to throw around to push their agendas.

Asking Obama to stand up against money is like asking a heroin addict to stop going back for more as he’s driving to his dealer.

We have to stop supporting this behavior by NOT VOTING FOR CANDIDATES WHO WOULD RAISE FUNDS THIS WAY. And the only way that’s going to happen is if we revamp the way candidates campaign.

Make it stop.

And by that, I mean, restrict candidates’ use of funds for television ads. Restrict their spending for political pros (those campaign strategists who “work the system”). Reduce ad time to only two months prior to elections. Reduce paper flow to specific amounts of postage per candidate. Increase voter participation by giving volunteers tax credits for their time. Cap amounts given by corporations and individuals to the same amount: $250 per person. And have a website like Writeindependent.org for both federal and state elections. Have complete disclosure on issue ads, showing who funded them. And make sure there are no more PACs and SuperPACs, 527’s and 501c(4)’s without also letting us know who is funding them BEFORE elections are held.

Stop the revolving door between industry and government.

Use a split-line algorithm to divide up the states into congressional districts, instead of the current Gerry rigged system.

Set up a Citizen’s Congress that can pass, veto, or repeal legislation when our federal Congress refuses to follow the people’s wishes.

And finally, stop thinking Obama or some Republican presidential wannabe is going to do any of this for you. If you want to take charge of your government, start by getting involved.

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