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| The Global Freedom Institute |
| Democracy vs. Capitalism: Is Capitalism winning? (page 2) President Bush�s energy and environmental policies that are beginning to emerge show his �payback� to energy companies who were large supporters of his campaign. And that is just the tip of the iceberg of the over $80 million that Bush raised for his campaign for the Presidency. For Attorney General, the leading prosecutor in the country, John Ashcroft may have problems in terms of money funneled to his PAC that exceeds federal limits. And presidential candidate Al Gore is well known for his visit to a Buddhist Temple. John Haung, the leading funnel for Asian influence in political parties, has been found in the lists for Bill Clinton, Senator Mitchell, Al Gore, and a few others. These are just the best-known cases recently. There is more than enough evidence to support the claim of widespread �buying� of candidates for influence and favorable votes. The problem is very real and runs very deep through both major parties. What is the impact of this corruption? The negative impact of this is multifaceted. First, it denies the rights of individuals to have a true say in government. Partially because they have much less access to government officials than those whom heavily donate. The average citizen has less ability to get access to President Bush than the CEO of AT&T, and until the average citizen upgrades their income heavily and donates heavily, that won�t change. Second, it puts corporations in charge of our government. The candidate who wins, begins to push the corporate agenda of those who contributed to their campaign. This is what the candidate must do in order to guarantee those funds for reelection. It has very little to do with what the �people� want, but rather what the money people want. Third, it hides the truth. Since this practice is so wide spread, it allows corporations to hide the truth about them and it allows this practice to be kept from the people. Corporations have been hiding the truth about their practices for decades. This practice keeps their illegal practices quiet because candidates don�t want to lose that money for their party. Is it surprising that most illegal corporate practices have to be found out in a court more than once in order to get government to do anything about them? Is it surprising that candidates don�t expose the corporate influence or do anything about it, in spite of the rhetoric? If they did, they would lose their financial backing and be out in the private sector when their term expired. When the people who run our government don�t follow the policies of their financial backers, the money switches sides. This gives them two choices: either do what your financial backers tell you to do, or be voted out of office. The voting out of office is not automatic, however, when you lose millions of dollars in ads to your opponent, and those millions come from the people who have seen the mistakes behind the scenes in terms of policies that might favor other groups who paid you, they may use them to expose those candidates. This leaves candidates and officials to answer to the corporations and not the people. Consider, also, that people seem to determine their vote either by party or what they get from sound bytes. They tend to remember catchy phrases or cliches. They don�t tend to remember delineation�s between candidates on minor points of policy. Al Gore tried to use those delineation�s in the presidential debates and the public found him losing the debates in their eyes. Why? Because he was perceived to have lied, because he didn�t have clear defined �ground� that was his, and because the people understood the simplicity of Bush and not the complexity of Gore. Was Gore right on his issues? Not in the eyes of this policy institute, but in terms of whom actually �debated�, probably. Who won the perception war? George W. Bush won, without a doubt. But this is the generation of people watching elections and voting. They are people who get their news from Newsweek and don�t find the time to make decisions based on anything more than a sound byte that catches their attention. That means the money for commercials is more important than what the candidate has to say or issues they raise. Why? Because nothing is discussed in 30 second commercials except for �tag lines� and sound bytes for people to remember. A typical Bush commercial would sound something like: �I support reforming our educational system, giving tax cuts so people can have their money back, rebuilding our military, and creating a prescription drug plan for senior citizens� and little else. A typical Gore commercial would sound something like: �I support reforming our educational system, giving targeted tax cuts to help kids go to college, rebuilding our military, and creating a prescription drug plan for seniors� and little else. Looking at the two, they sound very similar, and that is the problem. Neither say what they mean. Both say �reforming our educational system�, but does that mean vouchers, throwing money at it, standards, new initiatives, teacher�s union support, breaking teacher�s unions, religion in school, or shooting our children? From the description of �reforming our educational system�, they could mean anything. At best, the average person might hear vouchers and whether a candidate is for or against. They hear �rebuilding our military� but what does that mean? Does that mean focusing on low intensity conflicts, missile defense system, new tanks and planes, new missiles, restocking old supplies, building up personnel, the draft, or any one of millions of possibilities? No one knew for sure. Bush proved that by saying he needed a total review of the military to determine what to do. And the same can be said for everything promised in these sample commercials. Campaigns have drowned in sound bytes and catch phrases with no one noticing or caring, in terms of the general population. It makes an analyst wonder how people voted for whom they voted. Did one person like the vocal inflexion on the term �cut� in �tax cuts� of one candidate over the other? How many were influenced by friends? How many just voted party because they �always� vote that way? In doing so, the problem is a lack of knowledge and understanding of the world around us. This means that any corruption, and any freedoms being taken away aren�t noticed and aren�t corrected. Given that many people see the political world in two parties, democrats and republicans, and considering how much closer those parties are becoming due to the money guiding their decisions, how much alternative is there to fix the problems of corruption? 1 2 3 |
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