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[LINK] Molly Ivins
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The country's best interests? Who thinks about that?
AUSTIN -- Thanks to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and all the
peacemakers around the globe, including those who ruined the
administration's television show in Ohio. If we put just half as much
money into working for peace as we do into preparing for war, we
wouldn't have to contemplate killing hundreds of thousands of innocent
people in order to accomplish jack.
And now that we've spent not-enough-time on the obligatory
"whew-and-thanks," let me suggest that we shift our focus to a little
matter of the `first' priority. Something more important than war and
peace? The economy? Jobs? Poverty? The homeless? Education? Housing?
Yup.
Why don't we spend just half as much money on ensuring peace as we do
on preparing for war? Because peace groups don't make big campaign
contributions and weapons manufacturers make huge ones. In fact,
weapons manufacturers contribute so much money to politicians that
politicians often vote to spend the public's money on weapons we don't
need, and even weapons that are pretty useless.
More concerned about the economy than campaign finance? Why do you
think the bottom 50 percent of the people in this "booming economy"
have yet to get back to where they were before the last recession? Why
do you think Congress, after years and years of cutting and cutting
and cutting social programs, took a great swag of money last summer --
before we had a balanced budget -- and gave it to the wealthiest
people in this country in the form of tax cuts? Because the wealthy
give big campaign contributions, and people in need do not.
Go right on down the list, and the answer every time, in every area of
governance, is that decisions are not made according to what the
people need or what is best for the country -- decisions are made
according to who gave how much money.
That's why it's especially frustrating to see polls showing that most
Americans favor campaign finance reform but `they don't think it's all
that important.' Just scouting around the country myself, I have yet
to find anyone who doesn't "get it," who doesn't see the connection
between campaign contributions and political corruption. But they have
no idea how much it costs them personally.
This week the Senate once more takes up the McCain-Feingold bill, a
now much-watered-down version of campaign finance reform, but one that
would have the happy effect of banning soft money (the unlimited swag
that goes to parties instead of candidates). Because the Republican
Party gets the biggest share of soft money, it opposes reform.
Now, this same Senate has just spent an entire year and $3.5 million
investigating the fund-raising abuses of the 1996 presidential
campaign. All those lurid tales about fund raising in Buddhist temples
and White House coffees, all that righteous indignation and calls for
Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint a special prosecutor -- now is
their chance to do something about it; now is their chance to fix it.
Watch them verrrry closely.
Want an example of how this affects your life? According to the Center
for Responsive Politics: During the first half of 1995, meat and
poultry political action committees distributed $338,205 -- 81 percent
of it to Republicans. Of the total amount, $73,987 went to House
Agriculture Committee members, with Chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas
coming out as the top recipient.
June 28, 1995, Associated Press: "A key House panel voted Tuesday to
block the first sweeping proposal to reform meat and poultry
inspections since 1906, despite warnings from consumer groups that the
action could be deadly.
"The House Appropriations committee voted 26-15 to withhold funds for
the Department of Agriculture's planned changes to the inspection
system unless the meat industry is allowed to help re-write them. The
USDA changes were designed to use modern scientific techniques to cut
down on the 4,000 deaths and five million illnesses from contaminated
meat every year."
From `The New York Times,' July 1995: "In the next few weeks, Congress
will consider legislation to alter rules on food safety significantly.
The changes, scattered throughout several bills, have been proposed by
Republicans to limit the federal government's authority to regulate
not only food safety but also health and the environment.
"Taken together, the bills would reduce the burden on business to
prove that food is safe and would increase the burden on government
agencies to prove that proposed rules would reduce risks to the public
and would be worth the cost. The bills would also expand the food
industry's chances to appeal the rules in court."
Connect the dots. Follow the bouncing ball. A report just released by
Common Cause, "Pocketbook Politics," shows how powerful special
interests -- helped by generous campaign contributions -- have won
victories in Washington that are costing the American consumer. Since
1991, the special interests examined in the report doled out more than
$61.3 million in political contributions -- nearly $24.6 million of
that in unregulated soft money contributions. What did it cost you?
* $550 million because of loss of access to generic drugs.
* $59 billion annually at the gas pump because for three years
Congress has frozen the fuel efficiency standards.
* $2.8 billion annually from the jump in cable TV bills and pay phone
rates that followed the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
* $1.6 billion in sugar and peanut subsidies.
And that, to coin a phrase, is like the tip of that thing that hit the
Titanic.
And to coin a future phrase, here is today's Campaign Finance Slogan:
"It's government by the people -- not people buy the government." Our
reader response to last summer's slogan drive was incredible.
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"Man may smile and smile but he is not an investigating animal.
He loves the obvious. He shrinks from explanations." --Jos. Conrad
___ _ _
| | \ | / John Konopak, Ph.D. +----------------------+
| | ) | / EDUC/ILAC | You can lead a horse |
| |___/ |_/ University of Oklahoma | to water; but you |
| | | \ Norman OK 73019 | can't make him surf! |
/ | | \ [log in to unmask] +----------------------+
(__/ * ! * | \* Ph: 405-325-1498||FX: 405-325-4061
"People know what they do; and sometimes they know why they do it.
But what they don't know is what what they do does." -- M. Foucault
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| [Standard Disclaimer: Irremediable intertextuality, |
| and/or consequent and/or collateral intersubjectivity |
| notwithstanding, opinions here are as much "my own" |
| as I can make them. Still, I wish I'd said: |
| "Those who can, do; those who know, teach."] |
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