John Konopak wrote:
>
>      _________________________________________________________________
>
>    [LINK] Molly Ivins
>      _________________________________________________________________
>
>    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.
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
>     "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  |
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>
> "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
>   +-----------------------------------------------------------+
>   |   [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."]          |
>   +-----------------------------------------------------------+
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
I would sooner participate in the capitalist system because that way I
have a better chance of making an impact.It is not selling out.It is
commonsense.You cannot fight the establishment with welded together
scraps of metal.