Trey Smith
At a time when it’s become a cliché to say that Occupy Wall Street has changed the nation’s political conversation — drawing long overdue attention to the struggles of the 99% — electoral politics and the 2012 presidential election have become almost exclusively defined by the 1%. Or, to be more precise, the .0000063%. Those are the 196 individual donors who have provided nearly 80% of the money raised by super PACs in 2011 by giving $100,000 or more each.You know as well as I do that the time is coming. Yes, that wonderful time when candidates will bug people like you and me to pony up a campaign contribution or two. All of them will SAY that the piddly amounts people like us might contribute will provide us a genuine voice in the political process. Next to voting, it is the best thing we can do to participate in the vaunted American political system.
~ from The .0000063% Election by Ari Berman ~
It's a damn lie.
The candidates well know it and you should too. Dinky amounts don't give you a voice at all; they simply make some of you feel good about yourself. Your itsy bitsy contributions allow you to delude yourself into thinking it makes a difference.
Think of it this way. Let's say a candidate has a sandbox to fill. You and all of your friends pitch in a few grains of sand apiece. Do you think that will grab the candidate's attention when 95% of the sandbox was filled by a small handful of sand-blessed donors?
Do you think the candidate will go on TV to say, "I'd like especially to thank John & Jane Q. Public for the three grains of sand that was barely noticeable?" If you truly believe that will happen, then it looks to me like you somehow got some of the sand in your head!!
What you and I think or what you and I contribute hasn't made a difference for a long time. It won't make a difference today and it certainly won't make a difference tomorrow or anytime in the foreseeable future. Elections are all about appeasing the moneyed interests. The statistics that Berman cites should make that point abundantly clear to you.
Still, some of you will be determined to throw your hard-earned dollars away this campaign season. Nothing I write here will dissuade you. If you are one of those individuals, then I would HOPE that you will not badmouth others who choose to buy lottery tickets.
Both of you face about the same odds of winning a big prize!
there is a bird who is 90,000 li. there is a bird that says sparrow flying is #1. they argue about percentages like slaves.
ReplyDeletefree people chuckle at what really enslaves people.