If I Were God...
Those of you who are MoveOn subscribers got the email this week about the California Clean Money campaign. I’ve been involved with them since Labor Day, when I went to one of their meetings in the valley. It was very inspiring, especially when one realizes that both Maine and Arizona, two conservative states, have recently adopted clean money campaigning throughout their states. The idea is that taxpayers throughout the state pay a few dollars extra a year, and any candidate who wants to run against the filthy rich candidates who get corporate lobbying dollars, can run against them. The taxpayer money will match whatever the bigtime corrupt candidates get.
It’s a great plan but…. We’re talking A LOT of money that’s going to have to be matched because those filthy rich candidates have an open tab with their lobbyist friends. And gee, shouldn’t the idea be to get rid of bribery in the first place? And shouldn’t people decide who to vote for based on detailed information instead of 30-second or 60-second TV ads that are of course biased, have no accountability for what they claim, and are only selling an image anyway? I know, "free speech" you say; but that’s what the tobacco companies said when their ads were pulled off of the airwaves. We all know that politicking is as bad for your health as cigarettes, so let’s not pretend we really feel for these poor politicians. They can still debate (I mean really debate, not just repeat stump speeches), and they can still tour across the land, appear on Charlie Rose and Hardball and Oprah, and they can still send out their email messages and what not.
I’m sure if you went up to 1,000 people on the street and said "would you be willing to sign a petition saying that all political advertising should be removed from the public airwaves?" 995 people would shout, "Hell yes! Where do I sign??!!" I know the average American is lazy and has the attention span of an eggplant, which means that they aren’t able or willing to listen to detailed facts. So okay, maybe there will be 25 or 35% fewer voters, but better to have voters who know what the fuck they’re voting for, than voters who base their decisions on how much they approve of the candidate’s wardrobe, or how well they kiss babies or eat tamales.
The point is that hundreds of millions of dollars can be saved, and - THE most important thing - the candidates would be under no obligation to any lobbyists of any kind! They’d have to answer to the people, not to the corporations. WHAT A NOVEL IDEA! My idea is that every American pays one dollar extra every year of federal tax, and one dollar extra every year of state tax. That money would pay for running the campaigns and tour expenses (let them stay at Ramada Inn like everybody else!). It would be ILLEGAL for any candidate to accept any contributions of any kind, or to accept invitations to luncheons, parties, or events that have any kind of sponsorship by corporations or lobbying organizations. In fact lobbying, whether it’s from pro-gun groups or pro-choice groups or whatever, would be limited to open sessions on The Hill; no more back room deals!
I’m dreaming, you say. Well, at least the dreams I have I share with our founding fathers, who would puke all over their cute little buckled shoes if they could see the way that campaigns are run today. The one positive thing that could make this a reality is that this is a bipartisan issue. There are lots of Dems and Repubs (not to mention independent candidates) who would love to see this happen. I know, the people who will scream "free speech’ will have a shit fit. I think if we have to, we could compromise. We could do what they do in the wonderful, new democratic country of Iraq… have only six weeks of campaigning. There would be TV commercials, but Americans would no longer have to endure endless months of them, or corny campaign slogans on the news. There would also be a cap on campaign spending: say, $25 million for presidential candidates, and $10 million for governors, senators and congressmen, and $5 million for city and county candidates and propositions. All paid by our extra two dollars every year. The same rules would have to apply about the illegality of accepting any ‘contributions’. That is non-negotiable. Conventions would be what they used to be… the different factions of the party, fighting it out. No big, fancy bashes like I mentioned in my second post (I think it was November 18 or 19), with big shrimp and champagne (I must sound like I’m anti-big shrimp!). Just wieners, burgers and soda… what could be more American than that? Well, a few quiches would be acceptable!
And about the debates… the two dominating parties will no longer run them. The League of Women Voters will run them, like they used to before the Repubocrats came in and changed everything. There will be five debates in local elections and state elections, six debates in primary elections, and eight debates in presidential elections. Candidates from any party may participate in the debates. The candidates won’t know what questions will be asked of them at any debate. All of the debates will have a question and answer period from the audience, and the audience can ask the candidate to clarify their answer. Any statistic or fact that a candidate claims in one debate, may be challenged in the next debate by the moderators, who in these debates, will be doing their homework (I suggest we get some of the people from factcheck.org). Each of the networks will air the debates live and then repeat them again at a later time in the evening. The debates in their entirety will be available for anyone to download off the internet at any time, and the news networks will include fully detailed discourse with non-partisan people (if any such creatures exist) over each and every point of the debates each evening. The discussions will be in front of a live audience, so they can ask questions themselves.
Again, in my dreams, you say! This is not unreasonable. I’m old enough to remember when debates in this country were debates, and when news was news. I’m also old enough to remember when Jimmy Carter occasionally hosted a call-in radio program on Saturdays, where folks from anywhere in the country could call and ask him questions. SNL had a hilarious skit based on that where Carter (played by Dan Ackroyd) fielded a call from someone who was scared because he was sure he dropped some bad acid. Jimmy questioned him on what the acid looked like then said something like, "well man, it looks like you just dropped some Blue Sunshine. It’s okay, just put on some Doobie Brothers and lay back and enjoy the ride". Ah, the good old days!
Latest movie review…
In This World /Michael Winterbottom (2003)
This is one of those rare opportunities to deeply see the people who are dishwashers, toilet scrubbers, shoeshiners etc. from where their journey began (third world countries), to where these lowly but to them, rather lofty positions are awaiting them. The journey in this film starts at the Pakistani-Afghan border (they started shooting in October of 2001!). From there they go to Iran, Turkey, a perilous and dreadful trip across the Aegean Sea to Italy, then France, then England. Four months to reach the high life of possibly being a busboy. The story focuses mostly on one boy, who claims to be sixteen, but who looked awfully fourteen to me.
The routes in this film were pre-planned and pre-arranged, and the film is "casted’ and of course filmed, but the dialogue is all improvised, and one forgets the camera about halfway into the film (it's cinema verite fiction). It’s a lonnng journey, with the first thirty minutes or so of the film just endless shots of traveling in trucks and other vehicles, interspersed with meetings for the trip’s arrangements. But that’s the reality. It isn’t dramatic or exciting as Hollywood would have you think (like they’d ever make a movie from the POV of one of these kids anyway!). But about halfway into the film I got entirely hooked. Much like the feeling I got from Elia Kazan’s epic "America America", only this shit is happening now, and the West is mainly responsibly for the plight of so many of these people. Through it all, I can’t help but think: with the billions of dollars that war cost, they could have built a whole city for the 2 million refugeeson that Afghan-Pakistan border. Think what $146 billion (and counting) could have done for Iraq! [to find out what that would have paid for in this country, visit costofwar.com]