Money in Politics

Money in Politics – we can’t seem to get away from it. It wins elections by funding attack campaigns, gains exposure with media coverage and advertisements, and people making money together always seem to endorse each other.

What you may not realized is that the game is rigged. Let me explain how.

All media companies can be easily summed up by it’s expenses:

Content: Video, Music, Talent, Production, Websites, Writing, Scripts, Royalties, ect

Distribution: Broadcast, DVDs, Shipping, Commissions, Web servers – anything that gets content to viewers

And it’s Income:

Advertisements: Commercials, Product Placement, Sponsorships, ect

Usage Rights: OnDemand,Ticket sales, Book-CD sales, downloads, ect

 

Now political content is fairly inexpensive to produce- so abundant that politicians hand it out in press releases, hopping to land a favorable sound bite in national news, or any coverage at all. Free content for the media.But if TV stations and newspapers gave away their limited press freely, they would never have received the more than 1/2 Billion in ad dollars spent in the 2008 Presidential Electionby Republican and Democratic leads alone – and that’s only the amount legally reported. It’s not including local elections, congress, state, judge and other appointments nor including the ones that didn’t make it. Big money…So what does the press do? They give out free coverage to the candidates that spend the most on ads, they feature candidates popular with big oil, banking and other special interests in Political Advertorials, failing to mention candidates with opposing views (Ron Paul), calling it news. Ever see those ads that don’t appear to be selling you something, but make you feel good. Those are giant corporations influencing your opinion and their press releases are the news you receive – product placement.

Isn’t it ironic that in the pursuit of democracy, we vote for candidates that will most benefit our interests, however historically and as of the recent New Hampshire primary, we elect the ones that spend the most money. Money donated to them by those that benefit from the current system, the ones with disposable income looking for tax breaks.


The whole idea of elections are to ensure that no particular person, group or entity gets too much power. You know, shake it up a little bit. It is impossible to ever have a fair election when you add money to the equation. The outcome will  end up the same way, people in power stay in power. American elections exist only to validate those in power and their right to “rule”. This is a democracy, you know.

But wait, what if the current elite saw the loss of productivity caused by voter disenfranchisement and realized that the old tricks won’t work anymore. People get their information freely from the internet, validated by millions of comments from other internet users and social networkers. They might consider providing an open platform to discuss the real issues, and elect leaders that take us back to our nation’s roots  of independent, small businesses and self sufficient families – what made America great in the first place.

Enter SOPA and countless other “Internet Policing” laws getting forced down our throats like medicine to a test patient. Don’t worry – it’s good for us, plus, we get paid in the form of benefits (unemployment, welfare, police). All we have to do is let our Corporation run government control the distribution of ALL our news and media – but that is another article in itself..