Two Lines of Attack
An excellent example of the first and best known cure for our sick republic is The American Anti-Corruption Act. An important group working to pass the act and promote other ideas along the same lines is Rootstrikers, an organization founded by Lawrence Lessig. Check them out.
The Weakness. The Radical Bleeding Heart is dubious about this approach for two reasons. One is that so long as ginormous piles of cash are necessary to win elections, the possessors of the big bundles will find ways to make their influence felt, no matter what we do to turn the funding over to the “people.” The second is that it does nothing to change a system that keeps the majority of voters ignorant of the facts and the real issues while swaying their votes through nasty smear campaigns. The public will continue to be simultaneously swayed and repelled by an abhorrent political process while honest, principled candidates will be discouraged from participating. That is a formula for ignorance and apathy. Democracy cannot be well served by such a process.
Take Elections Off the Money Market Altogether. That is why the Radical Bleeding Heart favors the approach recommended by Max Frankel in an essay for The New York Times. The essence of his idea is to provide free television time for legitimate candidates and issues. RBH would go a step further and ask for a constitutional amendment requiring that any public medium (television, radio, newspapers) that accepts political advertizing must provide a free public forum for discussion of the subject of that advertizing, pro and con, at a time or place roughly concurrent with the running of the advertizement; the exact details to be specified by federal legislation.
It must be conceded that the first proposal has the advantage of having a well-organized group of people behind it. They have not so far made much of an impression on the folks in power, but they are making noise and getting louder. The second proposal, however superior it may be in theory, so far has no organization behind it.
But something must be done. So get behind the Rootstrikers, support them and join the discussion. It is unquestionably a step in the right direction.
What Is Next? We have taken a step backward. Once we reverse that, once we restore the democracy that we have lost, we must set out to strengthen it. We must insure that power resides with the people and that it remains there. The aforementioned addictive quality of power means that this will be an ongoing, never-ending task for democracy, but for right now it has to do with money.