So, let me get this straight...
Feb. 19th, 2002 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpThe Enron company donated significant amounts of money to both political parties over past years. Enron's business tanks, owing in large part to what appears to be chicanery on the part of certain parties. They address themselves to the politicians who were the object of their contributions. They were not saved, not bailed out, not given a free pass.
Obviously, then, we need campaign finance reform, to prevent rich companies from buying politicians.
So now we have the Shays-Meehan bill that's passed the House, the point of which seems to be to make life harder for political outsiders and independents (by making it harder to raise money) and life easier for incumbents (by making it easier to raise money).
But it would appear that the byword among pols is to at least appear to do "something" in the wake of Enron, despite that fact that Shays-Meehan would have done nothing to prevent Enron had it been in place at the time.
It's a bill that the media are ga-ga over, since by making it all but impossible to criticize candidates using "issue" ads the 60 days prior to an election, the media can - by providing selective coverage or by misrepresenting the facts - exert significant influence on its own on national policies and policymakers during those critical 60 days. (We got a taste of this in the 2000 election, when the media insisted on escalating Pat Buchanan into the ranks of "major" party candidates, while relegating Harry Browne - who ended up getting far more votes despite the lack of media coverage - to the ranks of the fringe.)
Mark Twain was too kind.
Cheers...
Obviously, then, we need campaign finance reform, to prevent rich companies from buying politicians.
So now we have the Shays-Meehan bill that's passed the House, the point of which seems to be to make life harder for political outsiders and independents (by making it harder to raise money) and life easier for incumbents (by making it easier to raise money).
But it would appear that the byword among pols is to at least appear to do "something" in the wake of Enron, despite that fact that Shays-Meehan would have done nothing to prevent Enron had it been in place at the time.
It's a bill that the media are ga-ga over, since by making it all but impossible to criticize candidates using "issue" ads the 60 days prior to an election, the media can - by providing selective coverage or by misrepresenting the facts - exert significant influence on its own on national policies and policymakers during those critical 60 days. (We got a taste of this in the 2000 election, when the media insisted on escalating Pat Buchanan into the ranks of "major" party candidates, while relegating Harry Browne - who ended up getting far more votes despite the lack of media coverage - to the ranks of the fringe.)
Mark Twain was too kind.
Cheers...
