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But we can't even get minimal effective controls on the political money system without transparent vote counting. That is the problem with ALL reforms--of the media, of corporate power of every kind. We can't get to square one, because we're behind square one. We're at square zero--virtually no transparency in the counting of our votes. They can play many games with us, including permitting a liberal president to have a term, to blame for all the Bushwhack horrors, then write the narrative of his 'failure' and Diebold him out of office. They can give us an illusory Democratic majority in Congress, packed with "Blue Dogs" who vote for war and against progressive tax/economic measures. They can really jerk us around--they can, and I believe they have.
The power to clean up the filthy campaign contribution system--clean it up or eliminate it (which I would prefer)--resides in the voting system itself--that is, our ability to elect the truly best candidates, and those whom we want and need in office, to enact the laws and regulations for campaign financing.
It is obscene that you have to have a million dollars in hand, these days, to even think of running for Congress. And most of the money raised goes right into the pockets of big media corporations, for TV/radio ads--a double screwing of the public. Then, on day one, the Congress critter has to start raising money again, for the next campaign.
Congress critters who have millions (and most of them do), and who got elected that way, are not likely going to vote against the system that put them in power. We have to change who gets elected. And the first and most fundamental condition we need to do that is to restore public vote counting, first of all--to forestall secret vote stealing (easy as pie in the present system)--and then to start electing millionaires-with-a-conscience, and, with good grass roots campaigns and internet fundraising, non-millionaires. With office holders of these two kinds, we can start peeling back the money factor--restricting it, etc. And when we finally get our democracy back, with a truly representative Congress, we can do whatever that future Congress thinks is the best way to approach this vast money corruption of our political system. I think a total ban is in order, and reclaiming big chunks of our public airwaves, from the corpos, for public debate and for candidate access to the voters.
Don't you wonder why the last Congress--the so-called Democratic Congress of 2006--did absolutely nothing about Bushwhack-corporate-controlled voting systems and 'TRADE SECRET' code? Why didn't they? Well, because they were the "chosen ones"--the ones that Diebold & brethren permitted to be elected. Some of them really were elected; some of them weren't. It's all up to the Bushwhack voting machine corps to tell us who won. We have no way to verify the vote in half the systems in the country; and the other half, which may have a paper ballot, don't count 99% of them! I'm pretty sure Obama was elected president in '08, and in fact I think they significantly and fraudulently shaved his mandate--but neither I nor you nor Obama nor anyone else can prove that he was actually elected.
This is the most fundamental tenet of democracy--vote counting that everyone can see and understand. It has been taken away from us, and we must restore it, before we can hope to enact any other real reform.
The good part is that it is possible--for now, anyway--because the states and local counties still control the voting systems. An election reform movement is under way at these levels. We need to get behind it, or start one. And we need a massive citizen movement across the country, in each of these places, to reform it. Unlike your president or your congress critter, your local county voter registrar may live right down the street from you. Local/state officials are closer to the people.
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