Make them wear "Scarlet Letters"
To amuse them, I told my political junkie friends that if I ruled the world, there'd be very strict "sunshine laws" and "transparency in government" -- that ALL politicians would be required to wear the logos of their corporate supporters on their suits and cars .. you know, so we could tell who bought and paid for them.
Can't you just see big shiny logos for Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Banks stuck all over them? We'd have ExxonMobil, BP, ConocoPhillips .. Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Merck .. Bank of America, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo .. dang, would there be room for them all?
Maybe it should be the biggest logos for the ones who contribute the most money - corporations, also rich individuals - and smaller ones for smaller donations.
Like I said, both parties would be affected .. and it sure would make their speeches for/against bills and amendments on the House and Senate floors very interesting (I'm a C-SPAN junkie).
Seriously folks, the only way to save our political system is to get money's corrupting influence out of it .. somehow. Our politicians can never be our true representatives until then .. look at the time they have to waste fund-raising. We have to do away with corporate campaign donations .. no more special interest groups, no more PACs .. only single personal donations limited to $500.00 per candidate. No reality-show-debates .. C-SPAN could donate air time ...
Yeah I know, dream on ... by the time an honest reformer could fight his/her way into the system, it would corrupt them .. that's what power does ...
It boggles my mind to read that the 2012 elections will be the most expensive ever .. $6 billion or even more, is what each party will spend to fight for control of the White House, Congress and state governments .. $1 billion for the White House alone.
In a struggling economy, Big Politics thrives.
