I’m looking at the front page of the NY Times today and I see a chart of the big donors to the current election campaigns. Over $180 million bucks and that’s just the top 10. What a monumental waste. Just think of the good we could do with that kind of money. And when I call it a waste, I’m not trying to denigrate the elections. Elections are the backbone of democracy. What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t have to spend that kind of money on something that we should be able to do for nothing.
Actually that $180M is chump change. The serious estimates that I’ve heard are that over $10 billion has been spent by both parties on this campaign. Now we’re talking serious money. But what do they spend it for? The biggest bite probably 80% goes for TV and radio ads, ads that enrich our media conglomerates, who are sending them out on air that costs them nothing but is actually the property of the American people.
In every business except communications, the transportation of product to consumer is a cost item. If I want to send my widgets to a retailer it costs money. If that retailer wants to deliver my widgets to a consumer it costs more money. TV networks send their signal to you over cost free airwaves. This is not a source of competitive controversy but with the cost of our political process raging out of control, I think it’s time to force the media to pay something for free access to their consumer base. That payment should come in the form of free airtime for public service commercials for political candidates and it should come with the caveat that no other airtime can be purchased for commercial purposes. This would accomplish three things. It would allow the media to pay for the free airtime with which we have been gifting them for the past 75 years. It would level the playing field for all legitimate candidates and it would make all that campaign money available for more important uses.
This guy’s a moron, you’re thinking, that will never happen. Undoubtedly not the way I’ve laid it out. For one thing the media will never surrender completely and will spend more on lobbyists to fight it than the politicians now spend on ads. For another despite all attempts to level a playing field the entrepreneurial spirit of politicians will surely encourage them to find other ways to get an edge and finally the money now spent on TV ads will never go to the stuff that really needs to be fixed; it will instead go to lobbyists whose job it will be to further influence the congressmen to whom, we will have given jobs in this election. If you’re willing to settle for that then you got what you voted for.
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One of the dumbest current arguments between right and left is over climate change. The left clams that if we don’t do something this minute the planet’s going to rot away. The right clams it’s all baloney that the climate isn’t changing at all. They’re both full of crap. The left should relax, just a smidgeon, what’s happening to the planet can be reversed. The hitch is that while it’s happening it is doing some irreparable damage. As for the right… well, you don’t have to believe the scientists. I know you all hate anyone who shows any sign of intelligence but the good news is you don’t have to believe the scientists. All you have to do is open your eyes. Do you really think, that all those pictures of melting ice caps are products of photo shop? All you bronco bustin’ he-men out there, try not to fall off the reality horse.
Even if all the hype about climate change is untrue, the task of doing something about it is rife with beneficial effects for the whole country and even the world. Even if you don’t believe that the junk coming out of your car’s exhaust and factory chimneys all over the country is adding to climate change you can’t deny that that it is bad for the environment, worse for your health. You don’t believe me? Suck on the tailpipe of your car for a few minutes. Make you feel sick does it? You still think that’s not bad for the atmosphere? Don’t worry about brain damage. If you’re actually doing this, your brain is well past any hope of repair.
A recent article by John M. Broder in the NY Times, points out that recognizing and providing solutions for the things that are creating climate change can help with the unemployment crisis. It explains that manufacturing environmentally safe products will create new jobs for the currently unemployed. The fact of the matter is that if we don’t manufacture this stuff other countries will. China and India the biggest polluters in the world are already ahead of us in the manufacture of products that will some day solve their polluting problems. Maybe it’s time we tried to catch up. All it can do is help with our unemployment problem.
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Wall street announced that they are paying out $144B in bonuses this year, the largest number in history. Of course at the same time they are using new technologies to reduce their work force so they can earn those kinds of profits. The rich get richer and the middle class gets screwed.
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One last shot at sanity: It’s time America stopped trying to cut its own throat and forgot, temporarily, about budget reduction. Even if it were a good idea and in normal times it is; these not being normal times, the budget zealots have no viable idea on how to do it. The realistic method of deficit reduction is tax increases and spending cuts. It’s not the right time for either.
What’s needed is the same thing that’s been needed since Bush was thrown out; employment for those who need it and get the hell out of both Iraq and Afghanistan. We are now 12th among developed nations in college grads. That’s disgraceful. We as a nation need the guts to make some serious decisions about warfare, taxes, education, public investment and the all consuming need for full employment if this nation is going to regain the worlds leadership that men like Bush and Cheney tried so hard to fritter away.
What we get instead is guys like Jim Demint ® South Carolina who keeps saying that everything that’s needed to balance the budget is already on the table. Okay Jim if it’s all there how come you can’t seem to name any of it?
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I like David Brooks, a smart conservative who understands the problems and what we have to do to solve them but can’t seem to overcome his conservative principles enough to actually make a stand for what’s right. He understands that we have to compete in a world market, he speaks to America’s edge and to the fact that to maintain it we must finance research to attract scientists, improve infrastructure to facilitate travel, fix immigration to keep talent from leaving the country, reform taxes to help both business and individuals, make study abroad a rite of passage for college students and take advantage of the millions of vets who have served overseas and have knowledge of other cultures. He understands that the nation with the best networks will define the next age.
We can do this because of the nature of our country and the freedoms, which its citizens enjoy. China and India are emerging giants but for the foreseeable future both will be held back by their restrictions on personal freedom, which tends to make their more intelligent citizens look to us for a place to expand their skills. This is also true of a good portion of the world. We must take advantage of this. It’s easy; all we have to do is adjust our immigration laws so that they coexist with reality. The bill that congress just ignored, in order to pass “Don’t Ask Don’t tell.” Would have given a green card to all foreign college graduates, thereby keeping the best of the American educated, foreign intellect pool here instead of forcing them to go back where they came from and enriching those countries abilities while ours suffer.