The Bizarre Zone
Reported by Eleanor - July 16, 2004 -
Bill Moyers PBS and Chuck Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity (Now, July 16, 9:20 p.m.) discussed the Koch Brothers and their oil industry political involvement. Their purpose is to reshape the American government and society, and they and those like them are succeeding in this goal.
Koch gets candidates elected, lobbies Congress, gives free trips, funds think tanks, and all their campaign contributions go to Bush and the republicans. Lewis said "They're more important than the American people are. Our government is a "pay to play process."
Lewis continued, "You're supposed to have a representative from your district that you elect, but they must have money to get elected. The oil industry is not the only one that buys influence, but they epitomize the problem with our democracy. They buy influence over policy, and we have a president and a vice president from that industry."
This discussion ended with an observation that when we have two presidential candidates with each raising $200 million dollars, it defies credibility. We have a problem here. Money is king. We're in the bizarre zone.
Comment: This problem would be easy to solve. Everyone contributes $5 of their tax money to the party of their choice, and it would be illegal for any candidate at any time to take money from any public or private company or individual, including absolutely no free air time. The punishment is loss of their seat in Congress if they take anything but public money, ever. That's the only way to get our country back.
