'Super' PACs Set to Disclose Big Donors

How can we possibly expect our democracy to function when the influence of corporate funds overwhelm political campaigns? Should a single corporation be allowed to drown out the political will of thousands of individual voters?

As corporations look to wield influence and power, they seek to have politicians beholden to them. The easiest way for them to do so is through campaign financing. This creates an automatic conflict of interest if the candidate gets elected, putting corporate interests well above those of the common people. This undermines every aspect of our democracy.

Not only does corporate funding buy the allegiance of candidates to special corporate interests, but it also influences voters through funding of expensive and widely distributed advertisements.

Corporate money can pay for highly effective marketing strategies to manipulate public opinion in the political arena as they have previously done in the sales arena.

Expensive advertisements distort political discourse because they have no obligation to be factual or truthful. Moreover, the excessive funding is often used to buy airtime to repeat a message until it is perceived to be fact, essentially brainwashing people to chose a candidate the way that they might chose a dish detergent.

This type of private sector financing of campaigns undemocratically undermines debate and discussion. Even worse, it puts any candidate who eschews such funding at a distinct disadvantage.

Popular democracy is by the people, for the people. Representation is based on the size of a population, not on the size of their wallets. Yet a corporation can spend millions of dollars to defeat any candidate, even if most of their workers and shareholders support that candidate.

Ordinary Americans cannot compete with the virtually unlimited resources of corporations, especially as these corporations support politicians who will legislate in favor of the corporate interests and against the interests of ordinary citizens. This viscous cycle cannot be stopped from the inside, because the established insiders benefit from the current system and want to maintain it.

The Citizen’s United ruling of the Supreme Court only serves to magnify the damage that can be done by corporate spending on political campaigns. Sign the petition for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizen's United ruling (http://democracyisforpeople.org/).

We live in a society in which greater and greater sums of money are becoming amassed by corporations. As a result, these corporations have the ability to wield unlimited political influence, threatening to make us a democracy in name only.

A Freechild of DC 2:33PM January 31, 2012