Get Money Out

Our democracy has been hijacked. The corporations and special interests pay our politicians to do their bidding instead of the people's. This legal bribery has to stop.

This corruption is why nothing gets accomplished on Capitol Hill, whether it's campaign finance reform or financial dis-services reform.

Money may talk, but it shouldn't buy our democracy and here in Maine, we have proven that there's a better way.

To the extent that money is heavily influencing campaigns, democracy takes a hit. We need a solution that does not depend on new laws or the Supreme Court. Fortunately, such a solution is available: voting.

Preserving American democracy, preventing political bribery and corruption, and insuring that every citizen has an equal voice in choosing their representatives should be a cause supported across the political spectrum.

"We are being bamboozled by lobbyists, it's time for democracy to be restored," Deepak Chopra told his guests, Arianna Huffington and Dylan Ratigan at a DeepakHomeBase (DHB) event this week.

Most people think of this as an election, where voters go to the polls and select their preferred candidate. But I believe, and an increasing number of viewers believe, that our political system has become an auction in which the highest bidder wins.

The most critical thing Occupy Wall Street achieved is this: they lit the match that reignited a national conversation about the link between global inequality and government corruption.

In a symbolic, but significant boost to the movement, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted to make L.A. the first major city to endorse a constitutional amendment to overturn Supreme Court decisions that corporations are people and money is speech.

To understand why Dylan Ratigan's "Get Money Out" campaign is getting it right, let's take a quick look at the history of Supreme Court decisions on campaign finance.

The Supreme Court continues to insist that corporations are people and that money is speech. I just don't agree. I don't think the Tea Party movement agrees. And I definitely don't think the Occupy Wall Street movement agrees that Exxon is a person.

I find it laughable to hear President Obama's spokesperson talking about how his campaign represents the 99%.

America has been here before, and has shown remarkable resilience in the darkest of times. So just how do we get the debate we deserve? How do we root out the corruption, greed, and fraud in our system?

Rather than requiring employers to make 401(k) plans as generous as pensions, the Obama Administration appears to be duping older workers into thinking they are ready and simply need a product that will stretch their puny nest egg over a lifetime.

How, exactly, is this working? How is this system depriving us of what we need? It's simple -- the cash speaks, the people don't.

Zuccotti Park in New York is just the beginning. Like a magnet pulling iron out of sand, folks from all walks of life are rejecting our auction-democracy in order to give America the debate it deserves.

One hundred thousand of us have decided to get money out of politics once and for all. This is a monumental task that we can only achieve with a single shared long-term goal: To force debate and passage of a Constitutional amendment to ban all private money in politics.

While our healthcare, educational, banking, military, energy, trade and tax policies all have great room for improvement, I believe that the events of the past few years make it clear that until we get money out of our political system, we cannot begin on any of it.

Until we get money out of our politics we can't address the corrupt structures that prevail over health, energy, education, defense, trade and banking.

Money has bought our politics. Only we the people can take it back. But, how? I have asked a professional lobbyist and a series of Constitutional scholars. They tell me that it will require a large, unrelenting, organized group aligned around a Constitutional Amendment.

Today, the America I see is more corrupt than I have ever seen in my entire life. I am ashamed of this country, angry, because our current political order mocks the phrase "we the people".