As many of our more astute readers have probably noticed, this issue of The Spectrum is dedicated to (basically) one thing: money.
And why not? Money is probably the single most important thing in the life of a college student. (Profound, I know.) We all came to college so we could eventually make money; we all attend UB because our families don't have money. We work part- or full-time jobs at the expense of our studies because, when it comes down to it, those extra few bucks in our pocket at the end of the week are more important than getting all we can out of our studies.
It's really weird when you think about it, especially if you're a student of the liberal arts like myself: the want or need of capital wins out over morals, ethics, education, intellectual self-improvement, etc.; the material trumps the immaterial.
It's the unfortunate way the world works, and nowhere is this more evident than in the political system of our country.
In an age where the distribution of wealth in the ostensibly equitable and egalitarian United States of America is anything but those two things, it's money that buys "justice" and controls politics.
Just this Monday, the American League of Lobbyists called for the repeal of an ethical regulation that prohibits government employees from accepting gifts from lobbyists – in short, lobbyists are objecting to the fact that they can't outright bribe government officials.
"If it is not withdrawn, this rule will prevent government workers from having even casual social contact with registered lobbyists," said Howard Marlowe, the president of the lobbyists' group, in a press statement. "Does that mean if they find themselves at a luncheon table at a professional conference that they have to ask the others to raise hands if they are a lobbyist?"
Yeah, I'm sure it's lobbyists' social lives that Marlowe and his organization are really concerned about. Just how stupid does he think we are?
And the really sad, frustrating, unjust thing is that this sort of thing goes on all the time.
Here's another recent example: after T-Mobile's attempted acquisition of AT&T was blocked in an antitrust lawsuit, 100 Republican congressmen wrote a letter to the Obama administration urging that the lawsuit be ended. In a totally unsurprising revelation, 99 of those 100 upstanding Republicans were found to have received "donations" (read: bribes) from T-Mobile since 2009.
Our civil representatives, ladies and gentleman.
And it works both ways, too. You know those execution-cheering, soldier-booing, science-denying, welfare-cutting, gay-bashing wackjobs that call themselves the Tea Party? You'd think that being publically reprehended and discredited as much as they have in the past year or so would shut them up, but if anything they've only grown more vocal.
How, you ask? Well, it turns out that the Tea Party – far from being the "grassroots" movement it likes to pretend that it is – is actually financially backed by Right-wing billionaires like the Koch brothers. The Kochs and their friends have basically given voice to a fringe minority in a thinly veiled attempt to publically forward their own business agendas.
In short, the radical, destructive, obstructive minority and its lunatic positions have been privileged while the majority of us – i.e., those of us that actually know what the hell we're talking about – are left voiceless.
Opinion pieces written by irate citizens across the country have decried the metaphorical gap between Washington and the people it's supposed to serve. Well, there's a pretty obvious reason for that gap: a reason why the rich aren't taxed more, even though the majority of the country wants it; a reason why millionaire CEOs are in a lower tax bracket than their secretaries; a reason why incompetent, greedy banks (you know, the ones that crashed the economy in the first place) receive trillion-dollar bailouts while the people they've screwed are lucky to receive unemployment checks. Money.
Policymakers on all levels of government aren't beholden to the will of the people – they're beholden to the weight of their wallets. And get the money out of politics, that's how things are going to stay.
Email: edward.benoit@ubspectrum.com
