Your voice means nothing in the American government.
Well, your voice might mean something but there are a few flaming laser hoops you have to jump through in order to be on par with the big dogs. First thing's first: start a political action committee. PACs are organizations that raise money to give to candidates or political parties.
Next, get a large group of your friends together. It's preferable that you get people from the campaign you're supporting on your team. Oh, there are rules against the candidate being directly affiliated with the PAC, but nobody ever said the guy who used to run a candidate's campaign couldn't be affiliated.
Now comes the easy part: find a way to raise about 30 million big ones so you can pay for advertisements and essentially run a "separate" campaign. That's how much money Mitt Romney's super PAC has raised so far. Before the election has even started, over $80 million has been raised in support of campaigns, according to Pro Publica.
It certainly helps to be extremely wealthy to begin with, too.
Don't have the time, money, resources, or training to deal with all that garbage? Well, obviously you don't value your political system as much as a major corporation.
That's the essence of the Supreme Court decision on the Citizens United case, which gave so-called super PACs the ability to take in unlimited amounts of money from donors and determined that money spent on political ads by unions and corporations was the same as free speech.
Luckily there are some in congress who might actually give a rat's ass about the voice of the average American. The DISCLOSE act, designed to increase the transparency of these super PACs, was introduced in 2010 and defeated in the Senate by a lone vote.
Now, a modified version has been presented to Congress. It would force corporations to tell shareholders where they spent money on campaigning, and make the top five donors for any of those embarrassing political attack ads appear at the end and approve the message they're spreading.
It's not a reversal of Citizens United, but it's a great start to make sure that at least we know where the money buying and paying for our government and laws is coming from.
Nothing comes easy in this political landscape, however. Who opposed the bill the first time and is sure to oppose it again this time around?
You guessed it: those heroic knights of Faux-Reagan, the modern tea-party monstrosity that is the Republican Party. Back in 2010 when Democrats had control of the house and senate, only two Republicans supported the measure for transparency. Neither is still in Congress.
Considering how good the GOP is at organizing the ranks and preventing its members from voting outside party lines, it's not entirely likely that this bill will get passed again. To do so would admit they were wrong in 2010; an admission of defeat that they think would make them look weak.
Few times in history has the protection of corporate interests been so blatant. Republicans fear the general public being able to easily see that they're voting against more tax incentives for clean energy and for more oil subsidies because massive oil corporations have all but paid for their vote.
The irony of the Republican Congress seems to be never ending. Argue for less government in our lives, and then demand the government penetrate a woman's womb. Get elected to congress on a platform of transparency, and then vote against it whenever you can.
We are slowly losing our grip on this nation, as the dollar becomes the de-facto dictator of the U.S. If your congressman votes against the DISCLOSE act, vote him out.
