Free Speech and the Influence of Money on Democracy

If you like to pass along false rumors and innuendos about the President -- any president -- and the President’s policies, you can be reasonably confident you’ll never be called out for it by a member of your own political party.  In my opinion, the Republicans excel at this ability, but the Democrats cannot be far behind with this flawed sense of party loyalty.  The news media helps to perpetuate the concept, by ignoring any responsibility for fact checking much of what it passes along to the public.  Nothing new here I suppose, but there are some journalistic accounts of the media exercising its supposed position as “watchdog for the public.” 

The lure of advertising dollars has corrupted the “eye of the public” function of many media outlets in the world today.  The need to maintain large readership/viewership numbers in order to entice advertisers is too strong a need for corporate media businesses.   Unfortunately, the general public has been all too willing to let this undesirable development come about.  Reporting the news is more about money than journalism.  

While we’ve been sleeping, the people that benefit the most from this situation have been quietly solidifying their power over our society.  Numerous examples exist of this constant struggle to promote favor for the few at the expense of the majority.  Some of these examples include eliminating protections for workers and the public safety.  Alarm at this development is small since only a minority of people is able to relate to the overall negative trend.  Far too many people belong to the group of trusting voters who believe their political candidates will become their trusted representatives in power once they get into office.  The truth -- for those willing to seek it -- is less than encouraging with regarding elected representatives and who they represent when they get into office.  Representing the people in public office is more about money than civic duty and protecting the interests of the public.

The Tea Party claims to be an organization that evolved from public dissatisfaction with the political process in this country.  That may or may not be true, but regardless of the virtue of the party’s origins, some observers believe that the Tea Party has been co-opted or corrupted by powerful moneyed interests.  The two major parties seem to be controlled by the people within them that are more concerned with continuing their careers than with promoting ideology to benefit the public welfare.  

Assume for the sake of discussion that you are qualified in everyway to hold an elected office.  What are the chances that you could win an election to an office outside of the state you live in?  Then ask yourself how much money has to do with your answer.   Now ask yourself, who controls the money?

The press and other news media used to hold the upper hand with its ability to gather information and report that information to the public and the public had to rely on them for news information.  Now days many people carry camera phones and other small recording devices.  This is a scary development for entities that would like to filter, disguise, or block knowledge of their activities from the prying eyes of the public.   Even without the official press doing its job, in some ways it is harder today to hide questionable activities from the public.  Some of the responsibility for exposing these questionable activities has been taken over by people involved in demonstrations of public dissent.   Organized dissent worries those entities that don’t want close public scrutiny of their activities. 

Motivated opinion comment/letter writers continue to send their opinions to newspapers and other media outlets in the hope that those letters will be posted and read by others.  Some of those comments and letters do get posted or published and the Internet has made it easier for people to make public comments.  However, compare the impact of any single letter or comment writer’s efforts with the impact of well funded groups or large corporations.  Both are expressions of free speech, but are they equal?

Corporate Influence

The January 23 issue of High Country News includes an article entitled Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote.  The Editor’s Note column on page one is headed with “An era of increasing corporate power” and you can read the editor’s comment online under the title Billboard corporations and other big industries make their own rules. 

Another example of corporate power and influence on government can be seen in the 2012 session of the South Dakota legislature a bill to undue what some people believe was a legislative mistake gets tabled in committee.  HB1098 would have restored state permitting power on uranium mines and reversed last year’s legislation. Cheryl Rowe, Lilias Jarding, and Rebecca R. Leas wrote letters to the editor of the Rapid City Journal expressing support for this year’s proposed bill.  Other opponents of last year’s legislation from the area near where the uranium mining would take place also testified before the committee.  However, one of the bill’s main sponsors decided that the bill needed to be “refined” and that she would resubmit the new bill next year.  

The following article is taken from the West River Electric February 2012 issue of the “Cooperative Connections” magazine, page 15:

It is worth it to do a little research into the reversal of the so called ban on incandescent light bulbs.  For another explanation of whether or not there is a ban on incandescent light bulbs plus lots more information on the topic look here.  One article referred to this recent US Congressional activity as a victory for the US Tea Party.  Was it in fact a victory for the Tea Party or was it an example of the effectiveness of political influence capabilities of Koch Industries?

Okay, ignore my inference to right-wing conspiracy and ask yourself some questions. 

1.  Who benefits the most from the examples of political influence listed above?

2.  Do you like looking at the local scenery that you can see through bill boards or would you prefer to just look at the scenery without the bill boards? 

3.  Is it worth the risk of polluting our drinking water in order to make it easier for Power Tech to mine for uranium in the Black Hills?

4.  If you can save money and help the whole world save energy by changing to a light bulb that is more efficient, why wouldn’t you?

5.  Who benefits if you don’t change to the more efficient light bulb?

I would like to read you answers.

Letter to the Editor, Published in Rapid City Journal 4-19-09

Thank you for your comments referring to my letter Mr. Johnson. However, what makes you think that I’m defending Democrats? Here is a fact, based on my experience: Visiting numerous Tea Party websites and perusing their lists of slogans, signs, and talking points (when they included those things) did not turn up anti-Bush, anti-Paulson, anti-TARP, or anti-stealing money from our grandchildren to pay for the war in Iraq references. Is it possible that Nancy Pelosi, President Obama, and Timothy Geithner are only part-time Democrats? There were lots of examples on those websites that did not specifically name one party or one administration responsible for maximizing levels of taxation and spending. They almost made me want to join in.

As you pointed out, we agree that people should protest. Are you are unable or unwilling to see how people with an agenda that is slanted against one party also used this event to further that agenda? Perhaps you’ll be on the front lines of some unbiased Labor Day celebration in the future just to spite me.

As for my letter being presented as something other than my opinion, how did it differ in that respect from your letter?

Tea Party protest in Rapid City

Tuesday, April 14, 2009; Jerry Steinley’s article Spending brings out the tea protest was published in the Rapid City Journal:
http//www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2009/04/14/news/opinions/jerry_steinley/doc49de39520221d774387146.txt .

Since then numerous online comments have been posted on the Rapid City Journal’s website and several rebuttal letters have also been published in the print version of the Rapid City Journal. I wrote the following article before reading the online posts and I can see that a number of the people writing in support of the Tea Party should not be included in my one party slant perception of participants. In defense of what I wrote below, my opinion came from the print newspaper rebuttals and from visiting a website that listed the issues of the protest. That list was decidedly one sided and party biased. For better or worse, my letter to the editor appears below:

The accusations and pronouncements of the Tea Party group would be much more believable if their charges of malfeasance included members of more than one political party and more than one presidential administration. Mr. Steinley’s recent editorial very clearly identified the upcoming demonstration for what it is, divisive party exploitation of public anger rather than rational nonpartisan voter indignation.

Mr. Steinley’s editorial also implied that not all of our conservative neighbors accept the one sided accusations. The organizers are apparently not interested in using this opportunity to gather more broad based support for their protest. Broad based, multi-political party, support that could actually and positively affect the future of our nation and help to reduce partisan obstructionism and divisiveness.

We should be outraged by what has happened, demand accountability, demand transparency, and get personally involved. Many of the Tea Party group members think they are doing just that, but they should drop the one political party slant on some of the issues they have raised. They could draw many more participants to their rally.

Americans can be very skeptical at times. Unfortunately, when it comes to politics, some of us seem to have forgotten where we left our skepticism laying.