Podcast coming soon; script is here.
It’s Monday November 5, 2012. Election Eve.
Did you watch 60 Minutes last night? Hopefully you saw the story by Steve Croft on Congress. It had all the culprits – Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, Olympia Snow, and Tom Coburn – and the media itself.
The gist of the piece was that ideology has caused the lack of bi-partisanship and compromise that has left us with a do-nothing Congress.
Ideology?! Really!? Does 60 Minutes think we’re that stupid?
The reason is Money. It’s the huge amounts of campaign and lobbying dollars that are used to bribe our lawmakers. Campaign and lobbying bribery is the greatest investment – especially for major corporations.
If it was ideology – then why have both presidential candidates pandered to the other side—or in Mitt Romney’s case completely changed his stands from the primaries to the election.
If it was ideology – then how come both parties have splits within their membership over immigration?
If it was ideology – then why it is both sides understand that we need tax increases and spending cuts to balance our deficit and debt bomb.
It’s not ideology.
It’s Money.
And why won’t 60 Minutes – or any of the major media outlets – tell you this? Because all that campaign and lobbying bribe money goes to them.
Here’s the Informed Not Inflamed truth about media bias. The media bias is not liberal or conservative bias. No, media bias is that the media is in bed with both political parties. And both political parties are in bed with each other. It is a cozy 3-some where you – the voter and news consumer – are the ones getting screwed.
That’s why I rail against all media outlets that describe themselves as news organizations. They’re not. They’re p-r firms for the political parties. Fox is in the bag for GOP money. MSNBC is in the bag for Democratic money. All the others are going after all the political money. Used car salesmen have more credibility now.
Just think if we restricted campaigns to a certain amount of money, give them free airtime on broadcast networks, force them to use online platforms, and restrict the campaigning to the 3 months before the election.
Would the networks enjoy that? No way.
But isn’t that what most of us really want? I think so.
How do you combat this?
- First, call for Congress to be forced to work at least 50 weeks out of each year, like all of us.
- Second, in an election year, they have to work at least 45 weeks. They can only campaign for 7 weeks.
- Third, they must pass legislation on issues deemed the most wanted by voters – or else they don’t get paid or they stay in D-C until they get it done. If they’re not in their offices working on issues, then they are AWOL and docked pay. Hey, we act like their bosses when we fire them; why not act like bosses and help them do the job correctly?
- Fourth, they cannot raise any money for their campaigns. They will receive an amount of federal dollars to use for whatever they want.
- Fifth, they cannot meet anyone in their office privately who is connected to a committee they sit on.
- Sixth, they must debate an opponent once a week in the weeks leading up to the election.
- Seventh, they have to use online platforms to reach voters that allow voters to see opposing points of view. TV stations aren’t doing it. They’re just taking in the money and letting the lies stand.
- Eight, Inform yourselves. Stop listening to the political parties and only one media outlet. Take in a wide range of media content.
- Ninth, keep it here on Informed Not Inflamed.
Catch you next time.
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