So, Glenn Beck wasted America's hour tonight. Nothing learned that matters to you, he said ('you' meaning his regular viewers I suppose, except he calls them America). There are plenty of blogobozos with better coverage of the interview, but I want to focus on one statement Massa made which left the real bozo dumbfounded. Deer in the headlights all the way. Fat hand covering mouth. Crickets.
Excuse my dumb little bozodiary here, but I did not see anyone else pick up on it when I searched before I started writing. I will gladly smite it off if someone does. No hard feelings; for as often as I diary here, meh.
When Beck asked Massa what he would really like to see happen to clean up the corruption in Washington, Massa said Campaign Finance Reform.
He said, nothing good is going to happen until campaign financing is reformed. I loved it. "Nothing ain't gonna get done right until we reform campaign financing. Yep." has been my sig here for months. I watch all the horrible sausage-making in DC, the obscene manipulation of public opinion via the media, and the mental meta masturbations here, and I know it's all for naught, because nothing ain't gonna get done right until we reform campaign financing. Yep.
But it isn't on anyone's radar screen. Low on the totem pole. Buried under meta millions of angry and passionate words. Sprawled flat on the ground in the middle of circular firing squads. Standing in the wings as GBCWs slither off.
Health care reform, consumer protections, energy, economy, environment, immigration, wars, national security, civil rights, whatever. All good, but no good fixes will come. The US system of government, from DC to City Hall, is corrupted by campaign financing (a couple of exceptions do exist, hallelujah).
Nothing that comes out of Congress is not tainted by money, except perhaps the naming of post offices or other trivial matters.
So, we are not going to get a good health care reform plan, nor immigration, nor energy, nor any other major initiative. And the saddest part of it is that Democrats convinced a majority of voters that we would bring change and a new deal, yet our party's failure to decisively break with the past will costs us trust and votes. Even the younger folks who are probably too naive to realize the overwhelming influence of money in our system are turning away in dejection.
I've been an avid reader of DK for years, and at times, when fired up and hopeful of change, or seething with anger, have diaried and commented. But for the last few months I have mostly read to be informed of the zeitgeist of the people I most identify with politically. But my disappointment in my party's blindness to the disease that renders it incapable has discouraged me from continuing to fight the good fight. It feels like a mountain I cannot climb without the help of many others, and they are not in the numbers needed to get us up there.
And the good fight is to reform the campaign finance mechanism and give the voice back to the people, as the founders intended. Maybe then legislation that reflects the desires of the constituents (and I mean people) will actually be produced.
Pardon my apathy, but I have other things to do so this is going to be one of those dreaded drive-by diaries (also pardon the inevitable alliteration). I'm just putting down my words as a result of Massa's statement, which is one of the only times in recent history of TV talk shows I have seen that actually bring up the cause of all the problems. Out of the mouths of babes, sometimes pearls fall.
I have in the past seen discussions here about CFR by people much more knowledgeable, so if a discussion starts about it below, I will read, but I will let others better qualified put their words down. There is not much more that I can offer other than encouragement to bring this back to where it belongs, front and center. Like a FPer, I'll just "drop off the kids at the pool" and walk off.
So, BozoBeck, Massa was right, and I hope your pronouncement that "nothing that matters was said" is wrong.
Thanks to anyone who reads this. I hope you agree with me, for we really are all bozos on this bus (except maybe the driver). Keep bringing this matter up.