There have been a couple stories posted here at the Daily Kos seeking to rebut the notion that politicians taking very large speaking fees from powerful banks and other corporations whose budgets include extremely large amounts for lobbying politicians is somehow not inherently corrupt and that the charge of corruption is really based upon innuendo.
The word innuendo was used in the title of one story and in the comments of the other story. Innuendo. Remember that word.
Well here’s the thing.
I’ll start by posting the comment of mine in the second linked story that led me to believe this deserves its own story (feels REALLY weird to type “story” instead of “diary”):
I live in New York City and even though I am a lowly secretary, I still have lotsa contact with the big corporations and banks here.
They have entire departments with million dollar budgets that they invest in the arts, theatre, all sorts of community enhancement efforts. It is a standard part of business for the big corporations and has been since there were big corporations.
That is not the same as having an elected official receiving millions of dollars from institutions who are very powerful and heavily lobby Congress and the White House all the time in order to protect their very privileged interests. That money is not coming from the community enhancement budget.
What is the function of a lobbyist if not to get access? That level of money guarantees you will get access.
Why do you think just getting a small amount of time with a powerful person is so desirable? You may not get a politician to write an entire law for you (though as we have seen, that has been done all too often — see Cheney’s energy bill written by Enron if I want to pick an example we all can agree on) — but having access means you have the ability and chance to get at least something that benefits your company, and that little something can translate to billions of dollars in profit.
And these folks get a lot more than a small amount of access — they get private meetings, lunches, dinners, weekends, family occasions, all sorts of access.
And do you know who they are taking that access from?
We the people.
So, I understand that corporations and banks and other wealthy institutions spend a designated amount on all sorts of cultural events as a part of doing business.
They also pay lobbyists to gain access to politicians to tweak laws in their favor all the way up to actually having their lawyers write up the laws themselves to show to elected representatives.
That is not democracy. That is oligarchy. And that’s what we have today.
See, here’s the thing and it’s not a fucking innuendo.
That access belongs to ME. And YOU and YOU and YOU.
It shouldn’t belong to Goldman Sachs and the other banks and corporations whose actions have harmed so many and who have not been held accountable beyond paying two-bit fines — even when they have pled guilty to actual crimes.
They are stealing OUR access to OUR government and preventing us from experiencing a real democracy.
So mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and little children are all being locked out of the process.
That is not innuendo. That is reality. That is oligarchy.
Enough is enough.
That we would even have stories like this on a Democratic blog shows how insidious our corrupt campaign finance system is. Imagine what it would be like to get that kind of money out of our democratic process — to actually be represented by our representatives rather than being a mere afterthought, a tiny speck in a sea of money.
There’s one candidate who can speak truth to this issue because he hasn’t taken the money. If you wish to posit that there is no difference between how he speaks to the American people versus practically every other politician on either side of the aisle, well I wish you luck. He can actually say “the business model of Wall Street is fraud.” He can say that because he’s free.
Well I want all of us to be free of this oligarchy. It isn’t an innuendo. That just won’t wash.