Institutional corruption runs rampant throughout American politics. This is especially true in Congress, where members spend 30-70% of their time raising money for their next re-election.
The tiniest slice of Americans – 0.0000063% – fund the vast majority of campaign costs. THIS IS CORRUPTION! It’s a corruption of dependency, as elected officials depend on special, elite interests well above those of the people they represent.
This corruption needs to be removed for democracy to be reclaimed. And the only way this can be done is with an upheaval to the entire system, making it so that the power to select leaders is distributed equally across the population.
Instead of allowing corporations and the super-rich to dictate who gets their names on ballots, set strict limits on campaign fundraising and super-PAC donations, so that regular people get the same say as those with tons of money.
Seems easy enough. Come on, Americans, make it happen!
As a Canadian, you may wonder why I care about what our neighbors to the south are up to. Well, they are the world’s superpower (for now), and if they can get a functioning democracy it would do wonders for building a more just world.
Second, our Conservative Canadian government seems hell-bent on following America into the corporatist cesspool of war-mongering and prison building. So if the United States can be steered away from corruption towards democracy, Harper might follow suit and actually stop the degradation of Canada without even knowing it.
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Tags: america, canada, corruption, dependence, institution, institutionalized, lawrence, lessig, politics, states, stephen harper, trust, united, us
