Voting Doesn't Matter Because All Elections Are Controlled by R and D Big Money, Big Banksters, Big Corporations and Big Defense Contractors

Republican, Democrat or Independent, Americans are notorious for bitching and moaning about the election system but they are even more livid about the outcomes of elections.  Republicans and Democrats vote for change that never comes. None of the change that Americans vote for ever supports peace, liberty and prosperity.  While voting for big corrupt government is a national sport in America, the 2 parties actually believe they are different despite the fact that both Republicans and Democrats advocate for endless wars, bankster corruption, the wholesale slashing of civil liberties and fascist crony capitalism.  On the Democrat side, their talking points are always reduced to the Koch Brothers who are the favorite punching bags of progressives and on the Republican side it's always about George Soros and how he spreads his gargantuan wealth to liberal groups.

What voters fail to understand is that the entire election process is rigged and was never intended to be a We the People thing.  I'm not even defending democracy which I consider unlimited majority mob rule where 51% of the people get to trump the rights of the other 49%.  However, in America today the general theme on the right and left is always about our failed democracy.  Guess what? Democracy is working as it was intended to work - to concentrate wealth and power.  The establishment Republican and Democrat elites who are actually representatives of banksters, defense contractors, NSA contractors and other assorted special corporate interests are masters at getting folks to vote away their liberty in exchange for some perceived benefit.

When most American votes, they are actually voting for the police powers of state violence to rob and plunder some other citizen at the point of a gun to give them what they want and think they deserve.  Republicans vote for big bad government, the squashing of civil liberties and the endless wars that they worship like a god.  Democrats also vote for the wars and anti-civil liberty laws but they tend focus on preserving socialist entitlements, taxation and redistribution of wealth.

At the end of the day, the rich get richer, the poor get poor and the middle class is wiped out.

While I'll never be convinced that anything beneficial to humanity has ever existed in any democracy, the American democracy is especially repugnant and vile because nowhere in human history have the rich politicos and their corporate sponsors managed to bamboozle over 317 million Americans, here, or  over 207 million eligible voters, here.   Granted, far fewer actually vote and American voter participation continues to decline.

Getting back to 'democracy' and elections, America has 2 major impediments.  1.  Big corporate special interest money controls the RNC and DNC money machines and 2. The elites of the RNC and DNC machines literally ban We the People from control of the primary process by loading it up with super delegates, congress critters and DNC/RNC officials.

Primaries

Every Ron Paul supporter knows how the Ron Paul delegates were treated at the RNC Convention by the Republicans. They were marginalized, shunned and prevented from voting.  So much for fair and honest primaries.  It doesn't exist in any party.

This is deliberate and explains why the primary system is such a freaking farce.  The truth of the matter is that neither the RNC or DNC machines trust We the People.  The primary process was supposed to be a We the People event where We the People selected candidates.  It doesn't work that way and probably never has.  The Nazi strong arm tentacles of the RNC and DNC machines have effectively banished We the People from the primary process.

This week, the RNC voted to further squash We the People consisting of Tea Party folks, liberty activists, Paulites and Libertarians.

RNC tightens 2016 primary calendar, rules The Hill

A series of changes aimed at tightening the GOP presidential primary calendar sailed through a vote at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, giving the party new tools to control its nomination process.

The new 2016 rules will make it much harder for states to cut in line in the nomination process and will help Republicans avoid a repeat of a drawn out, bloody primary many believe damaged Mitt Romney's chances in 2012 of defeating President Obama.

After a contentious Thursday hearing on some rules changes, few members joined Virginia Committeeman Morton Blackwell in objecting to the final package — the landslide vote was 153 in favor, with 9 opposing.

Mort Blackwell is one of the good guys who has supported the Tea Party, Paulites and Libertarians.  Blackwell and liberty were dealt a decisive blow by the RNC.   Moreover, the 153-9 vote is proof that the establishment GOP elites are still very much in control and not threatened in the least.  However, while the Republican elites may smirk that they struck a mortal blow to the liberty activists within the party, the GOP will ultimately pay the price for its insufferable arrogance in general elections because the liberty activists are bailing like crazy.  They are so fed up that they couldn't ever hold their noses and vote Republican.

Campaign Finance Money

This week, conservative activist journalist Denesh D'Souza was indicted by a federal grand jury for violating campaign finance laws.  Specifically, D'Souza was charged with illegally raising $20,000 for a conservative candidate.  Politico reports:

The facts of the case remain hazy: The indictment states that D’Souza reimbursed associates who donated $20,000 to a campaign and also caused the campaign to misreport the source of its contributions.  

I'm no fan of D'Souza and consider him a typical Republican theocon-neocon statist.  That said, the charges against him are outrageous and politically motivated by the Obama Department of Justice because $20,000 is an incredibly puny amount of money swimming in the vast oceanic cesspools of political money.

Politico had a far more interesting piece in May 2012, before the 2012 election. Yes, Politico is a statist leftist rag and never goes after the Dems on their fund raising schemes but the article disclosed accurate money facts regarding Republican fund raising.

GOP groups plan record $1 billion blitz

Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress....

POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections...

Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, proved its potency by spending nearly $50 million in the primaries. Now able to entice big donors with a neck-and-neck general election, the group is likely to meet its new goal of spending $100 million more.

And American Crossroads and the affiliated Crossroads GPS, the groups that Rove and Ed Gillespie helped conceive and raise cash for, are expected to ante up $300 million, giving the two-year-old organization one of the election’s loudest voices.

The cost of the 2012 presidential election was a staggering $2 billion according to the Huffington Post and this doesn't include congressional races.

2012 Presidential Election Cost Hits $2 Billion Mark

The Obama and Romney campaigns each mobilized competing squads of ultra-wealthy fundraisers, sought aid from free-spending allied super PACs and deployed multimillion-dollar media broadsides and armies of organizers.

The final thrust of fundraising included a massive late surge of $33 million in donations to pro-Romney political committees from a single billionaire, Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson. In all, Adelson and his wife, Miriam, gave Romney and other Republican candidates $95 million during the election season, closing in on the gambling magnate's vow to give $100 million to GOP causes.

The new campaign finance filings covered the final few weeks of the race, when campaign organizations for Romney and Obama, along with a slew of super PACs, raised and spent millions toward the long-expected $2 billion milestone.

By law, an individual can only contribute $2,500 to a candidate.  Even if ordinary folks could afford a $2,500 campaign contribution to a candidate, which they can't, the lion's share of political money comes from PAC's, special interests, banksters, defense contractors etc. and these are the folks who own and control the RNC and DNC machines.

While the Huffington Post reported that the 2012 presidential election cost $2 billion,Politico reported that the cost of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections was $6 billion, here. Open Secrets, an organization that specifically tracks political money, also reported that the 2012 presidential and congressional elections cost $6 billion, here.

It's clearly evident that the rich and powerful hijacked and now own our election system.  The RNC and DNC machines are nothing but money laundering machines for special interests.

If an individual voter can only contribute a maximum of $2,500 to a candidate and if Denesh D'Souza is being prosecuted for his role in a puny $20,000 campaign finance fiasco, how is it that the Koch Brothers can legally pony up a staggering $400 million and casino magnet Adelson can pony up $100 million to influence election outcomes?

Every campaign finance reform bill passed by congress over the decades has served to increase special interest money in the election system.   Though a complicated maze of legal PAC's, dark money, dirty money, corporate money and other schemes and scams, just about every politician in America is bought and paid for.

This money is controlled by the RNC and DNC machines who pick and fund the candidates. Those candidates who refuse to be bought and bribed lose in primaries because nobody can compete with the big bucks of special interest dough, the RNC, DNC, their PAC's, their bundlers and their formidable fund raising machines.

If elections are going to ever mean anything as We the People initiatives to raise, fund and elect We the People candidates, then the special interest dough that owns our elections must be outlawed. The PAC's must be outlawed.  Bundling must be outlawed.

No one should be allowed to contribute money to any campaign except voters.  Furthermore, the most destructive aspect of our corrupt political system is the fund raising authority of the RNC and DNC.  Americans should support outlawing their ability to fund raise because it embodies the systemic corruption the permeates our election process.

Here's what a politician really looks like:

Photo source: http://www.isights.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/sponsors.jpg

Whatever the flaws of democracy and despite the fact that few folks even vote with their brains, I doubt that they intentionally voted for folks who are compromised, bribed, bought and paid for.

Until We the People directly fund candidates, control the primary process and get corporate money out of elections, there really is no sane reason to vote R or D.  Voting 3rd party makes far more sense.  At least it's a repudiation of Republican and Democrat treason and tyranny and allows somebody to scream "I'm here, I'm aware, I'm politically actives and I reject you warmongering, bankster loving traitors who sellout the poor and middle class".

A more perfect election process would ban all fund raising by anybody except the candidates and they should only be allowed to raise money from individual voters.  Moreover, it would be even more fun to allow unlimited individual campaign contributions so long as they are legally required to post all campaign contributions on their websites for voters to checkout.  Really, who cares of Soros gives a billion or more to Obama or if the Koch Brothers gives a billion or more to Mittens? At least voters would know who fund candidates and to what extent.

I guarantee you that campaign financial disclosure in real time would totally freakout dishonest candidates who sell themselves to the highest bidders.  To call them whores would be an insult to decent and hardworking whores everywhere.  Full disclosure would go a long way in providing voters with highly relevant information.

Meanwhile, so long as the big R and D money machines control elections, voting is truly a waste of time unless a vote is a 3rd party vote.  For the election process to ever be meaningful, primaries must be 100% We the People initiatives and the dark and dirty special interest money must be expunged from the system.

Why is the American Election Process a BIG FAIL and How to Fix It.

The American election process is corrupted, rigged and exists for one purpose only: the massive concentration of wealth and power into the hands of banksters, defense contractors, fascists and bureaucrats.

We the People? We aren't part of the equation and our contribution to approving our own enslavement is to participate in the rigged system to validate and provide electoral legitimacy to the Republican and Democrat crime syndicate that lords over us with an iron fist.

There are 2 primary components of the American election process: 1. money and 2. the rigged 2 party  system itself. It's the big money that facilitates Republican and Democrat monopolies over all elections.

Money

Very few Americans even understand that the lions share of political money is dirty special interest money and it's anything but transparent.  The small contributions raised by We the People are no match for the BIG corporatist money interests of plunderers, banksters, oligarchs, plutocrats and fascists. Every time a campaign finance bill is passed by Congress and there have been many over the decades, the end result is always more secrecy and less transparency.  It's why we have these dangerous PAC's super-PAC's.  Special interests can funnel money into the RNC and DNC machines through PAC's.

The RNC/DNC lock on political money doesn’t bode well for Americans seeking to raise new candidates and get rid of the “same old, same old” congressional institutionalists who thrive on power, greed and fraud. If you find a candidate that you like and would like to support, you are legally banned from contributing more than $2,500 to that candidate; contributing more than the legal limit makes you a criminal who can be prosecuted for violating campaign finance laws. But you can give millions to the DNC and RNC machines through its PAC's who don’t have that limitation and this vastly contributes to the absolute power of special interests.

Special interests own and control American elections because they control the money.

Independent thinking candidates are routinely squashed. Big money only flows to those who can deliver the taxpayer largess to special interest campaign contributors and it’s nearly impossible for any honest politician to ever raise sufficient money to compete with the RNC/DNC money laundering machines. Corporate contributors don’t fund candidates who campaign on “I promise to reduce government power and end the fascist marriage of big business and big government”.

Progressives and liberals went ballistic over the Supreme Court Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that essentially ruled that corporations and labor unions have a constitutional right to contribute money to political campaigns. The Supreme Court decision was right because corporations are legal entities that pay taxes while being subjected to a myriad of government regulations. Accordingly, they have an absolute legal right to have their interests represented in the election game.

So how do we get around the legal right of corporations outright buy elections and thus control legislative outcomes for its exclusive monopolistic advantage? Personally, I favor banning all political contributions except for individual contributions which should have no limits whatsoever. The limits on individual contributions drives the corrupt system underground and into a legal quagmire of undisclosed political contributions while giving both the Republicans and the Democrats extraordinary financial powers to squash We the People at all levels in the process.

The solution to the problem lies in lifting ALL restrictions on personal political contributions and mandating that all political money goes straight to the candidate by bypassing the parties and their legendary fund raising machines.

Do I care if George Soros directly gives billions to Obama?  No because it's his absolute right to fund the candidate of his choice.

Do I care if the Koch Brothers gives billions to Romney? No, because it's their absolute right to fund the candidate of their choice.

However, what the American voter really needs is real time disclosure of all political money. Every website of every candidate for public office should be required by law to have a link on their websites that lists in real time all political contributions, not by the date received but by the amount of the contribution.  If they can get the money to the bank, they can disclose it in real time.  Right now the system is rigged against disclosure because of quarterly filing requirements and the fact that a whole lot of  political money is exempt from disclosure.

If anything, Americans are nosy about money and you better believe that they'd be checking out who is bankrolling candidates.

Furthermore, America needs to ban all RNC and DNC fundraising activities. Because so much of the BIG special interest money is raised by the RNC and DNC machines through a complex legal maize that facilitates non-disclosure and secrecy, there will never be financial transparency in the election process for voter review until political monetary transparency and disclosure are achieved.

The top 10 corporate PAC contributions for the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, were as follows:

Obama: Goldman Sachs $739,521, UBS AG $419,550, Lehman Brothers $391,774, Citigroup Inc $492,548, Morgan Stanley $341,380, Latham & Watkins $328,879, Google Inc $487,355 JPMorgan Chase & Co $475,112, Sidley Austin LLP $370,916, Skadden, Arps et al $360,409

McCain: Merrill Lynch $349,170, Citigroup Inc $287,801, Morgan Stanley $249,377 Wachovia Corp $147,456, Goldman Sachs $220,045, Lehman Brothers $115,707, Bear Stearns $108,000, JPMorgan Chase & Co $206,392, Bank of America $133,975, Credit Suisse Group $175,503.

Those figure are far from definitive and the same players funneled a whole lot more money into the campaign finance cesspool through mechanisms not requiring disclosure.  There is also the issue lobbying and its monetary influence far exceeds campaign contribution influence.

Opensecrets.org reports the top spenders on lobbying for 2008 were:

US Chamber of Commerce $91,725,000
Exxon Mobil $29,000,000
AARP $27,900,000 PG&E Corp $27,250,000
Northrop Grumman $20,743,252 American Medical Assn $20,555,000
Pharmaceutical Rsrch & Mfrs of America $20,220,000
Koch Industries $20,023,000
General Electric $19,379,000
American Hospital Assn $18,902,684
Verizon Communications $18,020,000
Boeing Co $17,540,000
National Assn of Realtors $17,340,000
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $16,220,165
Lockheed Martin $15,981,506 AT&T Inc $15,076,675
National Cable & Telecommunications Assn $14,500,000
Southern Co $14,080,000
Altria Group $13,840,000
General Motors $13,351,000

They don’t sprinkle that kind of dough around the District of Crime without getting big paybacks. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is so powerful that it outspends the #2 biggest spender on lobbying by a margin of over 3:1 with a whopping $92 million. What the Chamber of Commerce gets for its $92 million investment is the ability to load up America with cheap third world labor that drives American wages down while shifting the social costs of impoverished “slave” wage earners to the unemployed, broke and suffering American taxpayers.  Basically, it's the systematic wipe out of the American middle class.

The Banksters are always lavishly rewarded for their campaign contributions. Barry Ritholtz, a financial author and pundit, who runs the website Ritholtz.com, put out quite an enlightening article that calculated TARP money (Bankster Bailout Bucks) as a return on lobbyist dollars spent and campaign contributions. The Ritholtz list (prints to 7 pages) listed the banks that received TARP money and included political contributions and lobbying expenditures to arrive at a return on investment.

Campaign Contributions: $37.4 million
Lobbying Expenses: $76.6 million
TARP Payment: $305.2 billion
 Return on Investment: 267,208%

There are a gazillion other special interest groups that are also engaged in the “pay to play” game at the DC Wheel of Fortune.  With a $3.7 trillion pie, those seeking a slice or a crumb descend upon the pie like hoards of hungry cockroaches.

I wonder how many folks would have voted for Obama or McCain in 2008 if they had known upfront that they were heavily funded by Wall Street? Do you really think the American people would have voted for Bankster and corporate welfare?

The Best Government that Fascist Corporatist Bankster Defense Contractor Money Can Buy 

Wall Street and the banksters are far from the only larcenous and felonious gang of  plunderers at the taxpayers gate nor are they the only financiers of political campaigns and lobbying.. Defense contractors and rent seeking corporations demanding subsidies, loan guarantees, protectionism and monopoly rank quite high and are extremely powerful influences.  Entire industries like Big Agriculture and Big Pharm are major power brokers in the Pay to Play Game that reigns supreme in the District of Crime and within our own state legislators and city councils.

Most Congress Critters spend their taxpayer funded time hanging out with special interest lobbyists and favor seeking campaign contributors although most voters don't know it.  We the People have become We the Sheeple and we are laughed at and mocked by those in power, except on election day when politicans pledge their undying love to the people.

How can lobbying and influence peddling be minimized? Again, disclosure could play a key role in scaring politicians away from those who routinely bribe them for a vote.  Of course, in America there is no such thing as bribery as bribery is now nothing more than a legal campaign contribution that is codified into law.

What if Congress Critters and all other elected officials were required to make their schedules public on the Internet?  By making their schedules public I mean putting their calendars on the office holders' official website for the world to see.  Moreover, not publishing a meeting or contact should be a crime because it implies that a public official is engaging in something so underhanded that it reeks of bribery and secrecy.

Wouldn't the American voters just love to know how their elected leaders spend their time and who they spend it with? I suspect that the American people would be shocked and so angry that they'd want these bought and paid for elected representatives voted out of office.

Republican, Democrat, Liberal, conservative or independent, the American people have been denied openness and transparency by the big money games of the RNC and DNC.  Whatever our political and ideological stripes, no one will escape the fascist tyranny until this corrupt fundraising system is dismantled and outlawed.

While we will never be able to fully solve the problems of big money interests and their ability to buy entire legislative bodies, in the Age of the Internet we can certainly accomplish a whole lot more than We the People could ever have hoped to accomplish in the past and before the Internet.

The liberty movement is strengthening and I'd say it's moved from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane.  The politicos and power brokers that controlled us for so many decades are finally running a tad scared and liberty will only be achieved when there's a Category 5 hurricane facing our oppressors.

The Internet is the new portal to liberty as evidenced by the stupendous growth of alternative media that is very successfully putting truth and facts into the hands of ordinary folks.  The once powerful propaganda machines of the government and its media partners in crime are rapidly collapsing.

To be continued with:  What's Wrong With the Primary and General Election System Besides the DIRTY MONEY?