I think we can all agree that news stories about the ever-rising flood of big money in politics do not tend to have a lot of laughs in them.
But a recent item from the New York Times unintentionally got a good guffaw from me. It was a seriously serious piece about how Karl Rove’s Super-PAC of corporate political cash has been surpassed both in cash and clout by the billion-dollar electioneering network of the Koch brothers. The reporter stated that the Kochs have “leapfrogged” Rove. There’s nothing factually funny in that, but the image of the multibillionaire brothers, Charles and David, laughing and leaping over a bent over Karl Rove is the delightfully-ridiculous stuff of slapstick.
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In fact, today’s whole political game, run by an absurdist’s nightmare of moneyed elites, is ridiculous – a game in which corporations are people and money is magically empowered to speak; candidates trek to the corporate suites and secret retreats of the rich, shamelessly selling their political souls; super-wealthy interests clandestinely pump unlimited sums of money into disgustingly-negative campaign ads that turn off most voters; candidates “win” with only a small minority of the electorate choosing them; winners then claim to have a democratic mandate to enact the plutocratic agenda.
This could be hilarious in a slapstick routine, but it’s tragic in a country with democratic aspirations. But don’t despair, for a backlash is building all across the country among voters who’re fed up with the money-rigged game that excludes them.
One group called the New Hampshire Rebellion is bird-dogging presidential candidates in that state to demand action to get Big Money out of politics. To help start your own rebellion, you can get a free, online toolkit from these modern-day Paul Revere’s by going to www.NHRebellion.org.
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