Post by demodave on Oct 25, 2011 20:09:56 GMT -5
I've done quite a bit of thinking about this over the last few years (though shamefully little research) and at times grown quite despondent about the propsects for cf reform, despite popular support for it in theory. I thought I would share some of my concerns. I hate to be at all negative or deflating, but, idk, the truth is the truth, if any of my concerns are legit, and revolution isn't a fantasy game. I imagine many of you have thought about these questions as well, and perhaps have answers. I'm eager to hear your thoughts. You can see that it's quite long. I figure that's what the forums are for... in part 
. Obviously ignore it if you don't have 5 or 10 minutes to throw away. Truth is I'm on the road by myself in a hotel right now... so... nothing better to do lol.. but hopefully idk it helps us! You're all awesome! Long live Occupy Albany!
For starters, I think it's critical that we consider not just how to combat corruption in its current form, but as it could (and thus presumably would) resurface after the first, second, twentieth options were taken away, and the negative repercussions, and just how convoluted proposals with teeth might have to be. And I don't know if Sweden or any other place can be used as a comparison point, since (in Sweden's case) I suspect they're not nearly as addicted to the goddamn idiot box as we are, probably much better educated, not as habituated to corruption, etc.
I should also confess relative ignorance about broadcasting regulations and Supreme Court decisions on that. I'm very eager to hear from those of you who know more. It's possible some of my concerns are completely moot.
That said, I assume the pillar of reform would be public financing, based on the idea that if the government did enough of its own advertising, the private ads would be drowned out, perhaps in a cost-prohibitive way that would eventually make them go away?
The problem I see with that is --- just how much advertising do we want to drown ourselves in and how healthy is that to the process and who controls it? Presumably (in the beginning at least) the opposition would arm up even more and it would be a massive 24/7 onslaught of soundbyte campaigning and mud-slinging in all directions. 3, 4, 10, 20 times as much political advertising as we already have. Do we have the collective stomach for it? Should we?
Many reformers seem to envision a rough matching of current spending, which would help, but perhaps not as much as they hope, since, the opposition would again presumably ramp up, and to whatever extent the public funding was automatic, it would still be the private dollars that were CONDITIONAL and thus made the DIFFERENCE. A solution to that 2nd problem would be to give everyone ad vouchers to contribute to the advertisers of their choice. But alas this is the sort of convoluted & inconvenient solution that worries me in terms of getting support. And... not without reason, since I myself tremble at the thought of us all slopping around in the mud together, perpetually racing to the rhetorical bottom to out-blacken and out-deceive our neighbors in a post-apocalyptic thunderdome of gossip & lies! (Still, I'd probably be on board.)
Reform attempts so far have tried to target "campaign" or "candidate" ads, or also again campaign donations, all of which I think is counterproductive. Surely candidates don't need money coming directly to their campaigns to know whose bread is being buttered by whom. And as Swiftboat proves, it probably works out better for the candidates if there isn't a direct link.
As to making distinctions between speech about "candidates" or "campaigns" or political speech in general and other kinds of speech, at least in most contexts, I'm pretty uncomfortable with such case-by-case censorship. Indeed there seems to be some historical irony here, if you'll indulge me a story from our nation's formative years...
There was a certain printer in 1730s colonial NY named Zenger accused of repeatedly libelling his governor, despite (I believe never) mentioning that governor by name (so as to avoid prosecution for libel, naturally, not that his readers were ever confused). Zenger's attorney had a small field day with that, pointing out that if his client could be convicted, then so could anyone walking down the street quoting the Bible, since many of its passages could be construed as being about the governor as well (which he then demonstrated to uproarious effect). Zenger's acquittal by a sympathetic colonial jury, the rousing call to liberty in his attorney's closing statement, etc, sparked revolutionary fervor and cemented free speech as a central part of that.
Are we now to return to the days of a Star Chamber (already defunct by Zenger's day but you get the idea) combing through our statements to discern their hidden implications? Whether they are or are not about a candidate, campaign, political party, etc? Especially in the age of sophisticated mass media, subconscious advertising tactics based on years of trial and research? I'd say that regardless of the totalitarian aspects, it's simply naive to think we'd acheive anything that way.
All this would be one of the few points on which I'd agree with the Supreme Court (or at least Justice Kennedy). Distuingishing between "donations" and paid (but indirect) support, between "campaign" or "candidate" speech and other speech, just pushes everything beneath the surface where it might have even more impact, and certainly doesn't do anything for our collective integrity.
On the other hand, stripping corporations of their personhood would seem to have no such detrimental side-effects, and I imagine most Americans would be on board... at least to a point. There's some kind of argument here about "machines" controlling politics, not even the investors or ceos or ANYONE, but lifeless legal artifices, Terminators if you will, without feeling, remorse, etc. Why let these machines talk about... anything? America's not ready to do away with commercials, but I think we could all live with a Star Chamber of sorts making sure that corporations stick to endorsing their products and nothing else. I don't think anyone would cry too much if an abundance of their commercials were censored, even arbitrarily, so long as our free football and reality tv kept flowing. Not that I think even this would be an easy sell at first, just maybe the kind of thing Americans might come around to.
But I fear we'd have to go even further to prevent the next move, and erect some kind of wall between expressive businesses like tv networks and movie studios as opposed to everything else and prohibit such corporations, which of course WOULD have to be given robust speech rights, from engaging in or being merged with other businesses (perhaps even prohibit the expressive businesses from being publicly traded?) I think that makes sense anyway, as far as delivering the best product, so hopefully you could sell Americans on this, again, rather convoluted and somewhat authoritarian approach, without which I fear we'd simply be chasing the problem away, to return as strong as ever in a different form ( 22 minutes of Girls Gone Wild, 5 minutes of assorted product ads, 3 minutes of political ads, all brought to you courtesy of Exxon-Walmart-NBC).
But cutting the corporations out of the game altogether would take a huge huge bite out of the apple, if people were really prepared to go the distance on it.
But sometimes it really gets me down, like, how could we ever fight all this without a complex web of authoritarian prohibitions, many on speech? How could we sell these kinds of proposals to the average American?
In the end, I'm still slightly in favor of making campaign finance reform the spearhead, perhaps even the singular issue, of the movement, because of the broad support for it, and because I think even half measures would help. And maybe if they failed a bit we could keep doing more. Or else maybe it blazes the trail for more radical and comprehensive kinds of reform, such as my ultimate dream of a direct democracy where Congress was limited to researching, writing, explaining and debating, and only the people got to actually vote (which I should think would cut the gordian knot.)
Anyways those are some of my thoughts. Very eager to hear people's responses... I mean if anyone wasted that much time to read this
. Obviously ignore it if you don't have 5 or 10 minutes to throw away. Truth is I'm on the road by myself in a hotel right now... so... nothing better to do lol.. but hopefully idk it helps us! You're all awesome! Long live Occupy Albany!For starters, I think it's critical that we consider not just how to combat corruption in its current form, but as it could (and thus presumably would) resurface after the first, second, twentieth options were taken away, and the negative repercussions, and just how convoluted proposals with teeth might have to be. And I don't know if Sweden or any other place can be used as a comparison point, since (in Sweden's case) I suspect they're not nearly as addicted to the goddamn idiot box as we are, probably much better educated, not as habituated to corruption, etc.
I should also confess relative ignorance about broadcasting regulations and Supreme Court decisions on that. I'm very eager to hear from those of you who know more. It's possible some of my concerns are completely moot.
That said, I assume the pillar of reform would be public financing, based on the idea that if the government did enough of its own advertising, the private ads would be drowned out, perhaps in a cost-prohibitive way that would eventually make them go away?
The problem I see with that is --- just how much advertising do we want to drown ourselves in and how healthy is that to the process and who controls it? Presumably (in the beginning at least) the opposition would arm up even more and it would be a massive 24/7 onslaught of soundbyte campaigning and mud-slinging in all directions. 3, 4, 10, 20 times as much political advertising as we already have. Do we have the collective stomach for it? Should we?
Many reformers seem to envision a rough matching of current spending, which would help, but perhaps not as much as they hope, since, the opposition would again presumably ramp up, and to whatever extent the public funding was automatic, it would still be the private dollars that were CONDITIONAL and thus made the DIFFERENCE. A solution to that 2nd problem would be to give everyone ad vouchers to contribute to the advertisers of their choice. But alas this is the sort of convoluted & inconvenient solution that worries me in terms of getting support. And... not without reason, since I myself tremble at the thought of us all slopping around in the mud together, perpetually racing to the rhetorical bottom to out-blacken and out-deceive our neighbors in a post-apocalyptic thunderdome of gossip & lies! (Still, I'd probably be on board.)
Reform attempts so far have tried to target "campaign" or "candidate" ads, or also again campaign donations, all of which I think is counterproductive. Surely candidates don't need money coming directly to their campaigns to know whose bread is being buttered by whom. And as Swiftboat proves, it probably works out better for the candidates if there isn't a direct link.
As to making distinctions between speech about "candidates" or "campaigns" or political speech in general and other kinds of speech, at least in most contexts, I'm pretty uncomfortable with such case-by-case censorship. Indeed there seems to be some historical irony here, if you'll indulge me a story from our nation's formative years...
There was a certain printer in 1730s colonial NY named Zenger accused of repeatedly libelling his governor, despite (I believe never) mentioning that governor by name (so as to avoid prosecution for libel, naturally, not that his readers were ever confused). Zenger's attorney had a small field day with that, pointing out that if his client could be convicted, then so could anyone walking down the street quoting the Bible, since many of its passages could be construed as being about the governor as well (which he then demonstrated to uproarious effect). Zenger's acquittal by a sympathetic colonial jury, the rousing call to liberty in his attorney's closing statement, etc, sparked revolutionary fervor and cemented free speech as a central part of that.
Are we now to return to the days of a Star Chamber (already defunct by Zenger's day but you get the idea) combing through our statements to discern their hidden implications? Whether they are or are not about a candidate, campaign, political party, etc? Especially in the age of sophisticated mass media, subconscious advertising tactics based on years of trial and research? I'd say that regardless of the totalitarian aspects, it's simply naive to think we'd acheive anything that way.
All this would be one of the few points on which I'd agree with the Supreme Court (or at least Justice Kennedy). Distuingishing between "donations" and paid (but indirect) support, between "campaign" or "candidate" speech and other speech, just pushes everything beneath the surface where it might have even more impact, and certainly doesn't do anything for our collective integrity.
On the other hand, stripping corporations of their personhood would seem to have no such detrimental side-effects, and I imagine most Americans would be on board... at least to a point. There's some kind of argument here about "machines" controlling politics, not even the investors or ceos or ANYONE, but lifeless legal artifices, Terminators if you will, without feeling, remorse, etc. Why let these machines talk about... anything? America's not ready to do away with commercials, but I think we could all live with a Star Chamber of sorts making sure that corporations stick to endorsing their products and nothing else. I don't think anyone would cry too much if an abundance of their commercials were censored, even arbitrarily, so long as our free football and reality tv kept flowing. Not that I think even this would be an easy sell at first, just maybe the kind of thing Americans might come around to.
But I fear we'd have to go even further to prevent the next move, and erect some kind of wall between expressive businesses like tv networks and movie studios as opposed to everything else and prohibit such corporations, which of course WOULD have to be given robust speech rights, from engaging in or being merged with other businesses (perhaps even prohibit the expressive businesses from being publicly traded?) I think that makes sense anyway, as far as delivering the best product, so hopefully you could sell Americans on this, again, rather convoluted and somewhat authoritarian approach, without which I fear we'd simply be chasing the problem away, to return as strong as ever in a different form ( 22 minutes of Girls Gone Wild, 5 minutes of assorted product ads, 3 minutes of political ads, all brought to you courtesy of Exxon-Walmart-NBC).
But cutting the corporations out of the game altogether would take a huge huge bite out of the apple, if people were really prepared to go the distance on it.
But sometimes it really gets me down, like, how could we ever fight all this without a complex web of authoritarian prohibitions, many on speech? How could we sell these kinds of proposals to the average American?
In the end, I'm still slightly in favor of making campaign finance reform the spearhead, perhaps even the singular issue, of the movement, because of the broad support for it, and because I think even half measures would help. And maybe if they failed a bit we could keep doing more. Or else maybe it blazes the trail for more radical and comprehensive kinds of reform, such as my ultimate dream of a direct democracy where Congress was limited to researching, writing, explaining and debating, and only the people got to actually vote (which I should think would cut the gordian knot.)
Anyways those are some of my thoughts. Very eager to hear people's responses... I mean if anyone wasted that much time to read this
