There is a line in the movie " Casablanca" that goes, " He's like any other man only more so." It was the answer Rick ( Bogart) gave to a young Bulgarian woman refugee who was offered a deal by Police Captain Reneau ( Claude Raines). And so lobbies in America are treated like individuals "only more so". The rights of lobbies and corporations to be treated like individuals stem from a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the 19th century that protected their freedom of speech. That recognition coupled with enormous amounts of money crowd out individual voters interests.
So what ? America , you may have noticed has become a microcosim of the worlds demographics. Every known race and culture live here. All are fighting for their special interests . Our politicians are only too happy to play the part of the overly-paid broker to allocate Washington-controlled assets to the most powerful lobbies and ignore individuals and the commonwealth.. This has the potential to break-up America and fracture it along tribal lines.
An example is AIPAC ( American Israel Public Affairs Committee ). This lobbies pushes pro-Israel initiatives. Israel is a foreign country. Most of the times these intiatives compromise America's best interests. Look at the Middle East and how our lop-sided support of Israel has put us in conflict with the rest of the world. This lobby has the potential to spend over $ 300,000,ooo per election cycle. This dwarfs any other lobby. But just as dangerous and unhealthy our foreign policy has become because of AIPAC our own domestic democratic experiment is fracturing. Many voters in America resent powerful lobbies particularly the ones that represent foreign interests like Israel.Our country is losing its cohesiveness.
No comments:
Post a Comment