In the new ecology of political discourse, special-interest contributors of the large sums of money now required for the privilege of addressing voters on a wholesale basis are not squeamish about asking for the quo they expect in return for their quid. Politicians who don’t acquiesce don’t get the money they need to be elected and re-elected. And the impact is doubled when special interests make clear \u2014 usually bluntly \u2014 that the money they are withholding will go instead to opponents who are more than happy to pledge the desired quo. Politicians have been racing to the bottom for some time, and are presently tunneling to new depths. It is now commonplace for congressmen and senators first elected decades ago \u2014 as I was \u2014 to comment in private that the whole process has become unbelievably crass, degrading and horribly destructive to the core values of American democracy.<\/p>\n
Largely as a result, the concerns of the wealthiest individuals and corporations routinely trump the concerns of average Americans and small businesses. There are a ridiculously large number of examples: eliminating the inheritance tax paid by the wealthiest one percent of families is considered a much higher priority than addressing the suffering of the millions of long-term unemployed; Wall Street’s interest in legalizing gambling in trillions of dollars of “derivatives” was considered way more important than protecting the integrity of the financial system and the interests of middle-income home buyers. It’s a long list.<\/p>\n
Almost every group organized to promote and protect the “public interest” has been backpedaling and on the defensive. By sharp contrast, when a coalition of powerful special interests sets out to manipulate U.S. policy, their impact can be startling \u2014 and the damage to the true national interest can be devastating.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aPWNpSAkemg Chris Matthews, Joan Walsh and Eric Bates discuss Gore’s article and the corrupted political process — most especially on the right — that prevents anything substantial being done about global warming Two related themes in at least a couple of our ongoing threads are environmental degradation and political degradation. Al Gore brings them together […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"yoast_head":"\n
Quote of the Day: "The new ecology of political discourse" - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/07\/13\/quote-of-the-day-the-new-ecology-of-political-discourse\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Quote of the Day: "The new ecology of political discourse" - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aPWNpSAkemg Chris Matthews, Joan Walsh and Eric Bates discuss Gore’s article and the corrupted political process — most especially on the right — that prevents anything substantial being done about global warming Two related themes in at least a couple of our ongoing threads are environmental degradation and political degradation. 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