Where does campaign cash go?

There's much discussion about how money corrupts politics, and on the need for campaign finance reform. I don't see the difference between a campaign contribution and a bribe. Perhaps that's just me, but here's the question no one ever asks:

Where does the campaign cash go once it is given to the politico?

Do you really think balloons, campaign posters, and even 30 second T.V. spots are that expensive? Enough to corrupt an entire American system of government? So the money goes to the politico, and the politico spends it on Madison Avenue? The T.V. networks and Ruppert Murdoch? Is that really where the true power lies?

Roots of despair to hope for the future

This is the most amazing write-up I’ve ever read anywhere, succinctly summarizing the despair I’ve felt over what America has become versus what I perceived it would be growing up. I’ve watched this develop over at least the last 30 years of my life, and it’s like I can’t watch anymore. This line REALLY grabbed me:

“Will we have an America in which people either embrace our military superiority and martial character as a moral virtue on the one hand, or are constrained to immerse themselves in our cultural distractions as a refuge from the emerging security panopticon on the other? In other words, will those ensuing Americans face delimited choices that come down to either institutionalized anger or repressed angst?”

The Wall, anyone?

Empire of the Sunset
Randall Amster J.D., Ph.D.
http://www.truthout.org/empire-sunset56797

To speak of it, agree with it, opens you to the accusation of being a “hate America firster.” So what is my motivation here? Perhaps the last two sentences:

“Perhaps that apocryphal America from a bygone day can yet be resurrected, only this time for real and not merely as an ideal. In my mind's eye, I can envision a door opening up ahead even as the one behind us closes.”

The passing of Howard Zinn

With the passing of my hero, Howard Zinn, I thought I would start a new blog featuring my perspective and reflections on the American experience. About the title? My mother once told me that she was 9 months pregnant with me during the Cuban Missile Crisis, trying to decide whether she should go to a fall-out shelter or not. The crisis ended on October 28th, 1962, the day before her birthday, and I arrived a week later, November 6, 1962.

I guess that says a lot metaphorically. I came after a lot of things, even after I was born, things that profoundly affected me anyway, like Vietnam and the '60's.

Everyone older remembers where they were when Kennedy was assassinated. I remember where I was when Nixon resigned: August 8, 1974, age 11, in a station wagon, National Lampoon's Vacation style, passing the Hearst mansion in California, on the return leg of a family vacation to the American West, a trip that made me a geologist before I knew it.

And now an e-mail I shared with friends and family regarding the passing of Howard Zinn:

CLG just announced that Howard Zinn died. I am extremely saddened. CLG linked to this LA-times write-up: it is excellent, a sobering review of his life. Particularly poignant is his description (personal witnessing) of a worker’s rights crowd being beaten in Times Square in 1939, and his expression of indignation at his own beating, to the point of unconscious, at the same:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-obit-zinn,0,3882068.story