Free air time on television - THE ONLY WAY to reconcile and create a fair system.

I got an interesting email from someone I never heard of asking that I re post this old entry.

I didn't know anyone but me read this. Thanks! Enjoy!

In American democracy, speech is free but communicating is gonna cost ya! – especially if you’re trying to run for office. This is the #1 reason we have the “leaders” we have.

As the cost of getting elected keeps up with the cost of gas, the candidates we end up with are the wealthy and well-financed and they don’t give voters a choice at all. The typical winner outspends the typical loser by nearly three to one during the campaign. 98.5 percent of all incumbents seeking reelection were successful (i.e.: If you can’t write a big check to your local television station to pay for a nightly salvo of punch-ads, you’ll still have your freedom of speech, you just won’t be heard or elected).

Elections are supposed to be about when the “OUT’S” clash with the “IN’S” over bettering society, and letting US decide which is best, if either, allowing us to grow as a society.

Elections should allow for disagreements to be aired, fresh starts to be kicked off, and/or the “devil we know” to be re-affirmed.

Elections build mandates and provide accountability to those who “promise” X, Y, Z changes on A, B, C issues.

Elections transform the population into a citizenry and the citizenry into the sovereign.

When we let money become the ruling authority over who gets heard and elected, we are short changing ourselves out of a contest of ideas and range of choices that are SUPPOSED to be what elections are all about. WORSE: After the election, the public gets stuck with officials who are more in debt to their financial contributors and not their constituents. Ask now, why there is such cynicism driving people away from their responsibility to vote, starting the vicious circle of politicians thinking they need to communicate MORE on mass, pushing the cost of communicating to them even higher (and supply and demand kicks in) over and over the vicious cycle churns.

Free air time on television, as is done in virtually all of the world’s other democracies, it is THE ONLY WAY to reconcile and create a fair system.

Two separate mandates should be imposed on the broadcast industry in developing a free air time system (which by the way, the people, via the FCC own):

First: It should be required that television and radio stations to devote a reasonable amount of air time during the campaign season to issue-based candidate forums (debates, interviews, town hall meetings, etc).

Second: It should be required of stations to provide qualifying candidates and parties with vouchers to run a reasonable number of free ads in the period before an election.

Free air time is not a silver bullet, by any means. It will not drive money out of politics altogether, but it will provide communication opportunities to ALL candidates regardless of their financial circumstances. It WILL would open up the political process to many talented, visionary, people, that WE NEED to run, but who are currently priced out of the market.That, at LEAST, will allow for a free-ER exchange of ideas among competing candidates and reduce the relative importance of deep pocket groups with ancillary objectives and interests.

More information = More choice = More power.

This is all our fault. We allowed the process to govern itself and restrict our access to the political process. Shame on us! We let the “Boob Tube” people (who brought you reality TV, American Idol, Soap Operas, ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Friends’, which while entertaining does nothing to empower you, by the way) to make MONEY on our airwaves from power crazed politicians, at the expense of who runs our society.

Banning “soft money,” (large donations that go to political parties) is a good first step, but ONLY a first step. It’s time for a next step that speaks to reducing the DEMAND for political money (eliminating PAY to PLAY).

Free air time is the most cutting, deepest slashing, tangible (again we own the airwaves), practical and equitable way to get back to a more even playing field

Popular posts from this blog

"a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."

Image
Supreme Court to Hear Tribunals Challenge By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 1 minute ago THE NEWS: WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider a challenge to the Bush administration's military tribunals for foreign terror suspects, a major test of the government's wartime powers. Justices will decide whether Osama bin Laden's former, driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, can be tried for war crimes before military officers in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. THE ISSUE: Just in case you need some talking points for when you are embattled with neo-patriots created by the fear mongering that the Bush Administration has stirred up; THIS is why a balanced court is ESSENTIAL and why Judge Alito can NOT be allowed to sit on the bench. As the article states, the Supreme is going to hear a challenge to the Bush administration's military tribunals for foreign terror suspects, which is not only a major check of the government's wartime powers, but will put Chief Just...
Read more

How Afghanistan's Opium can save the world - and itself !

Image
In researching Funding Access-vs.-Prevention at 14th ICASA AIDS Conference in Nigeria there was this other topic, indirectly effecting the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. Its wider effects on the world stage are equally staggering, and it effects every person on every continent to some extent. The issue is the fledgling democracy of Afghanistan and threat that the illicit opium trade poses in destabilizing the democratic process and stability in the entire region. Opium is bleeding Afghanistan of its chances of democracy. Go anywhere in southern Kandahar, Afghanistan (the former spiritual stronghold of the Taliban) and you’ll run in to poppy fields. Drive 20 minutes in any direction and you’ll find farmers busy harvesting their crop, in spite of the Interim Authority's January 2002 ban in on poppy cultivation. An estimated 1.7 million people are directly involved in opium production, as widespread and family-based poppy cultivation proliferates in 28 of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. ...
Read more