It’s Number One – It’s Number One

It has become palpable, indisputable and widely recognized that what stimulates our political system is not policy, not morality, not even votes. It’s money. What matters most to the leaders of our government is how much money they can raise, who will give it to them and what they will give it to them for.

My instinct for self-harm caused me recently to watch the Senate hearing about the abuse that social media is inflicting on children.  Three of the major social media CEO’s were there to testify, or, more accurately, to be pin cushions for political diatribes from the elected geniuses on both sides of the Senate committee. Now I am typically no big fan of CEO’s who are raking in some 20 or so million dollars a year, and I’m certainly never a defender of anyone who harms children, but even given these proclivities, this time I found myself on the side of the CEO’s.

This was because the members of Congress were angrily chastising the CEO’s for their policies when it was perfectly clear that the CEO’s were not doing anything that Congress wasn’t allowing them to do. In other words, the things that these CEO’s were doing were allowed by the very laws that these outraged Senators had made. If they wanted the companies to change their ways, then they could just change those laws. And therein, lies the rub. Why hadn’t they changed the laws? They made manifest the answer to that question – money.

Lindsay Graham outright said it. Very few things that Lindsay Graham says do I find enlightening, but this time, like a stopped clock, he hit on one. Graham, in a tone dripping of his standard supercilious condescension, expressed his distress at the harm caused by the CEO’s by issuing a challenge to his fellow Senators. What was that challenge? Did he charge his colleagues to pass legislation that might force the companies to change their ways? Not at all. Instead, he asked them to refuse to accept any money from these companies until the companies changed their ways.

Doesn’t that say it all? Senator Graham’s challenge explicitly recognized the corrupting role of money in our system. It said that as long as these companies spread their cash among the lawmakers, no changes in the laws were going to be made. Until the money stopped, there could be no change that would save the lives of children. It said that if Congress continues to accept the CEO’s money, then it will be handcuffed and unable to do what he and the others had spent the day claiming was so desperately necessary. He was confessing to legally permitted bribery. And the fact that he was saying it without showing the slightest recognition that it is wrong.

There are all these polls seeking to evaluate what the American people believe is the most pressing issue we face. The results vary. Sometimes it is immigration. Sometimes it is the economy. I have, though, never seen any of these polls rank the issue at the top that should be there. The most pressing issue facing this country is the role of money in our government. As long as the lawmakers themselves, like Mr. Graham, recognize without shame that they are controlled by money, then the issues decided by our government will not be decided on their merits. This problem decides all issues. Until it is fixed, the big issues will continue to be decided by who has written the biggest checks.

There are ways to fix it. It will be hard, but not impossible. This blog has been too long already, though, so I’ll save those suggested solutions for another day. I know you will be so anxious to hear about my nation-saving ideas that you will hardly sleep in the meantime, but try some sedatives. My wisdom will be available soon enough.