For Coffee Club Forum Topic... Constitutional Amendment Level Campaign Finance, Electioneering, and Lobbying Reform...

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A Call For Constitutional Amendment Level Campaign Finance & Electioneering Law Reform
A Political Action Committee that calls for a Constitutional Amendment on Campaign Finance and Electioneering Law Reform is bedrock to the Call for an evolutionary, progressive, grassroots, and Democratic transformation of our politics, economy, society, and culture. Such a focused movement is needed because:
The overwhelming corrupting influence of money in our politics- along with the radically increasing concentration of wealth among the upper few per cent of our citizens- has created a critical and fundamental crisis in our Democracy and by extension in our domestic, foreign, and military policy.
Elections and campaigns have largely deteriorated into competitions in fundraising, which inevitably leads to the interests of disproportionately wealthy individuals and corporations being best represented- almost to the point of exclusively so- in the political arena. Campaign spending turns into just a tidy little windfall for private media empires. Hey, that’s no way to use the “public” airwaves.
There is ample evidence that "our" media and news information sources- vital cornerstones to any meaningful freedom of speech and press, not to mention Democracy itself- are more and more dominated by ever fewer mega merged "media empire" conglomerates. The result being that “our” public dialog and political debate is largely being framed by “their P.R.” agenda for privatization, low taxes for them, weak to non-existant public sector democratic governance of "their" shenanigans, and free market fundamentalist corporate libertarian globalization.
That these truths are ongoing, worsening, and self evident should be (but are not) a part of every news story and deeply imbedded into our political dialog and debate. Instead we have increasingly narrow discourse dominated by infotainment, celebrity obsession, and political spin doctoring- which all contribute to the acceptance as legitimate of devolving and self serving extremist hard right macho careerist posturing among complicit “mainstream” politico hacks along with the dominance in government at all levels of a Corporate and Business Culture which brings consistent and predictable results:
Ever more to those with the most: a steadily spiking disparity between rich and poor even as working and middle class people have struggled to maintain any kind of secure quality in their work, families, and communities.
Plenty of scuffling, antisocial stress and dysfunctional life for those at, near, or in fear of slipping closer to the bottom.
The operation of government mainly as a subsidy, service, and spoils system for the wealthiest individual and corporate "citizens", while everyone else is encouraged to believe that a favorably unregulated climate for the resultant corporate "Owner of Everything" class will create enough of a "trickle down" effect so all will be right in this “best of all possible worlds”.
All of which is of course pretty much entirely disingenuous smokescreen and hollow hoodwinking. While there is no one simple quick fix to these complex circumstances a good start might be for:
The American people to take responsibility for where this “drift” has been and is still taking us;
“We the people”, acting as informed citizens, start to reassert genuine Democratic control over our country in order to change the fundamental direction we are headed.
Nothing short of Constitutional Amendment level reform is needed to address this ongoing and worsening crisis at the heart of our Democracy so that we can re-determine what our vital national security interests are or not.
We need major Constitutional Amendment level Reform of our Campaign Finance, and Electioneering, and Lobbying Laws to address the growing rigged dominance within our Democracy by an ever narrowing elite segment of our citizenry.