Voting in the U.S.A. - money and the vote

With the elections coming up the airwaves are full of campaign advertisements.  We stopped answering our phone at our house because all the calls are now recordings about someone running for office.  A few people close to me are saying they won't vote this time.  Some say its not new, ever since Gore 2000, they have lost faith in our system of electing our leaders.

Another perspective I was told is that if voting really counted, it would be outlawed.  Something worth thinking about.  Power these days is corporate money.  As our Supreme Court decided, corporations can give just about anything to sway a campaign.  There is so much control over who really has power in the U.S. that if we really could anything with voting, they would find a way to say our votes wouldn't count.  That is why we continue having elections.... because they don't matter.

What really matters are the deals made in the back room, the money given by PACS.... and the dictates of a powerful lobby.

Sorry if this sounds pessimistic.  But if the government really wanted to do something they would find ways to get more people back to work; plus reduce the number of foreclosures.

Really wise and foresighted leaders know that you can't let too many people in your population feel economic deprivation.  Revolutions start this way... Just take a look at history.

While I don't agree with the Tea Party tactics or objectives, I can certainly understand why so many people are angry.  Only thing is, the way our system works, the TP is already being taken over by moneyed interests.....

more on this later. p.s. I will vote this time.  While the big guys have already sown up the Texas gubernatorial election, I am praying to St. Jude (the saint of the impossible) that our next governor is one who won't want Texas to secede from the Union.

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Voting with little joy

Members of the columnist's informal panel of independents find little to like as they head for the polls

By Steve Lopez

October 24, 2010

Five months ago I began a conversation with a toy designer, a doctor, an engineering company executive and an online soccer reporter who had some things in common:

They had all been turned off by both major political parties, they considered themselves independents, and they hadn't decided whether to vote for Republican Meg Whitman or Democrat Jerry Brown for governor of California.

"I'd just like someone to answer a few questions that don't make my b.s. detector shriek," toy designer Randall Gwin of Newport Beach told me five months ago...more