How Badly We Need Campaign Finance Reform

I know I haven't written in a while, and with (at least, I think) good reason: I am terrified of repeating myself. I realize that my writing has been, more or less, single-minded, which isn't bad in itself, but I find myself writing about the same exact topics over and over: Atheism, the evils of the conservative Christians, etc. But surely, there is much material in the current Republican primary!

There is a lot of material, certainly. But even still, I don't even want to. I have been of voting age for six years, and have paid attention to politics since the campaign to impeach Bill Clinton. I have seen the Christian Right dematerialize and materialize again, after assured annihilation: Homosexuality, infidelity, and other juicy tales of sexual escapades from deep within their ranks. And they keep coming back: They don't even need Jesus anymore; they are miraculous enough.

I am torn: I know what they are doing is awful, the full-scale assault on women's rights (not a single woman was able to testify on behalf of a pharmaceutical product so ubiquitous and so integral to women's autonomy as the birth control pill), but I know that these dirty old men so intent upon turning attention away from themselves, so wrapped up in their own arrogance, are not ever going away. The problem isn't, finally, with our politicians: Our politicians are greedy, stupid, and bigoted, sure, but why are we electing them?

Why do we need nothing less than a SuperPAC, an engine devised to raise incredible amounts of money, only half separated from the political process and wholly unaccountable, to get elected? Something is wrong with our system, not necessarily with our government, but our election process, when the only way that a candidate can compete is to amass millions (not yet billions, but we'll be there soon) in private funds to even be considered not just by the people, but by the conglomerates that are our two parties.

And once in office, what is it that they care about? How do we get access? Lobbyists [read, companies] get access by enabling the politician to continue his or her political career: By giving money or gifts to his or her campaign fund. We voted them in, and now they have to be guaranteed to stay before they will listen, but they only listen to those who bring them money. The votes, therefore, are secondary, a given.

What ends up happening is that the ads get them elected: They tell us what a candidate may or may not think about a given issue, make generally short arguments for or against candidates, and our participation is taken as granted. The campaigns are largely not funded through public money, and the candidates must more or less buy the support of the wealthy, which is precisely why the work that a candidate originally wanted to do is never done.

Would I be crazy to begin seeing Jack Abramoff as a sympathetic figure? What if, leaving the question of his authenticity aside for a minute, Abramoff is providing an invaluable service to our political process by telling us what is actually going on in our government. "The problem," Abramoff said to Lawrence Lessig, whose book greatly influenced this essay, "isn't what's illegal; the problem is what's legal"1.

I have painted a picture of blatant corruption in this essay, but the truth, as Abramoff and Lessig pointed out, isn't so simple: It starts small, sometimes a return on the "investment" isn't immediately expected: The candidate, grateful for the gift, might feel compelled to return the favor as a gesture of gratitude, perhaps hoping that, pending success, a second gift may be received. Eventually, the candidate begins to depend on these gifts, and is no longer even considering the needs of those who cast the votes.

What I think, as I am writing this, is that we have several factors working against us: Beyond the election cycle, we have almost no say in what goes on in Washington (unless we are willing to start a massive movement, and endure police brutality). Our collective memories are exceedingly short, meaning that many of us cannot keep track of the actions of our representatives, and the political ads are intoxicating to us in the worst possible way. The blazing speed of our political process, combined with its extremely long duration (the presidential primaries drag on at 1,000 mph for about six to eight months, and then the general election goes on for another six at the same speed), makes it exceedingly difficult for most people to make any kind of educated decision, especially when it comes to choosing between candidates of the same party.

We have about as much control over Washington's business as we would have in a nondemocratic political system because candidates and incumbents only listen to us between terms (ironically, when there is very little business being done). What happens beyond the election cycle is entirely out of our control, save, again, if we undertake massive movements, but even then, results are mixed.

Why, for example, was SOPA [Stop Online Piracy Act] put up for vote? Chris Dodd, ex-Senator who vowed not to become a lobbyist at the end of his time in Congress, became a lobbyist for the MPAA, and was interviewed on CNN. The founder of Reddit.com, remarked that Congress was paid $94 million by the MPAA to pass SOPA(2). The kicker is that when SOPA did not pass (due to massive protests by Wikipedia and Reddit, among other popular websites), Chris Dodd issued this threat:

"Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake"3

If that isn't corruption, I don't know what is.

Again, I return to the question of why progressives have such a hard time getting what they want in government. Perhaps it isn't the message, or the agenda, or depressed resignation. It is the money. The people's business doesn't get done because the people don't pay. The people are a given: Run enough ads, and we will vote for you. The progressive platform gets people excited, but it doesn't fill party coffers. Union contributions only account for less than 20% of total contributions by major players. 80% is private interest, interests whose interests, therefore, are not your or my interests.

Ron Paul is the only plausible GOP presidential candidate. He gets people excited, but the party and the media only pay scant attention to him. Why? Because, again, his ideas don't fill party coffers because they scare the interests on whose behalf the GOP operates. The concept of a free market in which a given firm cannot legislate its own hegemony is as terrifying to those who own our representatives as a popular socialist system (socialism for the people, not for corporations).

The Culture War, therefore, is a deliberate distraction. It doesn't matter if Rick Santorum really believes all of the terrible things he says, nor does it matter that his candidacy is extremely expensive in terms of the future of our political landscape in the future. The only thing that matters is that he gets the people who are hurting most to stop talking about the fact that they are hurting. This has been going on for forever, and it works. Every. Single. Time. It turns out that I am wrong: The pool from which the GOP draws support is actually an infinite resource, one that, while it changes shape, the content remains the same and the people who comprise that resource cannot ever see how badly they are being screwed, nor, if they ask, will they ever figure out that they are being lied to. Just today, I read that Americans For Prosperity in Florida are paying $2 per signature to Tea Party organizers4. As China had the Fifty-Cent Party, we have the $2 Party. Just how authentic is our political system?

Lessig, Lawrence. Republic, Lost. Twelve Books. Copyright 2011. New York, NY.

1) Lessig interviews Abramoff (1h 20 mins)

2) http://www.mediaite.com/tv/reddits-alexis-ohanian-calls-internet-blackout-geekiest-protests-ever/

3) http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/01/chris-dodd-needs-work-messaging/47697/

4) http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/americans-prosperity-taps-tea-party-volunteers-tuesday

The Political Philosophy of Ferris Bueller

I just saw Ferris Bueller's Day Off for the first time today (shocking!), and I noticed some things that got me thinking about the film from a philosophical standpoint.

Primarily, Ferris Bueller is about power and the subversion of it. A lot of movies are about power (Office Space comes to mind), but Bueller stands out, for a few reasons.

Ferris himself is a de facto revolutionary: He overtly usurps the power of the Dean of Students and the school system at large, this is obvious enough. But his sister, Jeanne, is the key.

For the whole movie, Jeanne is jealous of Ferris and his ability to do what he wants and get away with it (as she reveals to Charlie Sheen in the police station), but in her jealousy, she attempts to support the power structure precisely because she knows that Ferris himself is in fact not sick at all. The point is that when she tries to notify the Dean, she herself is dubbed an "asshole" and told to get back to class. No one will believe her, and all attempts to foil her brother blow up in her face.

In the final scene in the movie, Jeanne is confronted with two choices, when the Dean accosts Ferris by the back door: Which does she hate more, her brother's ability to subvert the machine, or the machine itself? Ultimately, Jeanne chooses to save her brother because of the way the machine abused her when she tried to aid the power structure in stopping her brother.

This was the correct thing to do, from Jeanne's point of view, and her story demonstrates succinctly why people become revolutionaries in the first place: They play by the rules as best they can, but their good deeds only get them in more trouble, and they see that there is no way to succeed in the labyrinth in which they find themselves. They conclude that the only chance for happiness and/or success (or whatever it is that they are after) is the complete destruction of the system of power under which they exist.

No real reason is given as to exactly why Ferris is a revolutionary; he is more or less taken for granted, but if we follow the lietmotif of his sister's complaint, he does because he can (or, from the point of view of Kant, he must, because he can).

The "Save Ferris"campaign, while just a humorous subplot, actually plays an important role in the subversion of authority, in that people truly believe that he is sick, which makes it much more difficult for the machine to exercise its power. It is through this campaign that we have a complete picture: We have the primary Revolutionary (Ferris), his allies in school who have joined the cause and launched the larger campaign, and we have the counterrevolutionary who eventually joins his cause.

Power itself is portrayed in the figure of the Dean of Students, Mr. Rooney, who makes it his personal crusade to stop Ferris Bueller. Mr. Rooney himself is an absurd, comical figure who, in his almost blind pursuit of Bueller, is the cause of his own undoing. The thoughtless overreaction of power only makes it less trustworthy, and eventually it will collapse (the Dean of Students breaking and entering a student's home!?). It could be argued that Ferris Bueller did nothing: that if Mr. Rooney had simply allowed Ferris his ninth day off (ten days is failing; anything below that is acceptable, which makes the situation of Mr. Rooney that much more absurd), everything would have gone on as normal.

Cameron remains an anomaly in this context, but his story is much more reminiscent of The Stranger by Albert Camus: He just so happened to be friends with Ferris, and more or less did whatever he was told to do for most of the film. Yet, his experience with Ferris led him to a new-found greatness, and through it he was able to assert his own agency. Much like Mersault asserts his agency when he is sentenced to die, Cameron only asserts himself when he is totally liberated from responsibility, when there is absolutely nothing he can do to hide the fact that he used his father's beloved Ferrari. Was there any kind of choice open to Cameron? Recall when he is desperately trying to decide whether or not to pick up Ferris and join in his revolutionary shenanigans: "If I don't go, he's going to keep calling me. If I do go, we're going to get into trouble." Why was he sick (Cameron was truly sick, whereas Ferris was just faking it)? Because he could not choose: he was "afraid of everything." Being with Ferris, however, opened him up to real possibility, despite his weak protests, and ultimately, through the inevitability of punishment by his father, he was able to assert himself as a free agent.

Some people boast of being able to "play the game" (cooperate with the system and get what I want), and, frequently notify me of my abject failure to "play the game". But, obviously, that isn't what is going on here: This is pure revolution, a full-scale dismantlement of the power structure (what do you think happened to Mr. Rooney after the credits rolled? How could he possibly remain at his job?). Even more than that is the ability of our protagonists to undertake their project without arousing the suspicion of lesser agents of the power structure, namely, Ferris's parents. They were preoccupied by Jeanne, whose erratic behavior was consistently misinterpreted, leading to her defection to her brother.

Let's Not Have A Christian Left, and Say We Did

A few of my friends have on more than one occasion, in response to the current Republican vitriol, have advocated the concept of a "Christian Left," believing that this would represent Jesus more authentically. I would agree on this point, but also posit that the concept of a Christian Left would also be vulnerable to the same traps that befall the Christian Right, and this essay is intended to make these traps clear.

The concept of a Christian Left is actually in a very privileged position, something that cannot be said about the Christian Right: The policies that would be advocated under the CL platform can be endorsed by a much more diverse range of people, many of whom may not be Christian. One would, conversely, have to not only be Christian, but a certain kind of Christian, in order to find the policies advanced by the CR the least bit palatable.

What this chiefly means is that in order to sell the platform to a wider audience, it would be inadvisable to use the "Christian" part of it as justification, as it makes people who would otherwise be in support of the platform unnecessarily uncomfortable (something that the conservatives learn again and again, and attempt to compensate for by way of short-term exploitable political resources). One can certainly privately use religion to justify social good--in fact, if that were its only function, few people would have much of a problem with it--but the translation from private planning of the programs to building support should be one where the programs are justified by their own objective merits.

Because the policies are justifiable on their own merits, the "Christian" part of the label in fact may be rendered unnecessary, at least in the greater political arena. There is a step beyond "God said X was good"--Why? For example, why should we take care of the planet? Because we live here, we are responsible for it, and if we want to continue to exist, we need to take care of it. Each of these positions are similarly objectively justifiable: justifiable in a way that transcends religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

On the other side, the militant atheists are equally squeamish about allying with religious groups that happen to share their views on science and education (or the two combined), despite the fact that having religious groups join them puts a limit within the framework of the conflict with Creationism/ID: It allows religious people who value science (and many of them do) a medium through which to tell their conservative counterparts that evolution (and science generally) is totally acceptable within their worldview. It is worth noting that one of the premier organizations for science education, the National Center for Science Education [NCSE], has constant contact with religious organizations that share their views.

This is the political reality--the ideological framework--within which the growing secular caucus will have to operate. They want the whole package: They demand that people renounce their traditions and adopt Naturalism (the philosophical position that empirical science is the best and only way of understanding the world. I for one am not a Naturalist). This is obviously not going to happen, and is only going to get them in trouble, because not only is it unnecessary in order to build support for science (and) education, but it is also as egregious and impossible as the Christian Right's demand that America become a Falwellian theocracy.