Lost in the hoopla over Colorado’s vote to legalize the evil weed is the result of Amendment 65, or the advisory question directing our politicians to remove corporate money from the election process. This is one issue that can’t be placed on the back burner or allowed to go up in smoke.
Marijuana may well be the reason Obama won Colorado, because a hell of a lot of money was wasted here to defeat the president and nothing was realized for it all. Stoners turned out in giant drum circles of voters to support their favorite pastime. While they were voting to be green, they went ahead and elected the guy who had smoked pot, and not the milk-drinking Mormon, to the presidency. He was just a better fit for the nation’s “highest” office.
The weirdest thing about legalizing pot will be going to the store and picking out a good bag of weed, then having it scanned at checkout. I don’t smoke pot, but if I did buy a bag with a bar code on it, I might have tears in my eyes because of the generic consumerist evolution of something that used to have an outlaw glitz and glamour to it.
You can never tell, the loss of that glitter may be enough for some kids who were thinking about smoking pot to decide that it’s too uncool to waste any time on. The worthless “war on drugs” could be over if the kids determine marijuana is too baby-boomer. Then again, they could move right on past the formative pot-smoking years and head directly into cocaine. Without marijuana to blame as the “gateway drug” it would be proven that milk really is the harbinger of all drug use. Damn you, Mitt Romney!
On the bright side at least no one is going to jail for smoking Mother Nature.
But I digress. Money in politics really is the problem. Some call it free speech, I call it legalized bribery. If it’s free speech, it’s the “Animal Farm” theory of free speech. Some animals are more free than others. Usually the pigs.
The current laws, whether apportioned from the Supreme Court or from Congress, combine together to make a system of pigs squealing to “invest” in politics in order to extract huge returns on that investment. Many of these pigs feed daily at the U.S. Treasury trough and love to reap the benefits of government contracts or tax cuts. When money is used for anything besides their bottom line it is immediately labeled “socialism.” This entitled class resents any entitlements for others. Their goal is to hoard the wealth of the national treasury neatly into their elitist niche.
In order to level the playing field the American political system needs reform. Our legislators will be very resistant to change because no one departs Congress as a pauper. It’s very lucrative to write laws for the “investor” class and then leave Congress to work for them as payback. Perhaps, in order to keep better track of them, we should place a bar code on our legislators. The revolving door and the pay-to-play system of bribes are the very problems Amendment 65 hopes to address.
The corporate personhood designation will have to be forcibly removed from our laws, probably by constitutional amendment. As Bill Moyers once said, “I’ll believe corporations are people when they execute one in Texas.” No matter how you slice one, a corporation is not entitled to the same rights as a person unless you slice the individuals that make up the incorporated business out. These living, breathing people can do as they please, but their corporate persona is more Hyde than Jekyll.
Then we’ll have to publicly finance all elections. No more private contributions period. The three major networks are actually owned by the public, so America should commandeer them each night during prime time for campaign purposes. Voting by smart phone and Internet is only a matter of setting it up to levels less prone to fraudulent activity than voting machines.
We’ll have to close down an entire industry of lobbyists and attorneys, but in return we’ll have a start on a government that represents the people. The lobbyists and lawyers can find other work. The world needs ditch diggers too. Congressmen can turn their attention to writing laws rather than raising funds, though it might be more beneficial to repeal the laws they wrote under the influence of corporate money.
Every county in Colorado approved Amendment 65, which means there is a mandate to fix the system by the people and for the people, rather than the current fix it has in for the corporations. Our representatives in Washington should take heed. We the People are not going to forget Amendment 65 and allow business as usual to continue.
At least those of us not down at the store crying over the bar code on our bag of weed.
Email Johnny at snomasokist@msn.com.