helpless

On an internet discussion board, a frequent poster started a thread asking what this country might do "To form a more perfect union." I suggested the key, not just to a more perfect union, but to a country we can live with, required our banishing private money from public politics. I suggested a Constitutional amendment requiring all candidates to run short, exclusively publicly-funded campaigns.

So of course, almost immediately someone replied, Private money cannot be banned from elections. It can be driven under the table even farther than it is now. The rich are always has a lead on power.

At what point did the U.S. become the "Can't-Do" capital of the world?

Anytime anyone these days points to something this country needs to accomplish in order to begin functioning again, such as providing universal access to health care for its citizens, or dealing adequately with the twin crises of global climate change and peak oil, or banning private money from public elections, somebody else pops up immediately to say "Oh, that's impossible, we'll never be able to do that."

We used to be a country that believed in itself, and we thought we could do anything, sometimes to a fault. When did we change into a country and a society where people sit around thinking up reasons why something can't be done?

"Oh, it's because you need 60 votes in the Senate to move it to a vote." (Well, change the goddam Senate rules then.)

"Don't you understand? That's impossible. We'll never do that." (Wasn't it true 110 years ago that humans would never fly because it was impossible?)

So don't tell me that bribery and corruption can't be driven out of politics because we can never get rid of 100 percent of it. I know that. But if we're determined we can eliminate most of it, and furthermore public attitudes, once directed to the severity of the problem, can reconfigure so that bribers and influence peddlers have about as much social status and social approval as child rapists.

I'm not the least bit interested in hearing why we can't do this or that. What I want to know is how we're going to get it done.

See also Orville Schelle's essay at TomDispatch, "The Melting of America: The Story of a Can't Do Nation."