POLITICS - Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party were appetizers for what is to come. I have never seen the American people so disgruntled, and neither has anyone else.
Every number is a record. Congressional approval is at a record low of 9%. Can it get lower? Can it go negative? The number of people satisfied with the candidates running for president is at a record low. Dissatisfaction in this category is four times higher than it was even in 2008.
The Tea Party might not know it but they are mad about the same thing that Occupy Wall Street is. They have a sense that our politicians have sold us out - and they are 100% right. The problem isn't Big Government or Big Money. The problem is when Big Money buys Big Government leading to Big Corruption.
It isn't personal corruption. No one is stuffing money into freezers (at least not a lot of people are). It isn't that Senator Ben Nelson or Senator Orrin Hatch is a bad person. It's that we have built a system that is built on systemic corruption. The only way you can get elected is by doing the bidding of huge donors. And those donors can control the process entirely because of the unlimited amount of money they can spend.
The average winning House candidate now spends $1.4 million per election. The average winning Senate candidate spends $10 million. Which average guy has that kind of money? You must raise the money from big donors - and then you are at their mercy. If you want to win, you need the money. If you want the money, you have to give them something in return.
How often does money control the outcome? An overwhelming amount of the time. The candidate with more money wins 93% of the time on the House side and 94% of the time on the Senate side. It's game, set and match.
So, of course, our representatives don't represent us, they represent the people who got them elected - the big donors.
This system cannot stand. It will not stand. I'm not saying that it falls in 2012. That is way too optimistic. But the battle is joined in 2012.
There are now many constitutional amendments trying to address this problem. Those movements will only grow. And probably at surprising speed. Everything moves so much quicker now (just look at how many times and how quickly the Republican primaries have turned already).
This movement is going to take the country by storm and Washington is going to be completely surprised by it. As usual, they will say "no one could have seen it coming."
I'm telling you now, it's coming! People are starting to become furious that we have in effect lost our representative democracy. It's time for a revolution. Not a physical one, but a political one. A revolution that turns over the establishment's apple cart, challenges this corrupt system and brings back our democracy.
Get ready for 2012.
(Cenk Uygur is host of The Young Turks. This article was posted first at huffingtonpost.com) -cw
Tags: 2012, revolution, political revolution, Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party, Big Money, corruption, Ben Nelson, Orrin Hatch
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 1
Pub: Jan 3, 2012
