April 24, 2013
Greetings,
2000 years ago, Cicero proclaimed the principle of "To whose good?" as a means to ferret out the direction & scope of otherwise hidden political influence. Today we use the somewhat more concrete "Follow the money!" -- but it comes to the same thing.
The public needs to be able to follow the money so as to get a more truthful representation of what's going on in our Democracy, the better to contribute to the decision making process of governing ourselves so as to "create a more perfect Union". That requires being able to see how best to achieve the greater good for all, not just for any particular interest group or class. These special interests, factions and classes use any means at their disposal to propagate obfuscation and misinformation, including hiding the very fact of who it is that is doing the obfuscating and misleading.
Therefor, I am writing to urge you, the Securities and Exchange Commission, to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending – and to do so this year.
The gargantuan scale of corporate spending in the political realm, while maybe not illegal, as long as it can be hidden from the public is a scandal to anyone who believes in the principal of transparency in the democratic process.
The people have a right to see who and how much influence are at play!
Ideally, elections should be publicly financed, but in this age of mass media that is hardly enough. The ludicrous notion that money is speech, while temporarily enshrined as law by our "Supreme" Court, will have to fall. But until that halcyon day arrives to give our democracy back to the people, we can at least start by demanding that corporate political spending - and therefor corporate political influence - be revealed for all to see.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Do the right - the patriotic - thing for your country!
Ford Stone
Ford Stone
Carlsbad, NM