Article Title: Sean Parker and Al Gore discuss 'Occupy' Democracy' and the 'hacking' of U.S. politics at South by Southwest
Author: Melissa Bell
Website: www.washingtonpost.com
My current event was about how Al Gore and Napster co-founder Sean Parker believe that big businesses and corporations play too large of a role in the democratic process. Many thing that politicians, especially presidential candidates, are spending too much money on advertising and not on major political decisions, which leads people to believe that our democratic system is corrupted. Some politicians will spend any amount of money to get a vote, and Parker and Gore discussed how to try and remove money from the election process. A new website has emerged called Votizen, which tries to bring candidates and voters closer and spread more information without the use of advertisement or the complications of money. A Supreme Court case called Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission occurred in early 2010 when the organization Citizens United wanted to show a critical movie of Hillary Clinton in the days leading up to an election, in the hopes people would not vote for her. They argue that the First Amendment stops the government from limiting political-related spendings by businesses and corporations. It was found that corporations have the same rights as people under the First Amendment and stated that they can use their money for political based ventures.
Article:
Probing Question:
Do you think that money should play as large of a role in presidential campaigns/elections and politics in general as it does today?
I believe that Al Gore is right, we should not have politicians spending so much money on their "speech". None of them really would need to spend more money if they were not trying to out spend on another. It feels as if they are basically working as little possible and throwing as much money as possible at the election. But, the question I ask is where do they get the money? Much of the money, as stated in the article comes from corporations. Now just like the movie we watched about gangs rising and how they rise we see that the leaders would clothe, feed and protect the gang members who will now do their bidding out of loyalty. When we compare these two situations we can see that this is something that could and maybe is happening when corporations finance a presidential candidate. This could have real effects like we read in the homework, such as the corporations becoming above the law in some aspects. I think we should tone it down a bit and start to move back to the way our past presidents won their elections, by responding to the nations needs with out all of this fluff and useless stuff. Stuff such as like the millions of posters printed out that have a great effect on our environment or the tons of buttons that are just going to go and fill u our oceans and pollute our wild life all over the world. I think that we need to be more responsible especially in this situation with people that have so much influence and will have influence in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think money does have a lot of influence in elections and I don't think that should be the case. To win an election you need to have money and thats not always fair. People with the most money are heard the most which means people who don't have as much money don't get heard then no one knows who they are so no one votes for them. Also like shaniece said corporations are funding these campaigns and then they have a lot of influence in laws and the government because who ever won the election basically owes it to them. I think money should be less influential in elections. I don't know how it could be limited but somehow money spent on elections should be regulated.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Shaniece and Bobby that money should not play as big of a role as it does in today's campaigns and elections. As Bobby stated, it is somewhat inevitable. The people who have the most money are going to use it to their advantage publicizing themselves for more votes and recognition. I personally do not think that this is fair. If people who are just as qualified as another person with more money, they should have the same chance at winning, but reality is, it is not like that. I think Votizen is a great website in order to get candidates out there that may not have as good a money situation as others they are running against.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Shaneice, Bobby, and Andrea. There is way to much money going into elections. It is not right that our economy is so horrible, and the elections are costing thousands of dollars due to advertisements. Personally, I don't understand why advertisements need to cost a ton of money. I understand that the candidates need to get their names known and their views on the elections heard, but do you really need to spend thousands of dollars to do it? If I was old enough to vote, I believe that I would support the candidate that had the best solutions and views of national issues, not someone who spends thousands of dollars from corporations on advertisements that don't give any information on what they think.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of my classmates above. It is unfair that politicians can almost literally buy votes. Just because someone might not have the excess money to pay for an advertisement during a popular television event does not mean that their ideas should not be spread. I believe that someone (be it the government, the US citizens, someone) should come up with a limit, which should be low, as to how much money politicians can spend on advertising. All of the other money should be spent on developing the websites that give the facts about the politicians and their views, and adding information to those. This would also remove some of the corruption of large companies bribing politicians to vote a certain way.
ReplyDeleteI think that the use of money in politics is ineviatable in the sense that what else are politians supposed to use to advertise? Who cares if a politicians has more money and is creating more advertisements. That is America. That is capitalism. Why should politicians be above other people in America who are struggling to make it big? We are a country of earning our money and using our money to our advantage and if you do not have the money you work hard to earn the money. The advertisements do not guarantee votes. Just because someone may be over adervtised does not mean people are going to buy into them. An example would be overadvertising of household products such as detergent; Tide may be overadvertised but I know in my family that we do not buy it. Just because we saw it on tv does not mean it is worthy of out use. Many people take it upon themselves to look into candidates if they really care. I am sure that the people who do not care do not go out and vote just because they saw a few advertisements. It may happen, but most people who do not care, do not vote. I agree with crystal that there really is no need for so much being used but it happens and i feel like we are so far deep into it, that it will be hard to get out of.
ReplyDeleteI agree with almost everyone above. I don't think money should play such a huge part in politics. And I like what Marcus said about politicians basically being able to buy votes. However, I also agree with Jurnee in the sense that everyone values money so much that it would be so difficult to get out of this situation. And, just because someone is advertising themselves, it doesn't guarantee votes. Advertisements and money don't necessarily mean that person will get more votes than another with less advertisements and money. I do think money has way too much to do with politics though. People tend to gravitate towards money and I don't think it should be like that, but, it doesn't mean politics isn't like that.
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