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More ugly campaigns thanks to Supreme Court

Letter to the editor 2

 

To the Editor

Here they come again, those dark, ugly, negative, dishonest and disgusting political campaign ads that everyone professes to hate. Two recent Supreme Court decisions may make them worse.

According to an article in the March 3 issue of Time Magazine, political parties are passé.   Campaigns from now on will be decided principally by billionaires, dueling Super PACs, and paid mercenaries and spies. Their campaign contributions will go to candidates who support their positions, and their ads will paint everyone else as scoundrels.

Little by little they are converting our government into a plutocracy (or oligarchy — look them up) that serves the interests of the few at the expense of the rest of us. In addition, they hope to make us so angry with each other that we don’t notice what is happening, and that we don’t have the means to mount a counterattack. Here are some things we can do.

  1. Mute the ads.
  2. Check out their claims on non-partisan fact-checking sites like PolitiFact.com, FactCheck.org, OpenSecrets.org, and Center for Responsive Politics. Spread what you learn.
  3. Check the candidates’ own websites to learn who they really are and what they propose to do.
  4. Lobby Congress and our legislators to:
    1. Require a fact-check disclosure from a non-partisan source at the bottom of each political ad — in readable type, and paid for by the advertiser.
    2. Require full disclosure of all contributors to Super PACs and to their campaign ads.
    3. Support a constitutional amendment that says only human beings are ‘people’.
  5. Counter the divisiveness. Dare to talk about political issues – civilly — with people who seem to disagree with you. You may be surprised to find common ground.
  6. VOTE.

You may think of more. Let’s hear your ideas.

Ann Harroun
Loveland, Colorado