Well, it's not just b/c of a lot of corporate money. It's what that money has bought - lying propaganda. Unfortunately, our political tradition has always accepted political deception and misinformation as acceptable practices. How can a citizenry ever be informed when truth does not matter?

Unions represent the best interests of the majority of hard working Americans. Anti-union entities, ie: the corporate elite, are only interested in screwing the majority of Americans and amassing great wealth for the top of the economic pyramid.

Corporate CEO fat cats don't give a hoot about the working class they just want to keep increasing their already huge political power, and the workers will wake up to this sham eventually.

I am wondering why MSNBC doesn't fight back and start sharing stories about Mitt Romney such as the one that was in Salon magazine tying him to the Meningitis outbreak. I have yet to hear anywhere on mainstream media about that. What about the story of Mitt Romney's 20 million dollar FDIC bank bailout when he went to the bank and threatened to sell off Bain Assets, give his CEOs big severance packages and then file for bankruptcy if he wasn't allowed to pay the loan back at 30 cents on the dollar. I don't find this money spending on Romney's campaign that surprising at all, given the Bush Tax Cuts are due to expire and the Corporates are really worried. The masses in this country seem to believe anything and the GOP have been masters of spin. This is how Hitler got elected telling one lie after another the difference is we have mass media that will show any campaign commercial whether it is based in fact or not as long as it is paid for.

It's too many ignorant people to really make any difference now,but nevertheless there will be

a positive change coming soon. This is happening all over the world at this juncture and

that's a positive outcome, or the world will have many white slaves joining the ranks real soon.

I keep reading comments like this, and I wonder why because there are verified answers -- at least in the amount union spend, because unions MUST DISCLOSE their contributions and businesses and corporations do not. "Corporate interests spend a lot more than unions on lobbying as well as elections. So if business interests' undisclosed political expenditures are in the same proportion to the disclosed ones—as union political expenditures disclosed through Department of Labor filings are to ones businesses also disclose—then unions are still vastly outspent."

I've heard the figure 14 to 1 in terms of corporate and business spending compared to unions. And companies are threatening their employees with suggestions they may lose their jobs if Romney does not win.

Now the Romney campaign is running ads saying that GM is shipping jobs for building jeeps to China--even though the GM CEO and others keep saying, No, we're not shipping jobs to China. But, then, I suppose it's only a little white lie as long as it helps our devout Romeny get elected.

I hesitate to respond to trollish comments. Union money is not even a damn dime in the bucket compared to virtually unlimited corporate money.. A more meaningful comment would be that corporate money is used to lie to the voting public. I've worked in a union shop for 28 years, and there are always a pitiful few who complain about union dues. By the clear majority, this is looked upon like someone not wanting to bail water out while the ship is sinking.

I wonder why MSNBC and other radio and TV stations don't talk about the secret meeting 15 Republicans had the night of the Inauguration of Obama. A meeting to block everything Barack Obama did. Paul Ryan was there. Ryan is scary.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=51766&p=1

This should have been brought up at the Democratic convention and on TV. Someone must have told them to keep quiet.

I doubt many Americans know about this.

Few dare admit it, but Citizens United is only half the story.

The other half is the infinitely bitter truth we are cursed to live in Moron Nation -- to dwell amidst the most pridefully ignorant, venomously conformist, malevolently anti-intellectual, viciously bigoted citizenry in the industrial world.

Motivated by a toxic combination of Ayn Rand greed, Ku Klux racism and Christian fanaticism, white U.S. voters have a long and hideous history of economic, ecological and political suicide.

Like no other electorate on this sad planet, they can be depended upon to reliably vote against their own interests whenever some cabal of tyrants spends sufficient money to activate the fascist reflexes and lynch-mob instincts that are the defining characteristics of most U.S. Caucasians.

Historically, the only exception was the New Deal era, and that only because of a confluence of circumstances the Ruling Class will never allow to happen again. The Great Depression shattered Moron Nation's imbecilic faith in capitalism and opened the typically closed USian mind to (momentary) realization that without economic democracy, there is no democracy at all. At the same time, the Soviet Union in the person of the Comintern and the U.S. Communist Party was ready with a consciousness-raising apparatus sufficiently powerful to rouse a majority of white USians from their everyday trance of greedy self-obsession and thrust them into the (brief) enlightenment that gave birth to the New Deal.

Since then -- thanks mostly to the Big Lie propaganda techniques refined by Hitler and Goebbels and eagerly adopted by Madison Avenue -- Moron Nation has reverted to its true form. To those with eyes to see, the transition was apparent as early as 1948 (Taft-Hartley) and undeniable by 1968 (the Nixon presidency).

The Republican landslide I fear will fall upon us next Tuesday will be a death sentence for every lower-income elderly and disabled person in the United States, myself included. It will be the end of female freedom and equality as well.

But if that repugnant probability comes to pass, it will in fact be nothing more than the final chapter of a story that began with the Bankers Plot of 1934, when the grandfathers of today's USian Ruling Class took Hitler and Mussolini as their role models and tried to make the U.S. the fourth partner in the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis.

In this dismal context, all Citizens United did was ensure Moron Nation is forever -- that is, until capitalism's war against women and Nature reduces our species to extinction.

There's overwhelming support for more public disclosure (the DISCLOSE act or something like it). Depending on the exact question, roughly 80% of us are in favor of more disclosure.

That fact has to start being talked about all the time. And every time it's mentioned, it must be stressed that the roughly 80% number is true whether you're asking Republicans or Democrats, and so why are Republicans in congress blocking the DISCLOSE act? That has to just keep getting hammered and hammered. All the time. Over and over.

one were to take the Super Pack monies and divide it into the number of rich that gave it, and came out with a percentage. Added this percent to their income tax, what percent of tax would the rich be paying? If it is required that they pay this amount of tax, it affects job creation.But they willingly give this same amount to their favorite politian. Which this super pac money doesn't help the economy. It only helps the TV and Radio stations which are owned by the pacs' givers. I guess this is called a "return investment" This is probably able to be written off by terming it as giving to a"non-profit" and later by "investment"

It needs an electoral movement, able to encourage everyone to vote to not impose the oligarchies.

Since they are in their right, so the system allowed them.

Electoral processes are junctures of political freedom, only the average citizen has not been aware of it.

Electoral processes are opportunities for civil society exercising democracy in its broadest meaning, without reducing it to the single issue of a secret ballot, but publishing their demands through NGOs and social movements, conditioning to the candidates to give tangible proof of their commitment to fulfill this demands to vote for them, on the understanding that the essence of an electoral process will not be choice rulers, but the agreement to collaborate with them on the satisfaction of social demands.

As communicators you should use this perverse oligarchies pretension to also speculate and manipulate conditioning to political parties to submit in Congress before November 6 a legislative proposal like the following so that your audience vote for their candidates:

-Elected rulers and public officials are obliged to consensus their decisions and management of public resources with civil society through the free participation of voluntary, independent, autonomous and honorary citizens. So that actions and management of public funds of rulers and officials are subject to legal process (dismissal and criminal prosecution) if they fail to abide by any agreement or in consultation with civil society.

-Each officer or ruler may convene meetings of discussion and decision of agreements, or let a Consensus Act in his Office or web site, where each person who wants to participate will vote in favor or against the government plan and budget, subscribing with his name and any identifying information. So that everyone can be convinced that every action and spending that is running the Government had at least the support of 50% + 1 of the people affected.

- In the case of governmental plans rejected by civil society, this will have to organize sessions to analyze and discuss, in person or via technology, and formulate alternative proposals through Agreed Minutes sent to officials and rulers, to consider these in the redesign that they will have to make of their plans.

The political party that dared to make this legislative proposal to Congress would win enough votes for a clear victory in the election.

But of course the Republicans would be less willing to take this democratic progress. Instead Obama from his position as president has all the facilities to convene Congress to develop the legislative proposal immediately.

In remote case and given their ability to lie, that Republicans do so before, Democrats could express their complete disposal and make arrangements to pass the amendment before November 6, winning the most votes.

you are not being truthful. union fat cats can be voted out by union members. however, in the corporate world, the employees cant do that.

Musiclady: I imagine most people will just throw these mailers in the garbage...which is what I was originally going to do until I got the idea that it would be interesting to see how many of these flashy mailers were being sent by the ones with all of the money. I sure hope that more people, if they are undecided or confused about the propositions, check them out at the official Democrat and/or Green Parties who both virtually agree with how to vote on the issues. If people can just totally ignore the mailers and the commercials and go to the official Party websites to use as a guide on how to vote then they will not be accidentally voting against their best interests.