http://blog.cleveland.com/letters/2012/04/oil_and_gas_laws_system_is_dec.html
In response to "Oil and gas lobbyists flood Ohio" (Plain Dealer, April 8):
No charge is more objectionable to any politician than that his or her decisions are influenced by money. Acknowledging political influence from political donations and high-priced lobbyists further weakens the myth that we live in an authentic representative democracy.
Big-time lobbying and campaign investments from the oil and gas industry are so blatant that even Gov. John Kasich has decried the industry as a "special interest" and has questioned the role of oil and gas industry lobbying in blocking a tax increase on drillers.
While oil and gas corporations considered Kasich's comments offensive and off-base, to the public they are increasingly obvious. Our government is broken because the system is fixed -- as in, rigged to benefit the wealthy few and corporations.
The solution to horizontal fracking is not less fracking. It's more democracy. Changing political faces who accept campaign investments from corporate drillers isn't enough. We must also change fundamental rules that end the constitutional doctrines that corporations are people and money equals speech.
These are the aims of the Move to Amend campaign (movetoamend.org). They are essential to ensure that the voices of the 99 percent without a lot of money or who don't own a major corporation are authentically heard, their neighborhoods helped and their communities served.
Greg Coleridge Cleveland Heights
Coleridge is director of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee.
really interesting post. . .thanks a lot for sharing it to me. . .
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