We Need this For Our Health

I hate to get all political, but the reality is that politics does affect our health. Our government has been woefully lax in creating and enforcing regulations to insure the safety of our food supply and making sure that corporations don't mislead us.

And, the reason for this is simple--MONEY. Big corporations have essentionally bought out our government.

A few years ago, some attempt was made to lessen corporate influence on elections by limiting the amount of money that big corporations can spend on campaigns.

But last year, even that minor reining in of corporate interests was overturned when the Supreme Court ruled that rules limiting what corporations could spend on elections violated the Free speech provisions of the First Amendment. The justices who were in the majority of this decision were all appointed by Presidents beholden more to corporate interests then the interests of the people.

The result of this decision has already been felt. Just this weekend, it was reported in the parent company of Fox News gave over $1 million to GOP candidates through a donation to the US Chamber of Commerce (anyone that believes that Fox News in anything but a right wing propaganda channel, is seriously delusional).

Now, a group is trying to do something about this decision. They are proposing a Constitutional amendment essentially declaring that corporations are not protected by the free speach clause of the First Amendment. You can read about it here: http://www.freespeechforpeople.org/

The reality is, however, that this amendment will never come to fruition unless there is massive, grassroots response demanding it. If you don't know your Constitutional law, for something like this to get off the ground, 2/3rds of both the US House and Senate have to vote yes for it, then it has to go to the states for a vote.

Needless to say, with the majority of our legislators bought and paid for by big corporations, unless there is a huge public out cry for of support the amendment, politicians will not vote for it.

But, as I said above, we have to take our political system out of the hands of those who have the most money to spend back into our own hands. The current system is too corporate-friendly, which means it's bad for our health.

The Founding Fathers of this country wrote of government by the people for the people, but sadly we've strayed far away from that ideal.