Letter to the Editor

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Hello Plutocracy, Goodbye Democracy

In all seriousness, who could possibly believe that the Founding Fathers intended "freedom of speech" to include unlimited election campaign contributions by the ultra-wealthy and corporations? Apparently 5 Supreme Court justices and our own senior Senator, Mitch McConnell, the champion fund-raiser in all of history, expect us to think that they could and do believe this.

Common sense tells us that their true motive can be nothing but to continue the consolidation of power in this country into the hands of the ultra-wealthy and the corporations. Even if all of us can learn to ignore the perpetual blare of attack ads and vote in our own self interest, those we elect, Republican or Democrat, will still listen to the money that they think they need to be elected.

Given the recent McCutcheon Supreme Court ruling, it will take a constitutional amendment to correct this travesty and implement elections financed only by public funds. This is sure to be a long, drawn out process. So in the short term, I guess we all just have to learn to love living in a plutocracy, watching the rich get richer and everyone else get poorer, and trying to remember what it was like to live in a democracy.