Saturday, September 3, 2011

Colbert's De-mock-cracy

I found the entire Steven Colbert SuperPAC transgression of events highly amusing, and impressively, politically relevant. The opinion of (presumably liberal) commentators is that the decision in Citizens United v. FEC, regardless on the constitutionality of the actual campaign finance law, will allow unimpeded growth of the influence of corporations on the political process. This can be done through unlimited spending from Super Political Action Committees, (SuperPACs). I have not read the decision, but I agree with this sentiment. However, a bunch of whining about the results of the decision will have effect. Colbert, TV's out sized mock political pundit, has found a far more effective way of combating this growth. After clarifying his relationship with his employer, Viacom, he was able to start his own superPAC.
What can the conceivable point of this be? He is collecting money from fans of the show, and in return, the donors get their name scrolled on the bottom of the screen. This can be seen as a nice publicity stunt. However, when looking at the write in Rick Parry, with an 'A', commercial campaign, we can establish that Mr. Colbert has done more to shine light on the critical part of this issue. By using the superPAC funds to confuse the democratic process, he is successful in showing us what no one else has been able to; these superPACs have the ability to make a complete mockery of our political process. Those with the most money can subvert, mislead, or simply 'out shout' the other side. While Colbert's mockery makes for good comedy, other mockery can have a much more sinister purpose.

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