Lessons On Lip Syncing.

       There was a cartoon in the Scranton Sunday Times today I especially enjoyed. It showed Lady Liberty exclaiming angrily that Beyonce lip-synced the Star spangled Banner at the inauguration. To which a rather bored looking Uncle Sam replied "Name one person in Washington D C who is not lip-syncing?" And to reinforce his statement, he's holding a newspaper with a headline stating "Money Talks in Nations Capital."
       Now wouldn't you agree with that statement and headline? I mean, let's face it. When it comes right down to decision time, the lobby with the most money available for campaigns is the lobby that's most likely to get its way. Which means that the lobbies write the legislation and then help the legislators to sign their names to it. How they do it is to wrap the pen with cash. Lots of cash.
       Now I don't want you to think that the lobbies are competing for legislators affections. Actually the way it works is that the lobbies work together to insure success for the groups they represent. The really big money comes from pharmaceuticals, big oil, Wall Street and the NRA. The very tiny money comes from public advocacy groups. They don't often even get a hearing. But big money does.
       That's true even during the campaign seasons. In fact, that's when big money really kicks in. Big money looks at it's tally books and decides who gets the multi-million dollar boosts and who gets bad mouthed. If you're on the receiving end of the money, you're in position to win. If you're on the receiving end of the bad mouthing, you're about to be overwhelmed by unfavorable, mostly untrue advertising.
       Why does this badmouthing matter? Because far too many folks believe that where there's smoke, there's fire. But those folks don't bother to check out where that smoke is coming from. They put the wrong fire out. Or they wet down no fire at all. Knowledge is everything. Not caring about truth kills democracy.