Customer Reviews

Selling Out: How Big Corporate Money Buys Elections, Rams Through Legislation, and Betrays Our Democracy

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People recently have been lamenting the low voter turnout and general apathy of the american voter. I think Green is dead on when he suggests campaign financing is a big culprit. Politicians accept monetary donations from corporations and PACs that grossly shadow donations from individuals, leaving us feeling that our say or vote doesn't make a difference, and that all candidates are lousy; it's just a matter of which is more tolerable.
Green lays it out in this well researched book. If you have any faith in the US government, it will be gone after reading this book. The "good guys" are few and far between - and it's more and more difficult for them to get elected to office to make a difference.

Mark Green has spent his entire adult life in consumer interest reform politics. He began by working for Ralph Nader and eventually became New York City's commissioner of consumer affairs. He became more intimately connected than ever to the dangers posed to democracy by the influence of big money when he ran as the Democratic Party's candidate in the last New York mayoral election against multimillionaire Michael Bloomberg. The amount of money spent on both sides was staggering, prompting Green to pick up his talented pen and write this tome dedicated to awakening citizens to the dangers of a democracy perilously close to drowning in a cesspool of excessive funds.

Whereas America's founding fathers provided the nation's fledgling government with a system of checks and balances, in current times one can forget about the balances and concentrate fully on the checks. Checks and more checks are forthcoming from big interests, which translates into ultimate control, no matter how often this axiomatic truth is denied. As critics ask: If the strategy is not succeeding, why do the big money interests shower accelerating amounts on political campaigns?

The cancer on our democracy is abundantly clear to those interested citizens watching election battles in the current 2002 mid-term campaign. Rather than stepping forward and debating the merits of the major issues facing the nation, an increasingly helpless and turned off citizenry is bombarded by simplistic campaign negative ads highlighting half truths and sometimes outright lies. Post election studies reveal that excessive negative advertising disgusts many voters, who then become so turned off by the process that they do not vote at all. This was symbolized in the 1988 presidential election when George Bush the Elder prevailed on a highly orchestrated campaign of negative advertising highlighted by Willie Horton and the Pledge of Allegiance. Less than half of all eligible voters bothered to go to the polls, an all-time high since such scientific studies began to measure voting tendencies.

This cancer on the body politic has been a festering wound for some time. A few years ago in California an election campaign specialist with an imposing track record for success proclaimed bluntly that when a candidate hired his services it was time for him or her to take a vacation. He did not want the candidate to get in the way as he put his big money campaign into gear, highlighted by advertising displays of catchy symbols and pithy comments, which were drummed ad nauseum into the minds of voters through television and radio.

Mark Green made a recent appearance on the Phil Donahue Show in which he made a dire prediction. If this cancer is not dissipated through corrective legislation very soon then we will reach the point where the only two types of candidates are independently wealthy moguls ready, willing and able to spend millions of their own dollars such as a Michael Bloomberg, or lackeys under the total control of the wealthy special interests bankrolling their campaign efforts.

Mark Green's is an important voice which needs to be heard. The voice is tuned into the major area that will make or break democracy as we have known it. Will the days of idealistic but far from wealthy candidates be truly a thing of the past? Will Jeffersonian town hall democracy be something the smooth talking kingmakers will dismiss with sarcastic laughter as relics from a truly distant past?

I've chosen this book, together with Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men" and Greg Palast's "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" to end a lecture I give on the top 50 books every American should read in order to understand why America is not safe today and will not become safe anytime soon, unless the people take back the power and restore common sense to how we spend the $500 billion a year that is now *mis-spent* on the military-industrial complex instead of real capabilities for a real world threat.

Mark Green knows as much as anyone could know about the intricate ways in which the existing system provides for *legally* buying elected representatives away from the citizens' best interests. The details he provides in this book--as well as the moderate success stories where reforms have worked--are necessary.

The bottom line is clear: until the 60% of America that is eligible to vote but does not vote, comes back into the democracy as active participants who question candidates, vote for candidates, and hold elected representatives accountable *in detail and day to day,* then corporate corruption will continue to rule the roost and will continue to concentrate wealth in the hands of an unreasonably wealthy few at the expense of the general public.

Although I found the book inspiring, I also found it depressing. Absent another 9-11 (or two--or suicidal shooters in an elementary school in every state of the union, or cataclysmic failure in Iraq and North Korea) I see no immediate prospects for America's dropped-out citizens "awakening" and taking back the power. There is still time for corporate money to get smart, pump a little more down to the poor, and avoid a revolution at the polls.

Mark green draws on his experience as a mayoral candidate in New York city to expose what's wrong with elections at many levels of government.

Enron is used as a prime example of money buying policy. Ken Lay was a large contributor to G.W. Bush in elections as Texas Governor and President. These contributions opened the door for Lay's participation on Cheney's energy task force. The author also traces the connection between Bush and Ken Lay evident in the crossover between Enron and presidential appointments.
Along those same lines, Mr. Green cites California's experiences as an example of why energy deregulation was ill-advised. Monopolistic prices resulted.
In a quote from page 181 the author describes some of the benefits reaped by corporate contributions. "The return on it's investment that the energy industry was seeking in the mid-1990's was deregulation."

The battles over campaign finance reform and various court decisions were highlighted. Soft money often becomes addictive for incumbents. It provides a built-in advantage that challengers normally can't overcome.
The Gramm-St.Germain bank deregulation bill was mentioned. That's more than relevant for today with the Wall Street bailout!

Mr. Green details how lobbyists for big oil, energy, and pharmaceutical companies pay for beneficial legislation.

While the author spends a lot of time on what is wrong with our government, he does offer some promising ideas that states are pursuing. One state is Rhode Island where free airtime has been mandated on public television and community cable for all candidates that participate in the public funding program. Britain has some interesting ideas also. In 2001 the British gave free airtime on public and commercial television for political parties. They also banned political commercials.

On the subject of free airtime he has this quote from Warren Buffett- "We should require broadcast stations- the benficiaries of incredibly valuable licenses, courtesy of your federal governement- to make available, prior to every election, modest amounts of time for political discourse. Let's add an ability to be heard to a right to speak."

"Selling Out" is an eye-opening book about what's wrong with national politics and to some extent, state and local politics as well. It's well-written and has sensible solutions to open up Amercian politics to every potential candidate instead of protecting the incumbents and special interest groups that have overtaken/bought our republic.

This is a sobering book for anyone who thinks that their vote matters in our democracy. This book details how members of Congress are nothing more than pawns of big corporations and industry leaders. Not only does it expose how Congress is bought and sold, it also sheds light on how much time Congressional members spend begging for donations versus the time they should be spending dealing with the issues that they are put in place to solve.

This book is disturbing, but it also illustrates how to solve the problem, and what some states have begun to do to solve this problem. Hopefully more people will realize that corporate money should not be running the country the way it is, and this book is a good place to begin with that lesson.

Everyone whines about campaign finance reform, it's about time someone talked about what we can actually DO. This is a great read, a super analysis of the issue, and a very well thought out description of what can be done about it.

This is a good book...an insider writes a great story, and really with good faith; the only problem is "certainty"; if the author can incoporate detail rules of elections with his stories and show how closely things are related, his argument can certainly sells better. Also, there are a lot of theories out there regarding campagn financing and public elections; a little theory can help sort out all those messy events...

My name is Big Samad Sefiane, I have been writing screenplays and making music since the age of 13. The only problem with that

book which came out in feb. 2004 is very much a like my screenplay I have written and copyrighted before he released his book. I wouldn't rate a book, singer or songwriter who takes other peoples ideas and mixes it with his work. The book is too much similar to my screenplay Entitled HACKERS. After sept. 11, 2000 mail slowed down and it took me a year to copyright my screenplay. The screenplay as visible on the internet and also sent to strattford career institute for editing. The similar scripts will be reviewed by an entertainment attorney.