From my little corner of the US, I am sadly very discouraged about the current state of American politics. The huge corporations and moneyed industries enjoy huge influence on the directions that laws take. People without endless pockets of money get shafted over and over again. The only hope we lesser people have of influencing policy and law is through banding together and voting, but even that hope is constantly eroding, due to gerrymandering, political advertising designed to confuse voters, and conflating religion into issues that it should remain separate from.
I contribute to progressive causes, feminist causes, and environmental causes. Since I make very little money as a substitute teacher, I shouldn't even contribute as much as I already do. But even with these progressive causes, it isn't my opinion that counts, it is my money. They count contributors; they count contributions. They pretend to count opinion, but even with the progressive fund raisers, they don't really care about your opinion, they just want your money.
A while back, I vowed that I would contribute money to any of the causes that I already support, if they sent me ONE chance to sign their petitions WITHOUT also asking for money. So far, I haven't had to pay up. They have a minor interest in numbers of signers - the more signers, the more people get on the bandwagon. But what they really are interested in is the money.
Always the money.
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