Up with Chris Hayes 7/1/2012 -- The government feeding trough

On Up with With Chris Hayes. Glenn Greenwald was a guest this morning, along with a few others, like Heather McGhee, who are becoming semi regulars. The topic for the first segment was Citizens United.  Greenwald was the voice of reason protecting freedom of speech, although he still joined in on the "extremist" angle that demonizes the Koch brothers and Karl Rove, separating them as exceptions to the rule, villians who corrupt the process. If only unions, the NYT, MSNBC and Soros were involved in supporting political ideas, there wouldn't be a problem, because they are concerned with social welfare and justice, but evil capitalists have entered the process to buy politicans and create policy that enriches them at the expense of others.

This is the simplistic, biased analysis of Citizens United. Hayes likes to tell eveyone how complex certain issues can be, but he invariably focuses on the uncomplicated partisan viewpoint that elevates the Democratic Party/modern liberal/progressive side and demonizes the Republican/Conservative/libertarian side.

What the crew didn't talk about was the government feeding trough which attracts power-hungry unions, control freaks like George Soros, rent-seeking corporations who will play either side to get an advantage, and the other business interests who are forced to play the lobbying/political game to survive in a market corrupted, not by capitalism, but by statism. The reason why no matter what government does to regulate influence on government decisions, the fact that government has grabbed so much power and has so much control over the fate of businesses and entire industries has caused the flurry of activity to find ways to influence and gain advantage. This statist system wastes energy, time and money as special interests fight at the feeding trough to get more, or at least as much, as the other guys.

But, I'm sure if only Rove and Koch brothers could be banned from political participation, all would be fine.