You know, I see a lot of these types of threads and it's always people pointing out, "Yep, corporations in our government fucking shit up again!" but I never see anyone talking about action... solutions.
I don't like feeling helpless like this all the time, so how can we change that?
In short: you can't.
The reason corporations and lobbyists have universal influence across Washington is because they prop up election campaigns. The candidate that outspends their candidate is almost always, if not always, going to beat their smaller-pocketed opponents. So that's a congressperson/senator/president who just won their position thanks to corporate backing and is now, more or less, owned by them. And this is true of every single person elected. You simply don't win elections without millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds -- much of come from corporate sponsors who can later dictate policy.
The obvious solution to this is campaign finance reform that can greatly limit the role that corporations play in the electoral process. But Bush's Supreme Court choices, particularly Roberts, ensure just the opposite, making anti-reform rulings that will last for decades.
Basically, the first domino that has to fall is for Roberts, et al. to retire or die, for more liberal justices in favor of campaign finance reform to get in there. And from there it takes years, decades, more to flush out politicians with strong corporate ties.
