I try to get my students to solve problems by showing cause and effect relationships. Before they can draw any conclusions they have to go back to the root of a problem, if not the seed itself. From the imperfect seed grows the imperfect fruit.
In American politics, we can trace the imperfections of our political system to the defects of the system we use to elect our representatives. It is a system built around money that has to be raised to pay media to sell candidates to a mass audience. The more money a candidate can raise the more and better messages he can afford to buy. The bagmen for this operation—the “go between” the candidate and those who give him money—are the lobbyists. It is common sense that if a bagman engineers a way for the candidate to get enough money to blast his message into the consciousness of the voting public, that candidate will be gleefully thankful to whomever that bagman represents. Good and bad people (re: bad corporations [especially now: see U.S. v. Citizens United]), and good and bad lobbyists (re: bagmen— usually lawyers, ex- politicians), populate the power centers of American politics, pushing the public good from the center of civic concern to the outer edges of mere rhetorical ideology (stuff that sounds good, but means nothing). These special interests that give the bagmen the money to give to the candidate expect the candidate to do the work of the special interests. It just goes without saying. And I’m saying it’s wrong. So, how do you solve a problem like institutional gaaa-reeed?

If all the licenses of all the broadcast companies were required to free up a portion of their prime time scheduling during an election cycle as a condition of obtaining a license (once upon a time, this license was a public good), then a candidate would not have to make this deal with the bagman (re: the devil). This would re-establish The Fairness Doctrine, which some free marketers would call an infringement on free speech (re: that ever-shrinking small % who control the large % of America’s wealth). Gag me! I argue that if it cost money for a proven ballot-worthy candidate (re: one who has collected the required number of signatures for a given office) to issue forth his political ideas for the public good itself, well then, it’s not free, is it?

Anyway, “Soul Rendezvous” is not about this. It’s about the soul-charring experience of lobbying and the inevitability of the bagman finding his soul in the bottom of a bagful of shit.