ApeBLOG

University Miami - Ohio will be hosting a screening of Mr. Schneider on Monday, April 16th at 7:30 p.m. After the screening there will be a Q & A with Daryn Cambridge of Democracy Matters and myself.

4-16-08

Yes it’s been some time since I attended college (for real). Yes, it was an beautiful day outside. Yes, someone could work up a thrust. But a bar packed with college students at 3:00 in the afternoon? Yes! Am I jealous? Maybe. Thankfully, lots of people were able to sober up and attend the screening later that night.

Mr. Schneider Goes to Miami Ohio

Democracy Matters and Ohio University will be screening Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington on Thursday, April 17 at 7:00 p.m. After the screening there will be a Q & A with Daryn Cambridge of Democracy Matters and myself. If you go to OU or live in the area, I hope to see you there!

P.S., this isn’t an April Fools joke.

4/20/08
Wow, what an amazing day. It’s got to be 80 degrees and sunny outside. In spite of the terrific weather we were able to get a nice crowd to attend the screening.

Mr. Schneider Goes to Ohio Univeristy

For those of you in the Indianapolis area, Democracy Matters is hosting two screenings of Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington at IUPUI. The screenings are on Wednesday, April 2nd at 11:00 a.m. at the CE (room 148) and again at 5:00 p.m. at the CE (room 309). I will be at both screenings to discuss the film and answer any questions the audience may have (assuming I have recovered from my redeye flight the night before I hope to see you there!!!

Mr. Schneider Goes to IUPUI

I’m one selfish, apathetic, lazy-ass, mother f’er! At least that’s what I thought as I watched the HBO miniseries, John Adams.

No, this isn’t the first time I learned how America was founded. Nor was I ignorant about the tremendous sacrifices our founding fathers and their compatriots made. I was just too busy enjoying the privileges their blood, sweat and tears has afforded me to notice how little I have given back to this great country.

But even more disturbing than my own apathy was the contrast between our First Continental Congress and the current 110th (not to mention the 109th, 108th, 107th… you get the idea).

Yes it is true; the founding fathers weren’t perfect… certainly slavery attests to that. However imperfect, they did still possess countless qualities that make leaders great. Of these, I would argue, selflessness is among the most important.

Each of the fifty-six Representatives pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor in support of the Declaration of Independence and the free and democratic government is sought to establish. And with the British Empire, the world’s most powerful military, positioned to invade, this was no hollow promise.

Contrast this with today’s lawmakers whose political aspirations often place their interests and “special interests” ahead of their constituents’ interests. Desperate to stay in office, Members of Congress have consistently compromised their integrity in order to obtain the necessary big money donations from lobbyists and the “special interests” that hire them.

In making Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington, I discovered that this is nothing most American’s don’t know or believe to be true. Yet, sixty percent of us didn’t even vote in the 2006 elections. Equally disturbing, most of us can’t even name our Congressional Representatives.

And that is just the way politicians want it, after all, apathy is the fuel that Washington runs on. If we want a nation of, by and for the people we must not take our role in democracy for granted. I don’t know about you but I plan on turning off my TV, picking up some newspapers and start holding my Representatives accountable for their actions. Of course all of this is going to have to wait until the John Adams miniseries ends… wait, is Curb Your Enthusiasm coming back on this summer?

Dickinson College and Democracy Matters will be hosting a screening of Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington on March 5th at 5:00 pm at Denny Hall. This is really exciting, with the Pennsylvania primaries coming up this should be an exciting event.

3/5/08

What a quaint small town and beautiful campus. Because of the short notice, there weren’t as many students as I hoped there would be. None-the-less, the screening went great. Here is what some of the students had to say about the film.

Mr. Schneider Goes to Dickenson College

While film festivals are great and the prospect of commercial release exciting, I’m thrilled to screen Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington at college campuses across the country. After all, the future is in their hands. To help make this happen I am teaming up with some fantastic non-profit, non-partisan organizations. First and foremost is Democracy Matters, an amazing national organization that “informs and engages college students and communities in efforts to strengthen our democracy.” Campus Progress has also been very helpful and will be co-sponsoring some screenings. They also work with young people to get their voices heard. Check them both out at: www.democracymatters.org and www.campusprogress.org

Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington (and college)

In 1989, Lincoln Savings and Loan Association collapsed. Five U.S. Senators (the Keating Five) were accused of accepting $1.3 million in campaign contributions to persuade the federal investigator to ease off his investigation of the bank and its chairman, Charles Keating.

Following the scandal that cost taxpayers over $3 billion, Congress made several attempts to change how federal elections were financed. Leading that charge was Senator John McCain, campaign finance reform’s most influential voice.

So, when I set out to make my documentary on the influence of money in politics (Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington), Senator McCain was the logical hero for this important story.

You could image my surprise when, time and time again, the Senator and his staff avoided me at all costs. I kept asking myself, “Why doesn’t he want to participate in a film that champions his core issue?”

Perhaps it was because Senator McCain was one of the Keating Five. That couldn’t be it. True, this may be embarrassing; but it doesn’t negate his subsequent commitment to campaign finance reform. After all, with out McCain there couldn’t be McCain/Feingold, the most progressive reform since Watergate.

I continued to be baffled until I learned that Senator McCain would prefer to be called President McCain. In a Washington sort of way this made complete sense. You can stand up for what you believe in as long as it doesn’t keep you from being elected.

In the ensuing months, not only did the Senator rescind his support for or remained silent on various election/lobbying reforms he once considered critical, but he also has enlisted more lobbyist-bundlers to raise money for his campaign (a former pet peeve of his) then any other candidate, Democrat or Republican.

In perhaps the most ironic twist of all, Senator McCain, who himself opted out of the Presidential Public Funding System in the primaries, recently criticized Senator Obama for hedging on his commitment to accept public funding for the general election.

In principle I absolutely agree. Every presidential candidate should participate in our public funding system for both the primary and general elections (especially if they claim support clean elections). But, given Senator Obama’s enormous success in raising campaign contributions it seems obvious that Senator McCain’s only real concern is not being able to raise as much money as Senator Obama (who, along with Senator Clinton, hasn’t yet opted into the Presidential Public Financing System).

Senator McCain, at times like this don’t you wish someone in Washington like yourself was selflessly fighting to change the way our elections are financed?

In a recent Des Moines Register poll, participants were asked what “key issue” was most important to them in selecting a presidential candidate. They were given 19 issues to choose from including: the war in Iraq, health care, renewable energy, and global warming. Gay marriage even made the list.

I read the article over and over but, no matter how hard I looked, lobbying and campaign finance reform weren’t even mentioned. How could this be? All right, maybe I’m biased (after all, I just completed a documentary film on the influence of money in Washington) but shouldn’t getting screwed by your government be as important as screwing gays and lesbians out of the “privilege” of getting married?

Semantics aside, how special interests lobby Washington and buy our elections corrupt nearly every decision our elected officials make (including most of the Des Moines Register’s “key” issues).

Take health care as an example. Congress wanted to add a prescription drug benefit to its Medicare program to help America’s seniors afford the drugs they need to live. But the law that Congress passed and the President signed benefits the pharmaceutical industry far more than the Americans it was designed to help. Why? The pharmaceutical industry contributed a significant amount of money to key members of the House and Senate to influence how the law was written. In fact, one leading congressional sponsor of the bill — Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) — ended up taking a $1.1 million job as the pharmaceutical industry’s head lobbyist just months after he spearheaded the industry’s special interest legislation through Congress. So, now not only does the Medicare Drug Prescription Act prohibit the re-importation of drugs from other countries such as Canada where they are often half the cost, but also it prevents the government from using its buying power to negotiate lower prices from the pharmaceutical industry for lower prices.

The Energy Bill passed last month is a more recent example of the excessive influence of special interests. After extensive lobbying by oil and utilities industries, two of the bills’ most important provisions were stripped out of the legislation. According to the New York Times, “a $13 billion tax increase on oil companies and a requirement that utilities nationwide produce 15% of their electricity from renewable sources were left on the floor to secure Republican votes for the package.”

And let’s not forget about the environment. Concerned that a June 2006 Supreme Court decision would protect a much wider region of wetlands and streams, property developers, farm groups and mine owners lobbied the White House and Congress to scale back the proposed guidelines. A few months later, the language in the final guidelines was changed. As a result, thousands of sensitive wetlands and streams are now unprotected.

Why then did the Des Moines Register choose not to include lobbying and campaign finance reform on their list of important issues in the 2008 election? I decided to call the paper to get an answer. No one called me back so I am forced to come up with my own top 19 reasons why the Des Moines Register chose not to include lobbying and campaign finance reform in their poll:
1) Nineteen is such a nice even number.

2) Our editor though Jack Abramoff was last year’s American Idol winner.

3) It would have opened Pandora’s box and it’s filled with lots of money for political ads.

4) The issue was redistricted by Tom Delay.

5) The sports department would have lobbied to include the baseball steroid scandal.

6) Washington lobbied heavily to keep it out.

7) Eight percent of Americans think there government is just fine.

8) Lobbying, smobbying… its freaking cold here.

9) Including it could have actually made it a key issue and that wouldn’t be fair to all the other issues.

10) As promised, Democrats already fixed this.

11) Congress knows how important it is, isn’t that enough?

12) We’re in the entertainment business.

13) Come on, Americans aren’t interested in things that actually effect them.

14) McCain told them not to worry about it… he isn’t.

15) They’re changing their catch phrase from, “The newspaper Iowa depends upon” to “The newspaper Iowa uses as Depends.”

16) It’s so important it doesn’t need to be mentioned.

17) Sure a recent poll showed 58% believed Washington is corrupt but who believes polls?

18) Lobbying and campaign finance reform…Washington is too busy bringing democracy to Iraq to worry about that.

19) If you fix that we wouldn’t have nineteen “key” issues to fix.

In all fairness to the Des Moines Register many pollsters and political consultants just can’t seem to grasp what is truly important to voters. The “oversight” of the Des Moines Register pollster is the same oversight that most of the nation’s leading pollsters made in the 2006 elections, when most pollsters too, omitted asking voters if corruption is a key issue. While these pollsters missed the beat of American voters, open-ended exit polls showed that corruption was the Number One issue that affected vote choices in 2006, even more so than the war in Iraq. Pollsters, isn’t it time that lobbying and campaign finance reform get the attention it deserves?

I am an American, but not a very political one. I am not a registered Democrat or Republican. I vote (sometimes). I believe money corrupts a lot of what Washington does. Until recently, I chose not to do anything about it.

Three years ago, I became irate after watching Senator Fritz Hollings being interviewed on 60 Minutes about the corruptive influence of money in politics. Hollings said not only does the money from special interests and lobbyists buy access and votes but also it enables them to write the legislation that Congress votes into law. How could a senior senator appear on a respected news magazine program, tell America that its government is for sale, and nothing happen?

This particular straw broke this apathetic American’s back. I had to do something. That “something” was to write, produce, and direct my first documentary, Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington. My forthcoming film explores money’s influence upon Washington and its affect upon Americans’ apathy toward government.

To make this movie, I left behind a lucrative career producing America’s Next Top Model, exhausting most of my savings in the process. As difficult as this was, it was considerably more difficult convincing members of Congress to appear in my film.

I contacted every U.S. Senator, as well as many Representatives, and asked to interview them for the documentary. All but two — Representatives Christopher Shays and Danny Davis — declined my request. The number one excuse: “I don’t have time.”

I learned, however, that members of Congress do have time for Washington’s 34,000 special interest lobbyists. In fact, members of Congress commonly spend as much as 70 percent of their time raising money, much of which comes from these Washington insiders and the people they represent.

When you consider that one bill that passes Congress can mean billions of dollars to a particular special interest, and that lawmakers need millions of dollars to pay for their reelection campaigns, you begin to understand the dynamics of this interdependent relationship.
The stakes are significantly higher at the presidential level, where candidates must raise hundreds of millions of dollars in private contributions, mostly from interests that prefer a government good to them over a good government.

As costly as these relationships are, the real cost cannot be measured in dollars and cents. In a 2006 Washington Post poll, 58 percent of Americans said they believed there was widespread corruption in Washington. Yet, only 40 percent chose to vote in federal elections that same year.

How can this be? Perhaps the corruption (perceived or otherwise) in Washington is so bad we actually think to ourselves, “Why bother, what difference can I make?” I know that is what stopped me from being an active participant in the political process. Ironically, it is that very perception that empowers the corruption.

An August 2007 Rasmussen survey found government ethics and corruption to be a top priority to voters. Seventy-eight percent of voters think the issue of government ethics and corruption will have a “very important” impact on their vote in the 2008 elections.

In all of my interviews with an array of powerful Washington insiders, the overwhelming consensus was that, if ordinary people spoke up loudly enough, the political establishment would listen. I believe them. With the 2008 election fast approaching, it is time to make some noise.

I’m pretty new to this blogging thing… but I’m really excited to get started! While I am not so delusional to think I will blog every day or even week, I definitely hope to stay on top of this! The truth be told, I said the same thing about my mountain bike which, for the past 7 years, has done nothing more than hang on my wall.