Corporate powers are ruining America

As long as it remains legal for corporations and wealthy individuals to buy elected politicians, America is going to keep sliding into the toilet.

Legal bribery must stop. Anyone who takes large sums from an industry must not be permitted to vote on regulating it.

Over the last 40 years, our democracy has morphed into a corporatocracy. The special interests now control it. The recent Supreme Court decision to allow corporations unlimited campaign spending is the final nail in our coffin. America's new motto: of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation.

Four decades of sending manufacturing and other jobs overseas, of union busting, of putting industry above public interests, and what do we get? A weaker middle class. Nearly 50 million uninsured. Unemployment a permanent fixture. A more powerful China, India and Brazil. A weaker America.

It's hard to watch the fall of a once-great nation. I hoped Barack Obama might be able to stop it, but I was wrong about the hope. He's not going to stop it, he's just going to preside over it - the beginning of the end.

Brad Gorton Jr.

Iowa City