[Brutha]

You have to have a self given, nearly college level education to discus them intelligently

You could say the same thing about discussing physics, cell biology or higher mathmatics.

The idea that somehow the snap judgement that one made as a teen represents serious knowledge.
The work that Larry Lessing does in defining the problem of corruption is very valuable.

However, yes I have a good basic understanding of the American government works, and I stand by my statement. It is the exact thing they are talking about. It's pretty simple if you are a politician and there is a group of people who want one thing, and another group of people who want the opposite thing,, but the second group of people will give you millions of dollars (in one form or another) to agree with them, throw you a party at strip club, GOP Lobbyist Found Guilty Of Bribing Hill Staffers With Strip Club Party | ThinkProgress do you agree with?

This is a bit like saying:
"A tsunami killed a lot of people. The fact that tsunamis exist is a problem. We should therefore outlaw tsuamis."

If you start to dig into the problem you might say:
"A tsunami killed a lot of people. The problem was that the people didn't know that the tsunami happened. We should therefore build an early warning system for tsunamis."

There added value into developing a better understanding of the problem.

A well funded think tank with people who spent full time thinking about defining problem and developing solutions has some power.
If the other side on the political debate has a poor understanding of the issues they lose.
Look at South Africa. They succeeded into creating a democracy but failed horrible at reducing economic inequality.
The wealthy people won the conflict because they had a better understanding of the issues involved.

Ignorance isn't bliss. Knowledge is power. Working at defining problems is important if you want to create political change.
"We want to end economic inequality" wasn't good enough when it came to the way the South Africans defined their problem.

You you come into this thread with links to the way Dylan and Larry defined the problem You basically say: "I already know what I have to know about the problem. There no added value into understanding the way Dylan or Larry framed the problem".

Politics shouldn't be complicated. I want easy solutions. That's a dangerous mindset.

I think the answer is straightforward and simple. Cut off all ability of corporations to spend the kind of massive money they do on politics in one swoop. In short "get the money out."

That has been tried in the past. The result was that corporations encouraged their employees to donate to political purposes.

There also the issue that a company like Comcast holds 51% of NBCUniversal. Making money with mainstream news media got a bit harder over the last decade.
A company like Comcast can hold NBCUniversal to be able to exchange favors with politicians.
Instead of giving the politician campaign donations they can trade favorable media coverage for political favors.

Every company can also simply take 100 of it's employees and let them sit on a political issue to develop knowledge about how the political issue works. That knowledge can than used to effect the political debate about the issue in the direction of the interests of the company.

A company with massive amounts of cash can trade that cash into other resources and trade those resources for political results. The company doesn't have to spend the money directly.