Turns out a there’s a political action committee that fights against the influence of political action committees and doesn’t rake in the corporate donations.
PACMEN, or “People Against the Corporate Manipulation of Elections and News,” was started earlier this year by Massachusetts residents Jeromie Whalen and Scott Bloomberg, the duo behind the website WhatTheFuckHaveUnionsDoneSoFar.com.
According to the midyear report they filed with the Federal Election Commission, the group had just $450 in cash in hand and accepted in-kind website design work.
The PACMEN’s website describes the group as run by “regular, everyday, non-billionaire, non-lobbyist, people” who “are fighting against two problems that we consider to be at the root of many other problems in the United States,” the “Corporate Manipulation of Elections” and the “Corporate Manipulation of News.”
Citing Karl Rove’s group American Crossroads, the PACMEN write that that “system has created a fundamental shift in who holds the power in our political process. When elections are decided by billionaires and corporations, it is an injustice to the will of the people.”
Although they don’t acknowledge the connection explicitly, the name can’t help bringing to mind everyone’s favorite old-school computer game character, Pacman. That digitized hero fought his way through a seemingly never-ending series of danger-filled rooms, battling ghosts and monsters — perhaps a metaphor Whalen and Bloomberg hoped to invoke.
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