Tag Archives: Citizens United

Political Rants

For the money.

So the Reagan/Bush/Bush-appointed reactionary majority on the Supreme Court came down on the side of the mega-Rich in their McCutcheon decision. There‘s a big surprise. They’re just doing what they were hired to do – help the rich tip the scales of justice against the rest of us. Now Shelly Adelson can give the maximum donation to every candidate for every office in the country, from President of the United States to Town Council member of Taberg, NY,  and still have money left over from his weekly allowance to buy a spectacular night on the town. (Not Taberg, of course.)

Big sack of money wins againOnce again, thank you, George W. Bush, for locking in this reactionary Supreme Court majority for the rest of my natural life. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, like the Iraq war (motto: killing people from Fallujah to Fort Hood since 2003). So we should expect more of this sort of thing; ultimately, I am sure, the remaining flaccid constraints on the outright purchase of our elections by billionaires will be condemned as violations of “speech” and stripped away. McCutcheon was delivered with the same Panglossian assurances offered in Citizens United that, in essence, the market will govern itself. We’ve seen where that goes.

In truth, though, money in politics – outside of plain bribery – is only as effective as we allow it to be. Its main power is in the purchase of advertising, so it crucially relies on our susceptibility to marketing. We can counteract all of Adelson’s and the Kochs’ billions by simply not being gullible, by standing up and voting, by organizing, and by exercising those formal constitutional rights that haven’t yet been excised in service to corporate power. This isn’t easy, but it is possible. Ask anyone who has lived through an oppressive regime – they’ll tell you that people just assume what they’re being told is bullshit. We can do the same thing. We can make their billions worthless. (We saw a small demonstration of that in 2012.)

Let’s do it again this year. Let’s devalue their advantage. It’s the only way out of this mess, frankly.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Stuff and … more stuff.

Once again, a bit pressed for times. Projects, projects, projects – you know the tune. Here’s what’s chewing on my nerves this week:

In search of a problem. The G.O.P. is obsessed with the notion of voter fraud, a phenomenon so rare that it makes injuries from lightning strikes seem frequent by comparison. Can we just stop pretending, for five minutes, that this is a sincere concern about the integrity of our elections? It’s pretty obvious what they’re up to – they are fighting a rear-guard action against demographic trends, long acknowledged, that do not favor a virtually all-white party such as themselves. The only way to do that is through the usual methods they have employed over the years: voter suppression. Voter I.D. laws, in particular, are meant to place significant hurdles of time, expense, and logistics between individuals and the ballot. Let’s call it what it is – a direct attack on voting rights. Time to push back … hard.

Crime and punishment. As was clear when he was in the White House, leaking the name of a CIA agent and pressing Federal Attorneys to prosecute non-existent voter fraud (see above), Karl Rove is a very nasty piece of work. Now he’s a major force in our electoral process, thanks in part to the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court. Rove’s 501(c)4 “social welfare organization” Crossroads GPS has been sluicing corporate money into campaigns by the millions of dollars. In 2010 his group was instrumental in swamping Syracuse area congressman Dan Maffei with negative ads in the last two weeks of the campaign, electing tea party challenger Ann Marie Buerkle by a handful of votes – one of many such interventions. He’s doing the same this year. With regard to Rove, I agree with George W. Bush: criminals should know there are consequences to their actions. Should have put him in jail when they had the chance.

Stop TPP. The Obama administration’s trade representative is in the midst of very quiet negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement – basically a global NAFTA on steroids. The reason it’s being discussed behind closed doors is that the moment the provisions of these investor rights agreements become public, public outrage brings them down. (See the Multilateral Agreement on Investment and other similar pacts.) I suggest you take a look at this and do what you can to make others aware of it before they slip it in under the radar. This agreement would be a disaster for labor, for environmental regulations, for trade policy, you name it.  Go to http://stoptpp.org/ to find out how.

Spread the word, friends. That is all.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Money wins.

So Scott Walker held on to his job in Wisconsin. Not a huge surprise. The polling has been in his favor for weeks. Plus the recall effort has kind of had the stench of failure about it as we approached the actual vote; people hedging and putting on the brave face. Sorry to see so many working people disappointed in that way. I’ve never been a big fan of the recall concept, personally, but I understand how they came to that point. If nothing else, the effort did give them motivation to do what actually needs to be done in Wisconsin and elsewhere – organize. It’s not just about voting. It’s more about standing up for your rights and fighting back against the torrent of corporate money swamping our politics.

John Dewey had it about right when he said that politics is the shadow cast on society by big business. I suppose in his day it wasn’t very different – the wealthy have always pressed their advantage. Perhaps the period from World War II through the 1970s will be seen as unique in American history in the sense that workers had some influence on the economic life of the nation. There was a social contract between the rich and the not-rich that provided the latter with a modest share of the wealth they themselves were creating through their labor. That model has been under attack for decades now, and it is crumbling.

Now we are in a small-d depression, limping along in a globalized economy in which the American worker/consumer is no longer the primary focus of business. (India’s middle class is now larger than the entire population of the U.S.) The rampant financial speculation spawned by deregulatory legislation over the past two decades (most notably Graham-Leech-Bliley in 1999, which overturned Glass-Steagall) drove us into the 2008 financial crisis, prompting a massive bailout of the enormous financial institutions that were themselves the product of deregulation. So naturally, now, when it comes time to pay the bills, it’s workers who are being told to eat it, to sacrifice their pensions, to do without health benefits, etc. Similar deal in Europe. The people who benefited massively from wild derivative trading and mortgage-backed securities are not the same people being asked to sacrifice.

Money may have won in Wisconsin this week. But that’s no reason to stop fighting. Elections aren’t the only means of effecting change. Passive resistance is another – let’s exercise it.

luv u,

jp