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.)
Once 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
rights. Time to push back … hard.
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.
One wishes that were the full extent of the madness – just the Keystone Cop-like clumsiness – but it goes much deeper than that. The corporations that poured money into this last campaign will be getting just what they paid for: a legislature devoted to ensuring full federal compliance with their legislative and regulatory priorities. They got some love from the 111th Congress, to be sure, particularly in light of what has happened to the economy and the environment over the past two years, but this is a prize of an entirely different order of magnitude. This is a paid-for House, pure and simple.
No one seems particularly bothered about this, but Bush’s proud admission, along with Cheney’s, is basically a declaration that our justice system is in a shambles; that the law applies only to the powerless and that cruel and unusual punishment is acceptable. Torture is a violation of U.S. statute and of international conventions to which the U.S. is both a signatory and a primary participant. Waterboarding is torture; it has been recognized as such since the days of Torquemada and before, I’ll wager.
Point two: Corporate cash. It likely has not escaped your attention that corporate interests – spearheaded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – are pouring money into this election like never before. Newly empowered by the Supreme Court’s execrable Citizens United decision, non-party groups are performing as cutouts for the financial industry, the energy sector, manufacturing, you name it. Karl Rove’s groups alone have raised more than $50 million and are now shooting for $65 million; the Chamber something like $75 million. They see an opportunity to bag this election, and they’re willing to spend the coin to make it happen.