The following comes from Robert Reich’s blog. Rather than
attempting to summarize it, which would only detract from his writing, I
decided to reprint it in total. It is his title as well.
Who’s buying our democracy? Wall Street financiers, the Koch
brothers, and casino magnates Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn.
And they’re doing much of it in
secret.
It’s a perfect storm:
The greatest concentration of
wealth in more than a century — courtesy “trickle-down” economics, Reagan and
Bush tax cuts, and the demise of organized labor.
Combined with…
Unlimited political contributions
— courtesy of Republican-appointed Justices Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and
Kennedy, in one of the dumbest decisions in Supreme Court history, “Citizens
United vs. Federal Election Commission,” along with lower-court rulings that
have expanded it.
Combined with…
Complete secrecy about who’s
contributing how much to whom — courtesy of a loophole in the tax laws that
allows so-called non-profit “social welfare” organizations to accept the
unlimited contributions for hard-hitting political ads.
Put them all together and our
democracy is being sold down the drain.
With a more equitable and
traditional distribution of wealth, far more Americans would have a fair chance
of influencing politics. As the great jurist Louis Brandeis once said, “we can
have a democracy or we can have great wealth in the hands of a comparative few,
but we cannot have both.”
Alternatively, inequality wouldn’t
be as much of a problem if we had strict laws limiting political spending or,
at the very least, disclosing who was contributing what.
But we have an almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and unlimited political spending and secrecy.
I’m not letting Democrats off the
hook. Democratic candidates are still too dependent on Wall Street casino
moguls and real casino magnates (Steve Wynn has been a major contributor to
Harry Reid, for example). George Soros and a few others have poured big bucks
into Democratic coffers. So have a handful of trade unions.
But make no mistake. Compared to
what the GOP is doing this year, Democrats are conducting a high-school bake
sale. The mega-selling of American democracy is a Republican invention, and Romney
and the GOP are its major beneficiaries.
And the losers aren’t just
Democrats. They’re the American people.
You need to make a ruckus. Don’t
fall into the seductive trap of cynicism. That’s what the sellers of American
democracy are counting on. If you give up on our system of government, they win
everything.
"Alternatively, inequality wouldn’t be as much of a problem if we had strict laws limiting political spending or, at the very least, disclosing who was contributing what."
ReplyDeleteThere's the rub. We still have a First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, which protects the rights of the people to speak out on political issues.
Also, there is this statement in the parent post which is false: "Unlimited political contributions — courtesy of Republican-appointed Justices Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy, in one of the dumbest decisions in Supreme Court history, “Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission,” along with lower-court rulings that have expanded it."
ReplyDeleteThe facts? There are tight controls on campaign contributions. There STILL are after Citizens United. The decision merely restored the Constitutional rights of independent citizens to speak out on political issues and candidates.
There's no perfect storm, then. Just a raindrop or too.