Want Your Democracy Back?

How do you like living in a plutocratic nation? Two years ago the U.S. Supreme Court gave us Citizens United. Happy Anniversary!
by Charlie Leck

If you want some good reading for today, turn to E.J. Dionne Jr.’s column in the Washington Post, The Citizens United Catastrophe.

“We have seen the world created by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and it doesn’t work. Oh, yes, it works nicely for the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country, especially if they want to shroud their efforts to influence politics behind shell corporations. It just doesn’t happen to work if you think we are a democracy and not a plutocracy.”

My wife has been saying for quite a long time now that we’ve become a plutocracy. Nevertheless, the sham that we are a democracy continues.

I suppose I can just keep whining about it and gnashing my teeth and writing seething blogs OR maybe I can do something about it. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. So are a lot of other people.

The facts are, however, that U.S. Supreme Court decisions are powerful instruments that establish abiding and certain law. Overturning them is extremely difficult. One sure way to do it is through a constitutional amendment; however, that’s not easy either. If you don’t know the process required to amend the Constitution, you really ought to find out about it. Constitutional amendments are rare.

U.S. Representative Jim McGovern has offered a bill in the House of Representatives that would start the process. It will not likely be passed. If you want to hear him explain the bill, take a look below.

Common Cause may be out biggest hope in driving some kind of action that will set aside the utterly stupid Supreme Court decision of two years ago. If you don’t know about this watchdog organization, you really ought to learn more. Their video, explaining how Citizens United happened, is the best Intro101 course you’ll ever find.

The Supreme Court of the United States, in this 5-4 decision, simply erred – they made a mistake. The decision has distorted the great American debate that should take place in our elections. They have tipped the balance and given substantially more power to corporate America than that held by the people.

Do we, as people, own equal shares of the nation? That was the idea behind the constitution – that you and I would own equal shares of the process behind the government of the United States. As I said above, that balance has now been tipped.

Here’s the deal!
It’s really quite up to you to figure out how we’re going to get this terrible situation changed. As a people, how are we going to take back control? If you haven’t understood that this is what the whole OCCUPY movement is all about, you’ve been sleep walking. If you do understand, you probably have more sympathy for the protesters than most people do.

It is going to take a new American revolution to return our political system to the place where our founding fathers intended it to be. It likely will not happen in my life time, but it will happen. It will happen as the realization grows that we, the people alone, no longer own the government.

This is what a plutocracy is!
Returning to Dionne’s column, you can get a pretty good picture of what a plutocracy is from the following …

“If ever a court majority legislated from the bench (with Bush’s own appointees leading the way), it was the bunch that voted for Citizens United. Did a single justice in the majority even imagine a world of super PACs and phony corporations set up for the sole purpose of disguising a donor’s identity? Did they think that a presidential candidacy might be kept alive largely through the generosity of a Las Vegas gambling magnate with important financial interests in China? Did they consider that the democratizing gains made in the last presidential campaign through the rise of small online contributors might be wiped out by the brute force of millionaires and billionaires determined to have their way?”

I like the image Dionne creates of contemporary candidates wearing corporate logos on their backs – smaller ones, of course, on their sleeves for those companies that have given only millions to the campaign. Oh, my, oh my!

Want your democracy back?
If you want your democracy back, then listen up! Do something, stupid! Do something!

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Why the Election went Bad

Here’s why Obama lost the 2010 election to the Republicans!
by Charlie Leck

A fellow blogger (and unmet friend), Tony Rugare, recommended a Salon.com article to us in his blog yesterday (Why the Democrats Shellacked Themselves, by Joan Walsh). I generally agree with Walsh, but I’ve got a slightly different take on things.

“He da’ man!”

How exciting it was during the months leading up to the presidential election in 2008! There were armies of hopeful people out and about, working for the election of a new, exciting and hopeful President. It was an overwhelming show of support such as I’ll never witness again.

We elected a President who promised us change and renewal and hopefulness! What a day it was in early 2009 when he was inaugurated as “da main man!” Wow!

Now, a non-presidential election year has passed us by and everything is different. We’ve got back to the old days and our audacious hopes have been dashed.

Why? What, in a two year span, changed so much?

Nothing changed! And that is the problem.

It was the same-old same-old in the White House and we all knew it. So the armies of excited young people stayed home. They didn’t go out and work thier asses off. They stayed in and watched the man in the White House take his beating. So did a bunch of us old codgers who still think of ourselves as young rebels.

The analysts are trying to explain why it happened. They suggested a lot of Obama’s support deserted him and went over to vote Republican. That’s just not true. All you have to do is count the numbers. Look at how few people voted compared to 2008 – even many fewer voted than would normally vote in a non-presidential. It wasn’t so much a dramatic Republican victory as it was a statement by so many liberal and progressive thinkers who felt Obama had turned his back on them. That’s why so many Democrats for Congress and governorships had so few votes. Obama didn’t deliver and a lot of his 2008 supporters had a message for him. We want stupid wars to end. We’re approaching 4 trillion dollars spent on these two current wars; and they were wars we had no business waging. We also want “don’t ask, don’t tell” to end. We want sensible national health care and not the silly and stupid package that Obama signed early this year. We want fair taxation, which means the filthy rich will pay their fair share of running the country. We want the country to commit to taking better care of the elderly and the homeless. We want America to establish a great program of education for our children – something that will equal that of more than two dozen nations that do a better job of educating children than we do.

We wanted Obama to keep his pledge to us. He didn’t. He didn’t even get started on them. Instead, he caved to Washington’s political pros and went where they wanted him to go. He caved on health care reform and gave us instead a counterfeit package that earned international guffaws! He extended all those billions of dollars in aid to giant financial corporations and looked just as if he was an extension of George W. Bush rather than a new and innovative leader. He caved in to the military in extending and deepening our war in Afghanistan.

As Roger Hodges explains in his book, The Mendacity of Hope, President Barack Obama turned his back on the very people who elected him. How, in heaven’s name, did he think they would team with him in this election? If President Obama wants us back in the 2012 election, he’ll need to dramatically change the way he operates in the White House during the next 18 months.

A Longer Term Goal for the American People
A careful look at the election process will reveal that government is no longer “of, for and by the people.” The 2010 election was not won heavily by conservative candidates because the people demanded it. Conservatives won because the election was controlled by big business and the money of big business. Extreme wealth now controls American politics and we need to do something about it. The Supreme Court ruled out strict laws that limit corporate contributions to political candidates. That means constitutional amendments or even a constitutional convention to redraft the nation’s most important document. Radical ideas? Only if you don’t mind a nation controlled by big corporations and the immensely wealthy.

Last week I sent you to a video lecture by Bill Moyers which contends just that – that is, that our democracy is becoming a plutocracy, “the rule or power of wealth or of the wealthy.” [Dictionary.com: plutocracy]

Money speaks in elections in this day. The people can be controlled by the media message. It’s tough to go up against the filthy, mega-rich and the giant corporations with billions to spend. Welcome to a new America. Get whatever crumbs from the cake that you can find!

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Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it!