I remember when Harold, the school's maintenance man, came into the dining room as we kids were eating breakfast, and announced to my father: "We won!" The president re-elected was Truman, and the year was 1948.
Money didn't play such an outsized role in 1948 as it did in 2012, but the most important thing: "money," as the song goes, "doesn't buy you love." That was proven pretty decisively in 2012; money didn't buy love for Romney.
Tuesday night I stayed up until NBC declared Obama's victory--I didn't hear about Karl Rove's objections until the next afternoon. Obama really did win and it wasn't as close as Truman over Dewey.
Obama didn't campaign against a "do-nothing" Congress, but he could have; perhaps he should have. Considering Republican obstruction in Congress, it's extraordinary that Obama won on his accomplishments and his character--despite my evangelical friend's deeply held belief that Barack is the Antichrist.
What justifies Obama the Antichrist label? Maybe that he won? Or maybe that he's black, but doesn't act like a 'Yassuh, no Suh' N….., but as a powerful, articulate, well-educated man, who happens to be black.
Some now say Obama is a brilliant politician; I agree. But Obama's win, and that of the Democratic candidates who won a majority of Senate seats, despite the $100's of millions deployed against them, won because, in a democracy, numbers of voters ultimately prevail against raw cash. And Americans, like any people not cowed by authoritarianism, reacted to attempts to suppress them with impressive, stoic determination to push back and prevail. They may have voted in greater numbers than in the previous election when Republicans didn't so actively try to suppress the vote.
That's the strongest message and mandate in this election. Issues like global warming, collective bargaining rights and even inequality were often ignored by both sides--a defeat for democracy--but such a surge of money into the campaign (the money raised by billionaires and spent by "super-pacs"), encouraged Republicans to be more open and more aggressive about their extremist policies.
That was a good thing, because of the reaction: Americans reacted to the concerted effort to buy their votes through indirection, and they didn't like it. They turned out in droves in response to the attempts at voter suppression, and apparently ignored, or discounted, the negative ads flying nationwide. They may also have voted more decisively for Obama because of his real action in the face of Hurricane Sandy.
The day after the election, we still had a slowly diminishing empire, an artificially created "fiscal cliff," and need for a real stimulus to bolster jobs growth. And we still had Republican control of the House. But, for the moment, we've dodged the ultimate takeover of the selfish class, our equivalent of Roman Senators in the Fifth Century.
That's something to be thankful for.
Showing posts with label super-pacs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label super-pacs. Show all posts
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Climate Change, Politics and Money
Our political campaigns debate regulation, austerity and stimulus. The multi-millionaires and billionaires funding super-pacs to elect Republicans and Romney abhor taxes and regulations, whether it's building codes, global warming gas emissions or casinos.
Why, they could be on their way to earning trillions if it weren't for "job-killing regulations" and taxes! The Kochs, fossil fuel producers, have been cited over and over for emissions pollution, have paid large fines (small compared to their incomes), and legal fees that probably dwarf the fines: their pac funding dwarfs both. A Texas billionaire is a builder of shoddy developments; he's been sued repeatedly for using inferior materials, and not surprisingly, he's for "tort reform" that would cap jury awards for damages. So, he, the Kochs, and many others donate millions to Romney or GOP-supportive superpacs.
Why do they do this? Simple, in each case, they "donate" to get what they want through Congress and the President--the Congress and President they are buying. And while the money advanced is almost small change to the super-rich, it floods the election process.
What does this have to do with global warming? Warming increased last year faster than expected (3.5% over 2010), and the world is on track to warm 3.5 degrees Celsius; Earth will be a much warmer place than it has ever been since humans evolved. Earth was as warm eons ago, but it's not clear that people can survive it without major disruption and mass die-offs. The reason the earth is warming so rapidly, according to Climate Action Tracker(CAT), is because no nation has even met its (inadequate) targets for cutting emissions, and even if they did, none would be enough to slow global warming. The US's inability to adopt carbon emission reduction programs like cap and trade is symptomatic: Brazil's and Mexico's gestures, according to CAT, are ineffectual or worse. But the world as a whole is even more so: nations appear unable--or unwilling, like the US--to meet their climate change pledges.
The reason for the puny response is political. There is no lack of technology to battle climate change. But private interests are donating funds to prevent its use, and persuade others it's unnecessary. The Kochs, for example, have a stake in preventing programs to ameliorate climate change. Citizens United has opened the financial floodgates, rendering billionaires even more effective at blocking positive action.
The flood from the super-rich parallels the near monopoly of wealth and power of Rome's Senators in the fifth century. Then, everyone else was driven into serfdom; now its wage slavery and debt--if you're lucky enough to get a job--but now the world's people will be corralled into an overheated ditch.
Maybe the billionaires think they can create their own climate-controlled havens to survive?
Why, they could be on their way to earning trillions if it weren't for "job-killing regulations" and taxes! The Kochs, fossil fuel producers, have been cited over and over for emissions pollution, have paid large fines (small compared to their incomes), and legal fees that probably dwarf the fines: their pac funding dwarfs both. A Texas billionaire is a builder of shoddy developments; he's been sued repeatedly for using inferior materials, and not surprisingly, he's for "tort reform" that would cap jury awards for damages. So, he, the Kochs, and many others donate millions to Romney or GOP-supportive superpacs.
Why do they do this? Simple, in each case, they "donate" to get what they want through Congress and the President--the Congress and President they are buying. And while the money advanced is almost small change to the super-rich, it floods the election process.
What does this have to do with global warming? Warming increased last year faster than expected (3.5% over 2010), and the world is on track to warm 3.5 degrees Celsius; Earth will be a much warmer place than it has ever been since humans evolved. Earth was as warm eons ago, but it's not clear that people can survive it without major disruption and mass die-offs. The reason the earth is warming so rapidly, according to Climate Action Tracker(CAT), is because no nation has even met its (inadequate) targets for cutting emissions, and even if they did, none would be enough to slow global warming. The US's inability to adopt carbon emission reduction programs like cap and trade is symptomatic: Brazil's and Mexico's gestures, according to CAT, are ineffectual or worse. But the world as a whole is even more so: nations appear unable--or unwilling, like the US--to meet their climate change pledges.
The reason for the puny response is political. There is no lack of technology to battle climate change. But private interests are donating funds to prevent its use, and persuade others it's unnecessary. The Kochs, for example, have a stake in preventing programs to ameliorate climate change. Citizens United has opened the financial floodgates, rendering billionaires even more effective at blocking positive action.
The flood from the super-rich parallels the near monopoly of wealth and power of Rome's Senators in the fifth century. Then, everyone else was driven into serfdom; now its wage slavery and debt--if you're lucky enough to get a job--but now the world's people will be corralled into an overheated ditch.
Maybe the billionaires think they can create their own climate-controlled havens to survive?
Friday, March 30, 2012
US Dysfunction: Who Profits?
We have a nearly dysfunctional political system and conservatives like it that way.
Dick Durban, the Senate Assistant Majority Leader, recently described how he and his colleagues--virtually all Senators and Congress-people--have to go across the street from the Capitol to a bare-bones call center, and spend hours calling for campaign contributions at least several times a week. He described it as his "other job," fundraising.
Now, we have "Super-pacs" and non-profit affiliates collecting many millions of dollars from less than a few hundred multi-millionaires, billionaires and corporations. They are hoping to buy the election of the President, the Senate, the House, and the states. This year billions of dollars may be in play.
There was another period in the US, when the very wealthy virtually owned our government: until the 1901 accession of Teddy Roosevelt to the Presidency. TR's Presidency was a mistake. New York's Republican leadership saw Governor Roosevelt as a troublemaker: they thought they were banishing him to ineffectuality as Vice President. Then, President McKinley, was assassinated and TR became President. He began trust-busting, the beginning of the end of the first Gilded Age, in which "robber barons" boasted of spending money to elect Government to pass laws so that they could make even more money.
The Gilded Age looked much like the late Roman Empire, when the Roman Senatorial class monopolized virtually all the wealth, and used it to protect their own interests: not those of the empire, nor of the other people in it. The latter were reduced to slaves and serfs, and a mercenary military was supposed to protect the Empire and maintain order.
The Fifth Century, the 1890's, it's happening again. But it's not just corruption and class exploitation, this time: it's a complete failure to respond to the most urgent crisis of our era. The inability of Congress to act--brought to you by the corrupt campaign finance and lobbying system--is not only preventing action to alleviate the problem, it's actually promoting policies that will make the problem worse.
Congress has brushed aside any attempt to ameliorate or reverse damaging global climate change. This has happened, even though weather events and scientific data, from ice-cores to global temperatures, to violent storms, to melting polar ice, corroborate not only the global scientific consensus that climate change is happening, but that it's accelerating faster than any but the most radical predictions foresaw. And now, there's an "oil and gas boom" in the US!
Our "robber barons" have bought off Pennsylvania and Ohio, are attempting to buy off New York--allowing fracking anywhere--and along with big corporations that TR would recognize, they are pooling their billions to buy up Congress and the Presidency, so they can amass even more billions, the climate be damned.
We all will be, if they succeed.
Dick Durban, the Senate Assistant Majority Leader, recently described how he and his colleagues--virtually all Senators and Congress-people--have to go across the street from the Capitol to a bare-bones call center, and spend hours calling for campaign contributions at least several times a week. He described it as his "other job," fundraising.
Now, we have "Super-pacs" and non-profit affiliates collecting many millions of dollars from less than a few hundred multi-millionaires, billionaires and corporations. They are hoping to buy the election of the President, the Senate, the House, and the states. This year billions of dollars may be in play.
There was another period in the US, when the very wealthy virtually owned our government: until the 1901 accession of Teddy Roosevelt to the Presidency. TR's Presidency was a mistake. New York's Republican leadership saw Governor Roosevelt as a troublemaker: they thought they were banishing him to ineffectuality as Vice President. Then, President McKinley, was assassinated and TR became President. He began trust-busting, the beginning of the end of the first Gilded Age, in which "robber barons" boasted of spending money to elect Government to pass laws so that they could make even more money.
The Gilded Age looked much like the late Roman Empire, when the Roman Senatorial class monopolized virtually all the wealth, and used it to protect their own interests: not those of the empire, nor of the other people in it. The latter were reduced to slaves and serfs, and a mercenary military was supposed to protect the Empire and maintain order.
The Fifth Century, the 1890's, it's happening again. But it's not just corruption and class exploitation, this time: it's a complete failure to respond to the most urgent crisis of our era. The inability of Congress to act--brought to you by the corrupt campaign finance and lobbying system--is not only preventing action to alleviate the problem, it's actually promoting policies that will make the problem worse.
Congress has brushed aside any attempt to ameliorate or reverse damaging global climate change. This has happened, even though weather events and scientific data, from ice-cores to global temperatures, to violent storms, to melting polar ice, corroborate not only the global scientific consensus that climate change is happening, but that it's accelerating faster than any but the most radical predictions foresaw. And now, there's an "oil and gas boom" in the US!
Our "robber barons" have bought off Pennsylvania and Ohio, are attempting to buy off New York--allowing fracking anywhere--and along with big corporations that TR would recognize, they are pooling their billions to buy up Congress and the Presidency, so they can amass even more billions, the climate be damned.
We all will be, if they succeed.
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