Our politics took a nightmarish turn this week. Senate Republicans twice blocked a vote to require corporations, unions and obscure organizations hovering in the shadows to tell us who's putting up the millions and millions of dollars for all the propaganda assaulting the public during this political year.
The bill the Republicans killed was already a weak parody of its original intent. It wouldn't even go into effect until after the November auction when the buying and selling of the White House, Congress, state legislatures and courts will have been completed, and the dark money will have done its dirty work. By then a vast pall of secrecy will cover the tracks of the secret donors. The knife plunged into the heart of democracy will have been wiped clean of the fingerprints of those who wielded it. The public will not even know who owns title to our government.
Both our political parties are up to their necks in this corruption; it was Barack Obama, you'll recall, who tossed public funding under the bus four years ago, then hauled in huge sums of money from Wall Street fat cats he later promised to protect from public wrath over their ill-gotten gains. And when there was just a brief chance to reform carried interest, the trickery that enables the Mitt Romneys of the world to pay a tax rate far below working people, Wall Street Democrats like Chuck Schumer helped to snuff it out in the cradle.
But the Republicans, once the party of Lincoln -- "government of, by, and for the people," remember? -- have thrown their soul into the bargain.
Once upon a time they said, "Let there be light."
Here's Ronald Reagan in l988: "We need full disclosure of all campaign contributions...."
Here's the first George Bush in l989: "Disclosure -- full disclosure -- that's the answer."
Senator John McCain in 2004: "What reform does is create transparency, equality, and participation..."
Senator Scott Brown in 2012: "Attack ads, from unaccountable, outside groups that spend millions of dollars from anonymous donors portraying their opposition unfairly and misleading voters are wrong."
Once upon a time even Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was for transparency. Even Mitch McConnell sang, "Let the sunshine in." In l997 he said disclosing campaign donors and spending "should be expedited so voters can judge for themselves what is appropriate." Three years later he called for "real disclosure" and asked, "Why would a little disclosure be better than a lot of disclosure?"
That was then. Now Mitch McConnell has become a walking alibi for corruption. He lines up every Republican in the Senate -- every one of them -- to protect their secret donors. And he does so twice in one week.
Why? Because they have made it their mission to prevent majority rule. And because they are no longer a conservative party. The noted political scientist Sheldon Wolin, in his book Democracy Inc., writes that the Republican Party is now radically oligarchical -- programmed to advance corporate economic and political interests and to protect and promote inequalities of opportunity and wealth. There's the nightmarish future: a government run of, by, and for the rich, while everyday Americans are left to lives of lowered earnings, chronic insecurity in the workplace, and a vulnerable old age.
This is why secrecy is a must. Because that vision -- of a nation no longer fair, no longer just -- cannot possibly win free and open elections conducted as honest competition. The majority of Americans -- citizens of a country born in what one historian calls "the age of democratic revolutions" -- would never choose to be governed by the few at the expense of the many. Politicians required to play by the rules, to openly confess that their loyalty has been purchased and forced to identify the highest bidders, could not possibly survive the scrutiny. So they must bend the rules to conceal their transactions. In doing in democracy, their safety is in secrecy, and we must be kept in the dark.
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Michael B. Keegan: Romney, the Senate GOP and the Right-Wing Secrecy Machine
Elisabeth MacNamara: Senate Refuses to Debate the DISCLOSE Act
Thank you for all you've done and are doing to educate people about things nobody else talks about.
I admire your goals and hard work.
Three options:
o MASSIVE and PEACEFUL movement like civil rights
o Second PEACEFUL revolution like Serbia's overthrow of Slobodan Milošević, led by Otpor
o Second "blood and bullets" revolution
The first reform must be publicly financed campaigns with NO contributions from:
o corporations
o unions
o PACs and SuperPACs
o professional lobbyists
o tax-exempt organizations
o individuals
Compare the expense of taxpayer-financed elections to a second revolution.
"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them."
— Frederick Douglass, 1857”
Lets take a moment of silence to grief for the end of democracy.
Maybe I'm getting cynical in my "old" age, but I wouldn't be surprised if that champion of secret finances, Zitt Romney will be elected. And then the skies will darken.
But maybe we deserve an end to democracy:
most of us don't bother to vote
most of us believe what we see in political commercials, no fact checking
most of us don't think about politics, we just vote what other in our neighborhood vote
They have become one. Even if 100% of the people voted, nothing would change.
These elite, oligarchs, are entrenched in all the decision making positions of Government and public enterprise. Even the Supreme court took the side of the corporates. They ruled that corporations are people.! Go figure.!!!
We then got smarter, - or so we thought - and voted in the Dems.
But... what horrors.! Things got worse.!
Pray, tell us, who should we vote for, next time around.?
Bill Moyers has done America a great service in communicating so clearly what is really at stake in the next few election cycles. Thank you Bill.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
It has truly become the era of GOP fascism and the shift to corporate leadership of American politics. Young conservatives are being misled and will soon come to their senses. Corporations aren't people, my friends. Profit before people is all that matters to them. Don't fall for the Christian rhetoric from the right... it's a smokescreen to cover up the darker side of the GOP. See the bigger picture, not just abortion, gay marriage and those other distractions like military spending. Our military is strong and religion is for the religious... not to be imposed on all Americans. Freedom from religion is an American right that dates back to the founding of America. Religion has no legitimate place in American politics.