This week, former Vice President Al Gore called for an Occupy Democracy movement using the Internet to escalate the battle against the corruption of democracy. Meanwhile, the New York Times ran a major story describing how GOP super PAC mega-donors are far surpassing their Democratic competitors and why financier George Soros probably won't, but perhaps might, donate a comparatively modest amount of money to the Dems.
This is the first in a series of columns about money, power, voting and democracy in 2012 that will develop the following themes:
Al Gore is right. I agree with his comments about the corruption of our politics and democracy. But, as a long-term supporter of Gore, I must ask: Will his actions equal his words, or will his comments this week be a fleeting commentary whose results will be inadequate to the vital mission Gore proposes?
Will Gore, Bill Clinton and Andrew Cuomo make major efforts to tap their vast networks of financial supporters to counteract the current superiority of super PAC donors from the right to help Democrats keep control of the Senate and regain control of the House, by raising substantial funds for Majority PAC and House Majority PAC?
Will Gore begin (and wealthy liberal donors support) a national campaign promoting voting rights and attacking GOP voter suppression -- a subject that should be close to Gore's heart after voters preferred him to be president in 2000, using tactics that are so aggressive today?
Memo to Obama: If you cut back financial support to Senate and House Democrats, it would not be a brilliant move.
Which brings me to Soros, who does for Democrats and liberals so little compared to what wealthy conservatives do for their side.
Regarding Soros, I no longer care, except to note it is a shame that someone who did so much to support democracy in Eastern Europe, for which he should be eternally applauded by the right and the left, does so little, compared to financiers of the right, to support progressive candidates for democracy and reform at home.
Soros is merely a highly visible symbol of a breed of wealthy liberal insider elite, including too many in Hollywood, New York and Silicon Valley who do far less to support their beliefs than wealthy conservatives do to support theirs. For two generations, wealthy conservatives have treated politics like total war they fight to win, and a brilliant business proposition that achieves ratings, sells books, attracts advertisers, wins votes and makes money. Meanwhile, many of the wealthiest liberal insider elites, by contrast, treat politics like a hobby, a vanity play or an act of romance one does with oneself.
The result: huge imbalances with major advantages to the right in television, talk radio, publishing and now multimillion-dollar super PAC donors.
The entire conservative political and media armadas became a powerful megaphone of mobilization for the Tea Party movement, while the Occupy Wall Street movement, even during its highest moments, was treated like a stepchild by the political, media and financial liberal elites that should have rallied for it, but did not.
For three years, Tea Party advocates were everywhere on Fox News. Where have the Occupy Wall Street advocates been seen on television? Dare I suggest this is not unrelated to Fox News's huge victories in ratings?
So: Why does Fox News tower like a colossus above all competitors in ratings when the liberal base is comparable to the conservative base?
Why does Matt Drudge tower above all others in his field, like the Roman Empire towered over its distant colonies, in aggregating news and having his work (and his vast influence) bannered throughout all other media (including the allegedly "liberal media," which follows Drudge the way Talmudic scholars inspect religious artifacts)?
Why do Rush Limbaugh and conservative talkers so dominate political radio, while Air America could not avoid bankruptcy even during a rising liberal tide? Why was Andrew Breitbart so influential, while the liberals complained about him without competing against him?
To Messrs. Gore, Clinton, Cuomo, Obama, Soros and many others, I ask: What do you plan on doing about this?
There is something very wrong and very dangerous to our democracy when the Supreme Court allows big money to buy elections, and only one side (the right and champions of greed) steps forward, while many of the wealthy liberal financial elites merely ponder, opine and observe in response. Some claim grandiose credit for the comparatively little they do. Others offer ludicrous excuses for the things they do not do.
I agree completely with Gore. I hope and pray that in the coming months I can applaud what Gore does, as much as what he says. I hope the Occupy Wall Street movement and wealthy liberal donors will heed Gore's call to begin a great Occupy Democracy movement. This is what future columns in the paper and on The Hill's Pundits Blog (beginning Friday) will discuss.
We will soon learn who will lead, who will follow and who will get out of the way. Do not underestimate the role this will play for Democrats who will seek the presidency in 2016, who are being closely watched by Democrats today.
To Gore, Soros, Clinton, Cuomo, Obama and others, I remind you: Talk is cheap. In this business you get what you pay for in blood, toil, sweat, tears, passion, idealism, activism, commitment and, yes, you better believe it, in money.
This column was originally published at The Hill.
Ahah,hah, hah!
Gore who has gotten rich on GW all when flying in a Gulfstream, just cracks me up.
The people who run the country are those who go back and forth, pop up here and there, and work in corporations or with really wealthy people, the rest of it is window dressing for the masses. Orwell would be shocked at right he got it.
If someone does not play their role and becomes a problem, they get removed.
There is nothing short of a country-wide general strike and demonstrations that are going to make any difference, and even that may not because every time something changes the solution for the workaround is already in place so nothing changes.
As long as Democrats think they can work in the system or are even part of the system they are just buying into the fantasy.
The role of the progressive parties in contemporary democracies is to develop means whereby the power of the oligarchy is curtailed by law, rues and regulations. One great difficulty is that the powers of patronage sucks the progressives into the lower rungs of the oligarchy where they function very well, fooling themselves that they are the ruling class, when they are its servants.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/21/nation/na-wallstdems21
Maybe they can't leverage Occupy Wall Street because they are OWNED by Wall Street.
I'm a little confused... the author seems to be simultaneously lamenting both the fact that there is too much corrupting money in politics AND the fact that dems just can't seem to raise enough of that very same corrupting money.
That great middle that call themselves Independents tend to move away from what used to be mainstream Liberalism, as personified by LBJ and RFK. They've grown to distrust government and social policies that seem to be throwing good money after bad. Unfortunately, this attitude taints their decisions on other Liberal views with which they might agree.... ie... environment, health care, education, etc.
Therefore, while the MoneyBags on the Right can throw tons of cash at their candidates and to promote their ideology.... and it actually helps, because their base may approve of this..... on the Left.... which tends to mistrust Big Business, etc.... throwing loads of cash at their issues will not gain them greater support from their Base (which mistrust this)... and will further drive away Independents who see it as further attempts to promote what might be called Social Engineering.
Somehow the Left needs to get clever in getting out its message... w/o the taint of money. They need to convince the Great Center that good government has a purpose.... and a place.... and can do things that corporations can't and won't. They need to convince that Middle that Government cannot and should not operate as a business or a family budget... because it is not - it is, instead, a community.
Under the current health care system, it has apparently been estimated that by a date, not too far in the future, our total income will not be enough to pay medical cost. That subject will be tacked by Mr. Zakaria, apparently, on Sunday, CNN @ 8.00. I am curious how he will handle it.
Increasing pollution, high prices of oil and perhaps even oil shortages will have some effects too. But probably not nearly as much effect as disease outbreaks worldwide, because of overpopulation, inability to et medical care, and food/water scarcity. Make profits requires a market (people who buy your goods). If you kill your own market, you will sell nothing. If patients can not pay for medical care any longer, there will not be any doctors in the long run. One patient, no matter how wealthy, can not support all that is needed, and skills require seeing many patients, doing many procedures, etc.
Changes in society were caused by higher populations, necessity of increased productivity, and other issues, which required reshaping of the environment and means of productions, as well as capital formation. It required often pooling of resources, to start a business one might need others' money, and labor. Transportation was also needed, and highways. Cars were driving on the highways, and still are, but in some way they are already obsolete and identical to the horse and buggy on a dirt road, developmentally. Other nations have mass transit, universal health care. and many have free education. Yes, everybody pays in. Everyone is also receiving the services. Why are the super rich so rich? They have their money everywhere, not in one place. they cooperate and compete. they have resources above and beyond money and influence. But they also know that certain links and cooperations/collaborations are necessary. Common sense should not get stuck in an old model that no longer works.