This isn't new, but then neither is the chronic claim by Republicans about making spending cuts or smaller government - something they never, ever, actually do. I hope voters will not emulate another iconic cartoon character, Charlie Brown, attempting to kick the football in the cartoon strip Peanuts, perpetually disappointed. His results never change either - just like the Republicans never living up to their claims about cuts in spending.
Middle Class! Your attention please! The Republicans, and the Tea Partiers as they are now, ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS! Since the Obama administration took offices tax cuts for the middle class have gone into effect, more of the money earned by the majority is in your paycheck for you, not taken out as taxes. It was Republicans, so called conservatives (fiscal and otherwise) who passed legislation filled with unfunded mandates, avoidable wars not funded in the regular budget, and let us not forget the costly doughnut hole in medicare. Most of all, let us not elect representatives and senators who will accelerate the increasing gap between the 2% of the our population who are obscenely wealthy and eveveryone else, with more tax cuts for the wealthy which have never, ever been documented to increase job creation and which will drastically expand the deficit from the Bush administration years. Remember? Remember those tax rates that provided us a surplus instead of a deficit under Clinton? The wealthy were not suffering in the slightest with that rate of taxation, nor were the rest of us.
That last frame? The one that says "this isn't Greece"? It is not, at least - not yet, but part of the problem with Greece - beside the problems the U.S. helped cause financially - has been widespread corruption. WE, here in the U.S. have now dropped below the top 20 countries that are least corrupt (Canada, in comparison is 6th).
We are 22nd; 21 other countries, our peer countries, are more honest, and less corrupt than we are. Greece is the direction we are headed, along with Israel. Somalia is deemed the most corrupt; at least we aren't there yet. Who is involved in that? Corrupt Corporate money in our political process, thanks to what has come from the SCOTUS Citizens United decision and the Republican opposition to DISCLOSE legislation. Who has the overwhelming majority of that dirty corporate money? The GOP and the Tea Party.
Don't be bought, America.
Don't make the same mistakes all over again. There are seven hells of devils in the GOP 'pledge' details.
This is particularly apt the evening before the 2010 election. Thank you Gary Trudeau for putting your finger so precisely on the issue. Thank you Yahoo for posting this cartoon, and thank you to my friend Sara who forwarded both the cartoon, and the article about corruption, to my attention.
You are right that the Republicans got the majority of the corporate money but the Supreme Court decision applied to Unions also. The unions gave overwhelmingly to Democrats and in amounts that matched or exceeded the corporate money the Republicans got.
ReplyDeleteNo Tuck. You are in complete factual error.
ReplyDelete1. Unions are operating under rules which require full disclosure from them when they make donations. Corporations were not so required and did not make similar donations.
2. The amounts invovled from Unions were a fraction of the amounts involved from Corporations. They did NOT exceed or match the amounts received by Republicans.
If you believe otherwise, I suggest you provide some facts and sources to support it.
3. The way that corporate donations operate is that those few individuals who either through direct ownership of controlling positions (like Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, and others) or positions on the boards of directors, are able to use those corporate resources for their personal political preferences.
They are NOT answerable to their share holders - and they took plenty of heat, not only from individual share holders this election cycle, but also from their institutional investors who tend to have geater significance in business decisions. Those who protested were told they would NOT be consulted, and that those few individuals would continue to do as they pleased. That was true of Rupert Murdoch, that was true of Target, and others.
This makes the corporate decisions distinctly different from the donations of other organizations where the allocation of donations is by rank and file vote - the people whose money is being donated get a say in those donations that corporate donations don't share. That makes those donations representative of many people in a way that corporate donations are NOT.
Those who described this election cycle as an auction not an election had some truth to that claim.
Our Constitution begins 'We the People'. Corporations are not people, especially when their resources are directed by so few individuals, giving those individuals a kind of power that in the history of this country has not gone well.
I suggest you look at 19th century economic history. I suggest you look at the 20th century version of what happened when that has been true, from the Pecora commision - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecora_Commission
Then I suggest you peruse the recent evaluation of this election cycle by politifact.com, which claims the worst election for misinformation, lies, and distortion financed by that money. That is the basis for calling it an auction not an election - that votes were bought through the deliberate investment in overwhelmimng money spent on - lets call it what it was - lies. Deliberate attempts to misinform people.
See my posts on MORAL PANIC.
The United States has never been similarly rated as corrupt. That rating is from the lack of transparency in where money came from that would enable people to make informed decisions about who and what was behind those ads.
Why, dear Tuck, do you think I hammer so relentlessly on fact checking?
It keeps everybody honest. EVERYBODY needs to be kept honest. To paraphrase Reagan - DON'T TRUST, VERIFY.
From the wikipedia entry on the Pecora Commision - it's wikipedia, but as far as it goes, it is pretty good on the topic.
ReplyDelete"In 1939 Ferdinand Pecora published a memoir that recounted details of the investigations, Wall Street Under Oath. Pecora wrote: "Bitterly hostile was Wall Street to the enactment of the regulatory legislation." As to disclosure rules, he stated that "Had there been full disclosure of what was being done in furtherance of these schemes, they could not long have survived the fierce light of publicity and criticism. Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the banker's stoutest allies."
The money being spent by corporations is to undo regulation. That lack of regulation is what was behind the economic debacle that began to go to hell in 2007 - but the causes far predated 2007. That regulation stops abuses, and shines that light tha Pecora was describing. It is not to promote business growth; it is to promote a few people getting very wealthy from shady business in that "pitch darkness" at the expense of the majority of average citizens in this country, and having disproportionate power from that wealth to influence politics.
The unions in the 21st century don't have anything like the power they once had. Shame on you Tuck, for not doing your homework. This 'unions' stuff is baloney, and you should check it out better before simply repeating it.
We used to have unions, back when we were a manufacturing country founded on industry. We don't do that anymore; it's been outsourced.
Care to speculate by whom? Who has been the most outfront about that Tuck? The Chamber of Commerce comes to mind, which takes a lot more money than they have been admitting to, as details emerge, from those countries on the receiving end of outsourced jobs.
Funny thing is........apparently most LOCAL Chambers of Commerce aren't actually MEMBERS of THAT political ad buying Chamber of Commerce. They just share the name.
Did you know that Tuck?
Tuck - again, just wikipedia, but it tracks with the other sources (I'm not going to go dig up multiples for this) - this is just a reference to lobbying efforts, but it also addresses the membership of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Political spending this election cycle on ads - many of them conveying false or misleading information - actually appears to
ReplyDeleteEXCEED their lobbying expenditures.
So, I'm very much looking forward to you showing me how unions or any other group representing labor or another interest similarly spent money.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Chamber_of_Commerce
"Lobbying
The Chamber has emerged as the largest lobbying organization in America. It spent $91.7 million on lobbying in 2008, and $144.5 million in 2009, up from $18.7 million in 2000. The Chamber's lobbying expenditures in 2009 were five times as high as the next highest spender: Exxon Mobil, at $27.4 million.[15] The Chamber had more than 150 lobbyists from 25 different firms working on its behalf in 2009. The major issues that it advocated on were in the categories of torts, government issues, finance, banking and taxes."
"Companies with representation on the board
Many well-known companies have representation on the US Chamber Board of Directors [38]. The Board of Directors raises money for the organization and decides upon who will lead the organization.
Alcoa Amway Anheuser-Busch Arnel & Affiliates AT&T Awkward & Associates Carlyle Group Caterillar Charles Schwab ConocoPhillips CONSOL Energy, Inc CVS Caremark Deloitte LLP Eastman Kodak Edward Jones Entergy FedEx Fox Harrah's IBM JPMorgan Chase Lockheed Martin Corporation New York Life Insurance Peabody Energy PepsiCo Pfizer Inc. Rolls-Royce Ryder Sands Sanofi-Aventis SecurAmerica Southern Company The Dow Chemical Company The Travelers Companies United Van Lines UPS US Airways Verizon Wegmans WellPoint, Inc. Xerox"
Is this YOUR idea of "government of the people, by the people, for the people", Tuck?
It is NOT mine. I oppose corporate (OR Union) money controlling elections. I oppose outside money - and people - dominating local and state politics, because it diminishes the voices of our individual citizens in favor of special interests who do not represent the interests of those citizens.
At the moment Union money isn't the threat that corporate money is to those interests. I would even argue that some of the impact attributed to Unions in the past may be overstated. But certainly so in this century.
Here is a link you should read, from PBS, certainly no friend of Republicans that says Unions give as much as corps and probably had a faster effect because of the dues money they had on hand when the supreme court decision came down. Also according to this Unions can give directly to candidates now.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec10/politics_09-21.html
Also this from Opensecrets.org is their top 10 heavy hitters list that shows the top 10 political contributors since 1989 according to the FEC. 5 of the 10 are unions and 3 are corps.
ReplyDeleteTop 10 Heavy Hitters:
AT&T Inc $45,662,025
ActBlue $43,181,888
American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees $43,026,461
National Assn of Realtors $37,623,999
Goldman Sachs $32,899,102
Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $32,685,295
American Assn for Justice $32,683,029
National Education Assn $31,114,380
Laborers Union $29,816,800
Carpenters & Joiners Union $28,945,308
Here is the link
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/index.php
Actually in my previous post only 2 of the top 10 were corps. I did not know what ActBlue was and was too tired to Google it last night. It is a Democratic Clearinghouse(their words) for donations. So 2 corps,3 others (realtors, actblue, assoc for justice) and 5 unions.
ReplyDelete