Tag Archives: Lobbyists

The US Is No Longer A Democracy. Here’s How It Happened.

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Last year, a study from Princeton and Northwestern universities, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens,” concluded that the US government no longer represents the interests of the majority of the nation’s citizens. Instead, it panders to the rich and powerful.

In other words, the US has become an oligarchy defined as a government by the few, a small group that exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.

More recently, President Jimmy Carter, commenting on how big money has subverted our elections, said, “It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations.”

The US didn’t become an oligarchy by accident. We got here as the result of a long list of political decisions designed to pander to the wealthy and the powerful. Here’s how:

During the 1800s, the US went from a largely agrarian society to a society based on the industrial revolution. This created some extremely wealthy individuals often referred to as the “Robber Barons,” who took advantage of cheap labor created by the influx of immigrants. They paid little and subjected their employees to horrific working conditions. During this so-called Gilded Age, the wealthy chose the candidates and ran the nation until the masses began to rebel.

In the early 1900s, the Gilded Age ended when workers began to unionize. The wealthy responded by hiring the police and ex-military (the American Legion) to break the labor strikes by bashing some heads. In reality, it was America’s second civil war.

When the Great Depression struck, the nation moved even further toward socialism which caused the wealthy to try to arrange the assassination of President Franklin Roosevelt. In fact, many of the industrialists wanted the nation’s government to reflect the fascist governments of Italy and Germany. Their agenda was interrupted with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, World War II and the revelations of the Nazi death camps. And they were forced to accept the will of the masses until the 1970s when President Richard Nixon and Vice-President Spiro Agnew attacked the new media in order to deflect criticism of their policies.

By raising questions about the objectivity of the media which were embraced by conservatives, it set the stage (intentionally or not) for the Reagan administration and its economic policy of “Trickle Down” theory. This was nothing more than a return to the “Horse and Sparrow” economics of the gilded age, during which government policies were carefully crafted to benefit the wealthy under the theory that if you feed enough oats (money) to the horses (the wealthy) enough will fall on the road to feed the sparrows (the masses).

Reagan portrayed the government and its regulation of industry as the enemy. He attacked labor unions. He lowered taxes for the wealthy. He increased the amount of money exempted from estate taxes. He deregulated the media by eliminating the Fairness Doctrine which held media accountable to serve in the public interest. And he lowered capital gains taxes, which allowed the wealthy to keep more of their primary sources of income – interest and dividends from investments.

With the wealthy allowed to accumulate more money, labor unions on the defensive and an emasculated press, the table was set for the oligarchs. All of this was made worse by Grover Norquist, Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed who showed the Republican National Committee that it could thrive by eliminating compromises from our political discussions and treating politics as war – a blood sport. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich took congressional dysfunction a step further by transforming the GOP into a parliamentary-style party in which the entire Party is unified on every vote. If you dare to break ranks with Party, you are punished in the next primary and election.

Add to all of this the more than $28 billion lobbying industry, which is financed almost exclusively by the rich and the powerful, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which writes laws on behalf of its corporate sponsors then hands them to its conservative members to sponsor in their state legislatures where the bills are often passed with little discussion or examination, and the George W. Bush administration which cut income taxes for the rich by 4.6 percent and all but eliminated the estate tax.

The last major player is the conservative majority on the US Supreme Court, which by 3 decisions (Buckley v Valeo, Citizens United v FEC and McCutcheon v FEC) unleashed a torrent of money in campaign donations from the oligarchs. So much so, that candidates should have to wear NASCAR-style uniforms with labels of their sponsors. Indeed, of the nearly $400 million donated to presidential candidates so far this year, nearly half has come from fewer than 400 families!

Given all of this, no election in our history has been as critical as next year’s. We can either continue further down the road of oligarchy by electing candidates who try to divide us over social issues while pandering to the wealthy. Or we can elect candidates of change – real change. Candidates who will put the power of the government back in the hands of the people.

That’s why I support Bernie Sanders.

Guns For Everyone, Everywhere!

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For years, I thought the National Rifle Association could stoop no lower than its role as shill for the gun manufacturers. The US has never restricted gun ownership, but the NRA has routinely pushed for increased accessibility and ever more lethal weapons. As a result, Americans may now purchase a 50-caliber semi-automatic sniper rifle powerful enough to blow a hole in a car’s engine block at a distance of 1,000 yards. You may now own a semi-automatic assault rifle with high capacity magazines that will permit you to shoot dozens of people without the inconvenience of having to stop to reload. And, if the NRA has its way, you will soon be able to legally purchase a silencer for your weapons that will allow you to shoot people while avoiding detection.

Who wouldn’t need that?

What began as an organization dedicated to helping young men improve their marksmanship for hunting and for possible military service, has morphed into a lobbying group with a mission of eliminating all laws and restrictions with regard to the purchase and carry of handguns. Now the NRA is working on open carry laws that will allow any paranoid dimwit to openly carry a loaded weapon anywhere at any time. By contrast, in many cities and towns, martial artists are still unable to purchase or carry nunchuku, shurikens (Asian throwing stars) or certain kinds of knives. After all, without such restrictions, the national nunchuku murder rate might soar to…ummm…one. And convenience stores would be under constant threat of being robbed at shuriken point.

Sarcasm aside, those restrictions came from a day when the American public actually cared about preventing violence. From a time when the lack of a conspicuous presence of guns was a sign of advanced civilization. A time when the primary reason for owning a gun was for home protection and for hunting. A time before the gun manufacturers and the NRA convinced the most paranoid amongst us that carrying a gun was the only thing that stood between them and tyranny.

In order to keep the majority of Americans from understanding the true dangers of our obsession with guns, the NRA has successfully lobbied to prevent the government from tracking gun deaths, to prevent the registration of firearms and ammunition, to prevent universal background checks of gun purchases, to prevent so-called straw buyers from purchasing guns for felons, even to prevent pediatricians from talking to parents about gun safety in the home.

All of that is bad enough. But now the NRA is fighting proposed gun restrictions for those who have been convicted of domestic abuse and those who are mentally ill, stating, “Not only is this unjust and stigmatizing, it creates disincentives for those who need mental health treatment to seek it, increasing whatever risks are associated with untreated mental illness.”

In other words, the NRA wants everyone to own guns and to carry them everywhere. Anything less is, in the NRA’s words, “an assault on the Second Amendment.” The problem is that the NRA conveniently ignores the first part of that amendment. Yes, the amendment does say, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” But only after it states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”

Reading the many papers written by the Founding Fathers, the intent of the Second Amendment becomes clear…since the new nation had no standing army, the Founders saw a need for a citizen militia to protect the nation. They had no concern of tyranny from within – the democratic process was considered protection from that. The real threat was from the British Army and the armies of other foreign governments. But now that the US has the most powerful military force on Earth, there is no longer a need for an armed militia. As a result, the Second Amendment has lost its meaning and its true purpose. All of those guns that are owned and carried by Americans are being used to shoot other Americans at a rate of more than 33,600 per year…roughly the equivalent of twelve 9/11 attacks each and every year!

The Founders could have never foreseen the lethality of the weapons available today. Just as they could not have imagined that a lobbying group representing a tiny fraction of the population would be so effective at convincing Congress to suspend common sense and reason.

The Eleventh Hour For Earth.

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Half of all the species on Earth have disappeared in the last 40 years. In Malaysia, Indonesia, Africa and Brazil, the destruction of rain forests continues almost unabated endangering thousands more species of plants and animals while belching tons of carbon and methane into the atmosphere. The resulting increase in world temperatures from deforestation, gas and diesel-powered cars, and coal-fired power plants is causing the Greenland glaciers to lose 17 feet of elevation every year. Likewise, the Antarctic ice shelves and glaciers are melting at alarming rates. In addition, the Arctic sea ice is disappearing putting the future of Polar Bears, even indigenous people in jeopardy.

Greed has led to the near extinction of Northern White Rhinos with only 5 now left on the entire planet, and they’re only alive because they’re guarded 24/7 to protect them from poachers. Ivory poachers are killing African elephants at the rate of more than 33,000 per year. If that continues, wild African elephants will become extinct within 12 years! Tigers and many other species are also nearing extinction in the wild. Even bees and butterflies are endangered by our overuse of pesticides.

We have destroyed most of our great ocean reefs and we continue to dump oil, agrichemicals and trash into the oceans creating large dead zones and “islands” of plastic. Hundreds of large factory ships scoop up anything that swims into nets 24 hours a day, keeping those species that are valuable for sale and killing the rest.

Factory farming of cattle, pigs and poultry has led to the overuse of antibiotics that pollute our bodies and make bacteria increasingly immune to medicines. Dairy cows are treated like milk factories, fed a steady diet of hormones intended to cause them to give more milk. And most of the animals are confined in pens with little room to turn around. Moreover, the waste from these meat and milk factories pollutes our ground water and the animals create enormous amounts of methane released into the atmosphere to add to the greenhouse gases. At the same time, corporate farming of grains, fruits, vegetables and nuts have incorporated more herbicides and pesticides while stripping the flavor and nutrition from our food supply.

Oil companies, subsidized by US taxpayers, are searching farther and deeper for oil and gas while polluting the land and water wherever they go. Not only are they responsible for massive spills in our oceans. They are pumping millions of gallons of benzene and other chemicals into the ground which pollutes our ancient underground aquifers. Coal companies are removing entire mountaintops in Appalachia while destroying forests and streams. Manufacturers and refineries quietly dump their toxic waste into our streams or, if it is so toxic that it might raise alarms in the US, they ship it to third world nations for disposal.

At the same time we are destroying the planet with our greed, holy wars are being waged around the globe displacing millions of people in the name of God and Allah. The destruction is spurred on by military contractors who pump out weapons by the millions then traffic them globally in the name of “defense.”

Given all of these crises, you might expect that Congress is working overtime to find ways to end the destruction. But you’d be wrong. While the planet is quite literally melting down, our crack politicians are playing golf with the polluters; vacationing with the weapons manufacturers; sucking up to billionaire campaign donors; doling out subsidies to corporate farmers. And, instead of addressing the real issues, the GOP and its propaganda arms (Fox News Channel and talk radio) have voters in a tizzy over such issues as the religious freedom to discriminate against others, the imaginary “war on Christians” and the false narrative that “tree huggers” are standing in the way of job creation and higher wages.

And when GOP leaders are asked about climate change, they begin their denial with “I’m not a scientist” or “climate change is unproven.” Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But I have eyes and ears. I can see the effects of pollution. I can see films of rampant deforestation. I can read reports from climate scientists and environmental scientists. And I can listen to experts who flatly state that 2015 may be our last chance to begin the necessary changes to head off the cascading effects and downward spiral of climate change.

So what is the downside of committing to policies that will slow and eventually reverse the destruction of our planet?

There is none. Certainly, some industries and jobs will be negatively impacted. But far more will be created. Making positive changes such as reducing our consumption, changing to a more plant-based diet, and switching from carbon fuels to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biofuels should not be difficult. And the new industries these changes create will be the economic engines that drive our future…if we are to have a future on this planet.

We Can’t Afford That Anymore.

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Whenever someone proposes rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, improving schools, funding research for chronic diseases, helping the unemployed, treating the mentally ill, paying pension obligations to public employees, etc., our politicians are quick to say that we can’t afford those things anymore.

Say what? The richest nation on Earth can’t afford to meet the needs of its own citizens?

In reality, it’s not that the US lacks the money to do these things. The federal budget for FY 2014 is $6.3 trillion and, for most Americans, our tax rates as a percentage of income are near all-time lows! So it’s not a lack of money. It’s a matter of priorities. We always seem to have money for military hardware and military interventions around the globe. It’s estimated that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will cost $6 trillion. It costs us $2.1 million per year to maintain just one soldier in Afghanistan, and current plans call for leaving up to 20,000 troops in Afghanistan after our “withdrawal.” Yet, some of the biggest budget hawks in Congress are calling for a larger presence in Afghanistan, military intervention in Syria, as well as confrontation in Crimea and the Ukraine. Some even hint at war with Iran.

Is it any wonder that we can’t afford to maintain our own nation?

These same budget hawks voted to dramatically expand funding for the F-35 jet fighter which is years behind schedule and hopelessly over budget. They even added funding to build more Abrams tanks, despite the fact that neither the Army nor the Marine Corps want them. As a result of such decisions, we will spend $820.2 billion on defense in FY 2014, not including Homeland Security. This money is not needed to defend our nation. It’s needed to maintain the American corporate empire; to maintain US control of resources in remote corners of the world; to maintain US access to Middle Eastern oil deposits; to maintain corporate access to global markets and to open new ones; to maintain massive profits and executive compensation.

Yet studies show that most Americans would rather bring our troops home. They would rather rebuild our own nation than one we bombed into submission. So why don’t our Congressional representatives listen? Why do so many continue to vote against the will of the people?

The answer, in a word, is money.

Large corporate interests take money from ordinary, hard-working people through various forms of scams and corporate subsidies. (You’ll find a great example detailed in a Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibbi linked here.) This leads to increased profits. The corporations then give a portion of that money to the election campaigns of politicians in order to buy access and influence. In return, those politicians pass laws to benefit the corporations. And the cycle starts all over again.

On the rare occasions when the politicians take their hands out of the pockets of their corporate sponsors, they pass laws to deregulate industries; to render the EPA and other regulatory agencies impotent; to increase welfare for large corporations while cutting their taxes; to privatize prisons, schools and public pension funds; to cut funding for parks, mental health facilities, public universities and public schools; to redirect taxpayer money to Wall Street hedge funds. All the while, they blame the nation’s resulting economic problems on labor unions, the unemployed and the working poor. To distract the public from their crimes, these fraudster politicians tell us that their actions are necessary to cut debt and create jobs.

What they don’t say is that the only jobs they’re concerned with are their own.