2017_07_16 19:45
(I am working with a friend on a possible podcast series. My preparation for one of our trial runs developed into this essay. We posed the question, how to move past the undue influence of money in politics. What began as a two minute script enlarged into this much longer rant. )
How to move past the effect of money on politics.
TL:DR - Money has always had influence in our politics, in opposition to the power of the masses of voters. The relative power and influence of these two forces has varied over time, but in recent decades the power of big money has reached 100% control of national elections (congress and presidential); the federal government is free to completely ignore the needs and desire of the masses, and serve only the interest of the big money interests. We can fix this, simply (but not easily). It takes awareness, education, and intelligent (as opposed to emotional) voting out the bastards. But awareness, education and non-emotional intelligent voting is hard.
“The love of money is the root of all evil”
I may not be a Christian, but I am a big fan of the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth.
I like this quote the best.
The whole quote, each word.
Not ‘money is evil’.
Love of money.
Not merely evil, nor simplistically all evil.
The root of all evil.
***correction. As is the case with many historic quotations that I love the most, the general attribution, or my personal attribution, is quite often in error. These words are Saint Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, credited with many of the New Testament books. This line if from I Timothy 6:10. The book is an epistle, a letter written by Paul to his younger protege Timothy, offering instructions and advice for leading and growing the young church. But this is not a bible study essay, so let's continue.
Money has significantly corrupted nearly every institution
and nearly every aspect of American society and culture.
‘The love of money”, to the near exclusion of
all other considerations may be a more accurate statement.
I can speak for hours just describing the corruption of
education, from preschool to graduate school, corruption of medicine and health
care, corruption of our previous efforts to clean up and preserve our water,
air and general physical environment (Flint much?), corruption of our police
and criminal justice/prison systems (all that surplus military gear that cops
now routinely wear ain’t gonna buy itself),
And by corruption, I do not mean simply bad people stealing
money; I mean the gross deviation from normal, natural goals that were
previously a given, in favor of devotion to the singular goal of profit’ to the
exclusion of any other ends, and the total fealty to the false idol of ‘the free
market’.
I’m gonna see a unicorn before I see a free market in any
major area of American life.
But while correcting these corruptions are complex and
multifaceted, the effect of money on politics is, by contrast, incredibly
simple to describe, and even simpler to fix.
So simple and easy, even I can see it clearly.
First, to describe the problem. Money has been central to American politics
since the founding, when Madison and Hamilton made the deal regarding the
location of the nation’s capital on the banks of a Virginia river, in return
for central government assumption of wartime debts owed by the states. This debt assumption Hamilton parlayed into capitalizing
the early northeastern private banking system (leaking word of the deal to his
buddies in New York), and establishing the creditworthiness of the new
nation. Part good, part shady as hell,
but set the tone for the next 250 years.
(This is pretty sugarcoated in the musical play; you have to actually
read a book on Hamilton to learn the real story, w/o a beat or bass line. Or stay tuned for a future post or podcast,
cuz I love this story.)
Since then money has been integral to the electoral process.
Despite the constant of monied influence
over the decades, there has been a shifting balance between the power of big
money, against the power of, for lack of a better term, the masses of the
people. A balance whose equilibrium
shifts towards one pole, then back toward the other. In a time of Andrew Jackson, shifts one
way. In the gilded age of the late 19th
century robber barons, the other. Teddy
Roosevelt’s time sees a shift, the 1920s of Harding and Coolidge, a shift the
other direction. The rise of organized
labor and the necessities forced by the great depression empowered the masses;
the postwar prosperity of the 1950s saw (slightly) more power in the now larger
than ever, now international corporations.
But the people held significant influence and power in the system, as
evidenced by the spread of opportunity to brown and female people, and the
general good economic health of the middle and working classes.
This balance between the power of big money and the
influence of the masses is a natural component of a capitialist system. Eliminating the influence of money,
establishing a utopian system, is not a worthy nor reasonable goal.
But, as this ebb and flow moved toward one pole quite
steadily in the last three decades, the vector steadily increasing, something
happened. It reached the 100%
point. It reached an extreme state, which
I believe had never previously be achieved in the USA, save maybe the moment of
the establishment of the Constitution, but certainly had been reached in many
societies in history.
The electoral process became 100% controlled by big money
and big money interests. We only
recently reached a status in which the voice of, the influence of, the needs of
the masses of people holds zero sway in the actions of federal politics. The 537 elected members of the national
government (435 house, 100 senate, president + vice president), plus the top
tier of federal judges including the supreme court justices, are free to
completely ignore the voice of, needs of, and desires of the masses, as long as
they satisfy the people who give them money.
Elections are nearly always won with only money and dishonest rhetoric;
the actual record of voting and other behavior of elected officials and the
public’s judgment of those records and behaviors have no impact on winning
elections. Politicians win reelection
despite complete failure to fulfill prior campaign promises.
The exact historical moment this status was reached is a
matter of opinion and dispute, but there is one example I like to cite as an
important marker.
During the dubya administration, I am too lazy to look up
exactly when, there was a major bipartisan immigration bill, which would
continue the flow of cheap labor to feed the profit beast. Apparently this seemed sure to pass. The vocal opponents were dismissed as racist
reactionaries, and they were discounted or ignored.
However, the vocal opponents, in time honored fashion,
organized. And went to work. They wrote thousands of letters, made tens of
thousands of phone calls, and sent literal hundreds of thousands of emails to
congresscritters. Mostly to GOP
members. Making clear not only their
reasons for opposition to this bill, but their willingness to work against the
re-election of those politicians.
And the bill failed.
Despite the desire of the big money to pass this particular law, despite
the desire of democratic politicians to gain more voters for their side
(Mexican-American immigrant families still consistently favor dems), a mass of
voters stopped it. Yay democracy.
Now, move ahead to 2008.
The financial crisis. The usuals
blasted over the media the crucial imperative to give the banks and wall
street, who had caused the crisis, hundreds of billions of dollars immediately
or there would be Blood and Tanks In The Streets. Dem and GOP leader alike
spoke in solidarity for the immediate necessity to hand over $800 billion. Now!
Or else, All will be Lost!
Again, a group of vocal opponents flooded Congress with
objections. The bill came to a
vote. And It Lost. Enough members of Congress were told, and
believed, that enough of their constituents would vote against them if they
supported this bailout, they voted against passage. Yay democracy again.
Here is the but. But,
the leaders of our government, twisted some arms, amended the bill with some
giveaways, and loaded up the news media with a propaganda message on loud
blast. And they voted again, about
eleven days later. And they passed the first installment, $800 billion of the
great Bailout.
Interestingly, despite the assurances of the people ‘in
control’ that if this money was not forthcoming IMMEDIATELY, the ATMs would stop
working, the entire economy would grind to a halt and there would be horrific
violence and the army in the streets, somehow none of that came to pass. The interim between votes proved this scare
tactic to be a lie. Back then I watched
the main news media closely; they failed to point out this simple, giant
lie. The massive transfer of wealth,
though, proceeded after that eleven-day delay.
They probably charged us interest and a late fee.
So, what is to be done.
Any attempt to reach for a utopia of zero influence of money
on the electoral process is pointless and frankly impossible. A simple return to the status of a short
while ago, is not only possible, but incredibly simple. It is a simple matter of political will of
the masses.
They still let us vote.
If we simply vote em out, vote in only members of congress who actually
vote for and pass legislation to this end, problem solved.
Ah, but there is a catch.
The catch is equally as simple as the description of the situation, and
the remedy. The catch is, the masses
need to become aware of the situation, the remedy, and be willing to do
it. Political will requires awareness,
understanding, education to get there, setting aside myths and emotions about
how bad the other side is compared to My blue/red side.
I hope I’m wrong (this four word phrase may become my
official catch phrase for this podcast series), but I don’t see that happening
before our vote is negated either practically by various control methods of
surveillance and propaganda which grow more powerful and ubiquitous each day,
if not negated literally by removing the vote, or controlling the outcome of
the vote via hacking. (PAPER FUCKING BALLOTS, people.) It’s not who are the candidates that counts,
it’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes that counts.
I wish all the major issues of the day were so simple to
describe, address and solve. Sadly I
think this is much less likely to be addressed and fixed than many of the more
complex problems.
There is another incident of the dubya era that is an
example of the various forces and methods that led us to this state of 100% to
0% equation of money power to mass people power.
One of the precious few positive things John McCain worked
toward as a senator was legitimate, effective campaign finance reform. Again, somewhere in the middle of the dubya
years, McCain working with Russ Feingold crafted a bill with teeth, a bill that
had bipartisan support, a bill that would not have fixed the problem but
potentially could’ve made a huge difference, maybe even reverse the slide of
the balance point to the other direction.
Possibly even a veto-proof level of support.
But.
But, McCain and Karl Rove discussed the issue. And they made a little deal. If McCain watered down the bill, so much as
to have no real effect in slowing much less revering the progress of big money
toward 100% full spectrum dominance, in return the Bush crime family, and
further elements of the GOP hierarchy, which Rove had influence over, would not
stand in his way of his bid for the 2008 nomination. In fact, some not insignificant support for
McCain was promised, and subsequently delivered. (Rove does have a good record of keeping his
promises, so there is at least sometimes, some measure of honor among thieves.)
McCain wanted to be president more than he wanted campaign
finance reform. Perhaps he lied to
himself that once his end was achieved, including this corrupt means, he would
as president push the reform. Somehow
such courses of action rarely work out.
But this compromise by McCain, on an issue that had become a
signature of his political career, could’ve been punished by Arizona voters, had
they elected someone else after this betrayal to the cause of campaign finance
reform. Not only Arizona voters failed
to punish this corruption; millions of voters checked his box when he
subsequently ran for president.
We keep voting for the people who screw us. Who can blame them for continuing to screw us? As long as they let us vote, we can blame only ourselves for
voting for the people who then ignore us and our best interests. Unless you bring your checkbook.
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