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Today's Top News
Corporate America Speaking Out
Congressional Republicans have spent the first two years of the Obama administration as the rock-solid party of "no," "uh-uh," "no way," "forget about it," "nothing doing," "we're-against-it-and-we'll-kill-it." This is one reason their job approval rating is lower than that of BP executives.
But now, GOP leaders in the House say they are shifting from pure negativity. Instead, they intend to step forward with their own bold policy ideas. Terrific! What are some of those ideas? "Uh ... um ... well," say the leaders, "we don't know yet, but that's why we've launched an exciting new campaign that we call America Speaking Out. We'll go directly to the grassroots people, asking for their ideas, giving them a voice and letting them shape 'the new Republican agenda.'"
Again, terrific! Where are you starting your grassroots campaign? "Uh ... um," stumble the leaders, before mumbling: "Washington, D.C."
Indeed, only six weeks after America Speaking Out was introduced as "an unprecedented initiative to listen to the American people," ASO did not rush out to hold open policy-crafting town hall forums in places like Fargo, Fresno and Freeport. Instead, they held a closed session in the snug confines of House minority leader John Boehner's Capitol Hill office.
And just who were the plain folks the GOP leader invited? His e-mailed solicitation went to 20 top lobbyists representing big corporations and such business front groups as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. Apparently, this is the bunch Republican leaders consider to be their real "grassroots" constituency.
Well, sniffed an ASO spokesman, it's important to "receive input" from the nation's largest employers.
Bovine excrement! These corporate lobbyists give their input every day, usually with campaign donations attached. They're the problem, not the solution, and ASO is just more of the same - listening to the money interests at the top rather than the workaday majority of Americans who are barely scraping by.
Speaking of corporate campaign spending, the dam was dynamited back in January by the Supreme Court's infamous decision in the Citizens United case, and the deluge is now upon us.
By decreeing that corporations are now free to spend unlimited sums of cash from their vast treasuries to elect or defeat anyone they want, the court is allowing these narrow special interests to swamp America's elections, displacing our democracy with their plutocracy.
You might recall that the five-man judicial majority that pulled off this black-robed coup argued disingenuously that there was no evidence that corporate spending would even increase under the court's ruling, much less flood the process. Nice theory, but - look out! - here comes the flood.
In addition to unfathomable sums that corporations will pour directly into this fall's congressional elections, they are also channeling unparalleled amounts of cash into assorted front groups. For example, in 2008, a presidential year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce put $36 million into elections, which was the most ever by a corporate organization. This year the chamber intends to more than double that, funneling $75 million into campaigns, with practically every penny going to corporate-hugging Republicans.
American Crossroads, a new corporate outlet run by former Bush operative Karl Rove, collected more than $8 million in June alone and expects to put $52 million into this year's elections. Various laissez-faire, anti-government extremist groups will also add to the rising tsunami, including $45 million from Americans for Prosperity, $25 million from American Action Network, $24 million from The Club for Growth and $5 million from FreedomWorks.
With such gross levels of spending, moneyed corporations intend to overpower America's democratic process and purchase a government that'll do their bidding. To stop them, We the People must repeal the Supreme Court's malicious, anti-democratic ruling. To help, connect with a grassroots campaign pushing for a constitutional amendment that will overturn the Citizens United decision. Find them at www.freespeechforpeople.org.
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28 Comments so far
Show AllGood luck to us repealing this ruling. The elite are going to drown the system in cold cash to stop anyone from doing this.
"The elite are going to drown the system in cold cash to stop anyone from doing this."
Nope.
The 'cold cash' exists only as phantoms on computers, '1s' and '0s' to be manipulated and twisted at the Corporate whim.
Non Serviam - I will not serve.
It is worth repeating the last paragraph of Jim's article.
With such gross levels of spending, moneyed corporations intend to overpower America's democratic process and purchase a government that'll do their bidding. To stop them, We the People must repeal the Supreme Court's malicious, anti-democratic ruling. To help, connect with a grassroots campaign pushing for a constitutional amendment that will overturn the Citizens United decision.
Where are the recent examples of successful organizing like that required to get a constitutional amendment?
The group that did this was ACORN. I only heard about them when the right wing took them down. I am sympathetic to the plight of the poor and lower class, and have extended family members who get exploited by the corporations, but I am not actively involved with the issues of poverty and justice for the poor and lower class. ACORN had 400,000 dues paying members, registered 1 million voters for the 2008 election with no documented case of voting fraud, started labor unions, started political parties, focused on local issues but had the ability to bring them to a national level.
When working with the poor who have been directly harmed, like with predatory lending, they know that the system is broken and see the benefits in being organized.
ACORN accomplished things through organizing that I didn't think were possible in this century. John Atlas has just published a book on ACORN, "Seeds of Change" which describes what they did and how they did it.
I just finished the chapter on predatory lending. ACORN started getting complaints in the late 1990's and by 2001 ran a national campaign resulting in the largest consumer claim against Household Finance Corporation. Lets call it straight up: they engaged in criminal behavior going after the needy and tricking them into higher loans.
How about us in the "middle class." Hasn't the finance industry tricked the whole nation into criminal finance engagement with the derivativeness and other tricks? Those of us who have some retirement in the stock market and other investments can at any time be wiped out like the poor who thought that owning a house was a path to security.
ACORN in its campaign on predatory lending organized at many levels, worked the issue through the legislatures, and for the first time got the support of all 50 attorney generals for a consumer complaint. Something like this is needed to be organized outside the political parties to get the public behind a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision.
In other words, a real Citizens United is needed!!!
Bovine excrement----funny.
It's the capitalism Jim. Go ahead and say it.
Really Jim, don't be afraid, just say it. Its really quite easy to get the hang of after you do it the first time.
.
These reactionary moguls are not afraid to tell the world exactly what they want, no matter how selfish.
Too bad the left is too frightened to do the same.
We DO say what we want. Loud and often. But when the corporate media ignores us, well it's like the old when a tree falls in the forest bit. Now they're going after the internet, the latest and last bastion of a truly free press.
The sooner people realize that our country had been hi-jacked by a motley collection of thieves, liars, con artists and mass murderers, the sooner we might be able to take it back.
Or we could sit back and watch the Federal Reserve hyper-inflate us into oblivion.
Hyper inflation is a figment of your imagination. People with money are tying up their cash for 10 years for a return of a 'huge' 2.5%.
Yes they are and they are continuing to be rewarded by foreign investors for doing so. Deflation is the the bugaboo in the the economy. I recently liquidated 30 some years worth of collectibles thru a private auction house on the West Coast. When we delivered the stuff the warehouse was full of new ATVs, Harley's cars, trucks, you name it. Beautiful furniture and Oriental rugs were scattered everywhere. It blew away my delivery crew. They wandered around in shock because the bulk of the items were new or demonstrator-type models. It will be sold for less than 50 cents on the dollar. Then subtract the sales commission. This is only the beginning of the liquidity problems for the over financed middle class and small businesses. " Nothin' is woth anythin, anymore. "
Our elites have a death wish for the peons. With any luck what goes around will come around. If things get bad enough, the elites will have to call out the national guard. Will the national guard shoot their own? They did it back in the days of the railroad unions.
and Kent State University
They shot those college kids in Ohio back in 69, and I saw a thing on T.V. that had most of the soldiers that were there, that day, and half of the men felt bad, and the other half said they would do it again. Yes they will shoot us, and arrest us and torture us, we are in the way, so we must be eliminated. Most of these people just want religious nuts to live in America, white Christians, that is who America is, everybody else is expendable ! Ask Sarah Palin our next President.
In addition to the Kent State massacre, there was Jackson State, where 2 black students were killed and 12 injured. Almost never gets mentioned along with Kent State, though both incidents were only a week or so apart and revolved around war protests.
Also what never really gets acknowledged, as per your point about the effects of a police state, is that the one-two punch of the Kent and Jackson State killings essentially stopped mass protesting of the war; still lots of resistance to the war, but students got very scared very fast of protesting in public.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_State_killings
Mr. Hightower mentions that the republicans poll numbers are very low, however the democrats are even lower yet. It appears republicans will increasingly gain power in Washington. This will also likely lead to even stronger right-wing control of the Supreme Court. My usual optimism has left me.
I'm used to the big marketing hype that makes something sound like just the opposite of what it really is, like last week when Google and Verizon slipped press releases to the media, heralding their "net neutrality deal", which was slurped up and regurgitated by the herd of media hacks as if it were gospel.
Politicians know that spin works. America Speaking Out is just another form of "America Shut Up". America feeds on marketing bits and bites. Most people, whether they consider themselves right or left, never question the hype.
This has been a plutocracy, an oligarchy and a kleptocracy since long before the Citizens United ruling by the Fascist Five. They just hammered it into law. Now, only giant corporations have anything to do with who governs and how this country is governed. Our votes in such a thoroughly rigged and poisoned atmosphere only validate this corporatocracy.
What would Hightower have us all do--vote Democratic, to counter the Chamber of Commerce's millions poured into Republican campaigns? Does he really believe Democrats are now, suddenly, a disenfranchised bunch of leftist populists because capitalists are directing their big donations to Republicans? This is just more flipping and flopping between the two Business Party wings. Last time they went with Obama because Bush's ratings had plummetted, and now that Obama is falling in the polls it's time to bring the overtly fascist party back to power. Then, after they do their inevitable damage once more, and if they don't manage to blow up the world or make the planet finally uninhabitable otherwise, the dazed and confused electorate will be demanding Change again, from who else? The Democrats.
This dance of idiocy never ends. Shouldn't Hightower address it, for a change, instead of hinting that if only we get rid of corporate Republican domination in Washington, we'll get the kind of Democratic Party we've all been wishing for? He's too smart to fall for this crap. Come on, Jim, we either get a third party in motion and making serious waves, or we're doomed.
Excellent post, and I love this line: "Does he really believe Democrats are now, suddenly, a disenfranchised bunch of leftist populists because capitalists are directing their big donations to Republicans?" - in a laughing through the tears kinda way...
For what it's worth, I've started working in/with the Green Party.
Good post. You know, I'm almost at the point where next election I might just vote for Palin. It's kinda like when your sh$% faced drunk on the floor, and you know as soon as you stand up you're gonna vomit all over and make a mess. But once you do, and get it all out, you feel better. That kinda thing.
Obama will save us.
"We the People must repeal the Supreme Court's malicious, anti-democratic ruling..."
I disagree. I'm all for letting the corporate cash flow and putting republicans back in control of the Congress and White House. This is free trade, unfettered capitalism coming out of the closet and showing its ugly, cruel fascist face to the world without its mask of faux democracy. If this doesn't wake up the sleeping masses of this country, nothing will, and "we the people" will be fully accountable for what follows.
Hightower sez: "... moneyed corporations intend to overpower America's democratic process and purchase a government that'll do their bidding."
***
Wow. I can't imagine what that might look like.
It'll probably be horrible.
"Bovine excrement! These corporate lobbyists give their input every day, usually with campaign donations attached."
Right--which they need to grab from the D-baggers.
Vote for the person in the cheap suit...or better yet, no suit.....better yet, with long hair....better yet:
GREEN Party.
Constitutional Amendment? Sure, no problem. You want fries with that?
How sadly pathetic...a bunch of idiots running a country (...into the ground).