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Democracy Died First in Wisconsin – Long Live the Oligarchs
The Wisconsin recall election was the first major test of the new era in American politics.
That new era began in January of 2010 when the US Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC that the political voice of We The People was no longer as important as the voices of billionaires and transnational corporations.
Now we know the result, and it bodes ill for both 2012 and for the tattered future of small-d democracy in our republic.
A few of America’s most notorious oligarchs – including the Koch and the DeVos (Amway fortune) billionaires – as well as untraceable millions from donors who could as easily be Chinese government-run corporations as giant “American” companies who do most of their business and keep most of their profits outside the US – apparently played big in this election.
I say “apparently” because the Supreme Court has ruled that we no longer have the right to know who is really funding our election commercials, or even our candidates themselves.
Thanks to an irrational and likely illegal Supreme Court ruling, we have moved into an era of oligarch-run politics. As much as $40 million of our oligarch’s money was spent in Wisconsin in a handful of local races – a testing laboratory for strategies that will now be used against Democrats nationwide in 2012.
And so now we enter the battle of the oligarchs over the next fifteen or so months.
As the old saying goes, when the elephants fight, the mice get trampled. In this case, the mice aren’t just the voters. It’s democracy itself.
America is now – demonstrably, as proven by Wisconsin – just a few years away from the possibility of a totally corrupted, totally billionaire- and corporate-controlled political system. Political scientists call it oligarchy.
The Citizens United election experiment is over, and the oligarchs won. Long live the oligarchy.
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196 Comments so far
Show AllThe last time I voted was in 2004. That was a phony election too. Now I just stay home and masturbate. Hey, that John Edwards tuned out to be some sleazebag. Why vote? They are going to do what they damn please.
You sir/madam, are the problem.
Your vote is all the political power you have. Use it, even if it's a phony election or obviously rigged. Eventually the oligarchs loose.
Edwards is as much a disappointment as Arnold. Maybe sex and politics do go together.
"Use it, even if it's a phony election or obviously rigged."
As long as the corporations count the votes with their proprietary software all elections will be phony and rigged. However your choice is to particpate in this obvious deception in order to provide legitimacy to "the consent of the governed". Give me one scintella of evidence of how, under this continued scenario that "(e)ventually the oligarchs loose" (sic)?
No Oligarchy in the past has been able to maintain their grip on power for more than a few centuries.
That's at least one scintella. ;)
'Course, the problem is that typically one Oligarchy is replaced by another Oligarchy, or something worse. But sometimes a Democratic Republic does the replacing. More often so in the last 2 centuries. So there's that. ;)
I would say that Hartmann is wrong, though.
The general trend in USAn culture has been a fairly sharp increase in democracy -democratic culture- in the last 100 years. Just look at the expansion of the demos to include immigrants, women, racial minorities, and descendants of the conquered indigenous land-holders. If anything the trend is actually toward an ACCELERATING acculturation of democratic principles, especially if we include recent Globalist, Environmentalist, and even Individualist tendencies.
The disconnect that Hartmann is noticing is that in this same period there has been a -seemingly- counter-active accelerating trend AWAY from democracy in Government, Trade, and Commerce.
But he should really know better than this.
The disconnect is explained easily in three succinct parts:
1. The Federal Constitutional Republic set up by the Founders -and the similar ones in each State- was not able -and never meant to be able- to handle such an enormous expansion of the demos -and territory- through mere Amendment. A full revision should have been required -at least once.
2. Since the Founding, the U.S.A. has been an expanding Empire as well as a Republic of Republics. This expansion has moved from territorial to hegemonic over the last 100 years -accelerating after WWII. But the Empire's raison d'etre has been on shaky ground since the C.C.C.P. fell almost a quarter century ago. Shaky Empires are like wounded beasts -they can do more damage than a healthy one.
3. Beginning with the transition to hegemonic Empire for the U.S. 100 years ago, a new force was given full life -modern, international Corporatism. Since the consolidation of the territorial Empire and the acceleration of hegemonic influence during/after WWII, Corporatism has been pushing a Revolution of its own within the U.S. Republic and Empire, and globally wherever it can. In the past this Revolution has been aided by the Empire. Since the Empire has gone shaky, Corporatism has gotten both bolder and more reckless.
Hence the events of the day. ;)
The People are more democratic than ever -despite the minority of them that are now LESS democratic than ever. But the SYSTEMS that they rely upon -beginning with Public Education for Children and then covering just about everything else from the Congress to the Journalists to the Treasury and Federal Holidays- to make that democracy actually WORK have been badly damaged and probably broken. In one part simply because the People have pushed further, faster, than their Constitution can allow, and in two parts because OTHER forces have been working overtime to subvert the systems for their own ends.
We are in a car with a broken steering wheel.
Our collective desire to turn left may be strong and ever-strengthening. But with the wheel broken, we're turning right anyway. We may not be able to avoid a wreck at this point. In fact, we may have to get fairly radical and fairly smart fairly damned quickly just to survive the crash. But when we do, we will think twice before getting in THAT car again. And if we don't, whining inaction will just make our last moments an embarrassment.
-matti.
Now here are the sentiments of a hard nosed, rugged individual. Bravo!
The problem with the politics, culture, and socioeconomic system here in the good ol' USofA of the 21st Century is that those representing a greater part of the population have their heads up their asses. The entire system is dysfunctional. I'm not sure what brought this condition on - a general dumbing down by way of intellectual laziness and aversion to curiosity, the reinforcement of and an overindulgence in a bent world view that justifies feelings of exclusivity and entitlement, or just being spoiled rotten through the luck of coming out of WWII on top of the heap as the supreme imperial power (the USSR didn't have a chance) and only wealthy nation left unscathed by the war (ops, keep forgetting Canada, which is becoming more and more like the US every day).
There is no way out, except through the kind of anarchy that is burning through England today. The "American Dream" is horse shit, it always was, and always will be.
It could be that the experiments of the US and French Revolutions have failed and nothing like them will ever be tried again, especially given the sorry state of the Earth's environment as it stands today. It's "every man for himself and God against all" (re W Herzog movie title "Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle"). "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here". My prediction is that the US will cease to exist as a single entity within 10-30 years. Try to prepare your progeny and those you love as best you can for the journey into the abyss.
i think it's going to be significantly less than ten years. Lots of very heavy tipping points are being passed, massive shifts are underway.
"Now I just stay home and masturbate."
__________________
How many times must you proclaim this mantra, m60green?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, you recalcitrant SOB:
If you had an ounce of self-respect, you'd pull up your pants on Erection Day, march down to your local polling place, and masturbate inside that booth like every other decent Amerikan!
I vote for glory hole erection booths.
LOL!
As long as we keep buying their products, the oligarchs will continue to have money to buy their "Banana" Republicans. You can almost say they "own" the ballot box. Only way to "hit them back" is to publicize a list of what they sell....AND BOYCOTT IT!
I understand that Thom and others are disappointed, but this is going to be a long struggle, not a flash in the pan-twenty-four-hour news event. We protested; we petitioned for recalls; and we won two of them. Listening to conservative callers to WI public radio this morning made me snicker a bit. Their voices quivered with fear, not anger. They hear the hoof-beat and they know we progressives are not far behind them and closing fast. We are finally on the right track, let's move forward to the most important recall of them all: Scott Walker.
Obviously the Koch money brought out a lot of Republicans to vote for their Darling. But is that the entire story or is that part of the cover story so we'll ignore questions of the validity of this election? Thom here is just reinforcing the cover story. I want an investigation. But there will never be one if those supposedly on the liberal side aren't even discussing it.
Exactly right. There should be teams in place ready to rush in the day after the election raising hell and demanding the fraudulent results be overturned. But there are not. Let's be nice now.
One of the excllent points mad eher eis that the Citzens United ruling makes it possible for foreign money to directly impact US elections. . And I do not mean China, the favorite taroget of xenophobes.In fact, Chinese companies like Foxconn are often just fronts for "American" outfits like Apple. But notice that it was BP that hosted the recent ALEC conference in New OrleansRoyal Dutch Shell got the okay to start drilling in the Arctic sea. The British utility National Grid continues to gobble up utilities in the US. Hey even Budweiser is foreign-owned.
"...Chinese companies like Foxconn ..".But Foxconn is a Taiwanese company. Is this your version of the One China policy?
Just waking up to the oligarchy, Thom? That's very hard to believe, but I hope that you'll stop pushing that two-party fiction now. Oh, wait, then you won't have a job.
Are you the Rama who lives in Vermont?
A metaphor for our political system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI
Thom: " America is now-demonstrably as proven by Wisconsin- just a few years away from a totally corrupted political system". Thom, Thom, Thom please wake up! America has had a totally corrupt political system, in Washington D. Ceit. ever since the violent coup d' tat on November 22, 1963. Democracy did not die in Wisconsin, it died in Texas.
Actually, if Thom weren't so uncritically infatuated with the Founding Plutocrats, he would've realized that we've been an oligarchy -- as was their intention -- from the very start.
Absolutely!
Absolutely again!
The deification of our founding fathers is a political and intellectual quicksand.
ekobe:
No, wrong Rama.
Well, are you the Rama from 'bama-- or Texarkana?
Sorry, couldn't resist. ;)
Rama, I was just wondering if you were the same Rama that set Hartmann up with his first radio broadcast system. And later became a moderator on his web site. Thanks, the Cat I am thinking of is probably still towing the Hartmann company line.
Another sign that 'The Great Lurch Backwards' to redux of the Robber Baron era is in effect. During the first Gilded Age, oligarchs used $$ to control the political process as means of protecting and increasing their wealth and power. What is truly sad about this was that the American middle class empowers those who impoverish them by swallowing whole the propaganda (of which Fox Noise Channel is a prime outlet) these rapacious sociopaths have their whorish media shills put out. And until American progressives learn from history and embrace the language of class struggle (which the oligarchs are clearly afraid of), they will continue to lose the rhetorical war.
Off topic Thom:
I heard you present a story yesterday on the radio of a conservative politician who wants to impeach Obama but couldn't come up with a reason. You then laughed it off as little more than racism. While that right-wing politician was unable to name an impeachable crime I can name several.
Obama has clearly violated The Convention Against Torture. You summarily ignore and pretend this hasn't happened Thom, because your loyalty is to Obama and the Democrats and not the Constitution (making you little more than a Rush Limbaugh of the left).
The Convention Against Torture which is Supreme Law of the Land under Article VI Section 2 states: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.". From Jonathan Turley, Constitutional Law Professor George Washington University: "Obama is in open violation of international law due to his failure to uphold the clear legal and moral obligations of this country." Full and unedited: http://tinyurl.com/3dn5la2. From Andrew Sullivan: "Slowly but surely, Obama is owning the cover-up of his predcessors' war crimes. But covering up war crimes, refusing to proscute them, promoting those associated with them, and suppressing evidence of them are themselves violations of Geneva and the UN Convention." Full and unedited: http://tinyurl.com/4x5kamg
Time does not permit me to present three other legal justifications for Obama's Impeachment so I will simply present the URLs for further research. I fully expect you Thom, to continue ignoring all these crimes and spend the bulk of your show magnifying the microscopic and mostly meaningless differences between the parties. I know you won't disappoint.
http://tinyurl.com/3cshc8t
http://tinyurl.com/3t4b5k5
http://tinyurl.com/3w7mhuu
(Please add Obama's illegal war in Libya to the above list. It is yet another impeachable offense).
Thanks for the work. But how can you stand to listen to his show?
I was driving home and flipping between commercials on sports radio. Funny how whenever I listen, even if only for a few minutes, Thom is always providing cover for Obama.
Attacking the person again, and ignoring the message of what was written by Thom?
What is your agenda here? Whatever it is, it stinks to high heaven.
I agree: One can certainly attack the message. Where is Thom's critique of the Dimocrat ability, demonstrated over and over and over again, to roll over and play dead in the face of Rethug electoral fraud? Where is his condemnation of the Dim Party's repeated demand that workers take it on the chin in order to clean up the messes made by the fat cats? In fact Hartmann's diagnosis of the problem is selective, incomplete -- and therefore false.
I invite Thom to join the conversation here on CD and defend himself against my factual, albeit off-topic, "attack".
You should get that Thom fetish checked out. You have lost your intellectual independence, just as he has.
I don't see how Thom can keep all of his books in print, with good conscience, since he has so completely sold out.
[comment combined with next one]
Excellent comment. May I add race is the greatest card ever played by the oligarchs. Brilliant idea to hire a charasmatic black man to be president. It is the ultimate diversion, and makes the man practically criticism-proof. The other part of what makes this work, of course, to fully fund crazy people as the opposition, so the black president is accused of all sorts of ridiculous, racist things and the majority of the population feels forced to defend him. All the while, the trojan horse is armed with toxic and tragic policies, now generally accepted and codified into law by the democrats
Absolutely off-topic. Why waste our time with your agenda?
Attacking the messenger for his message is a tried and true right-wing method of smearing people. You've engaged in that tactic here.
Thom brought up valid talking points, and you chose to go off-topic.
You waste everybody's time.
Well, thank god the thought-police are here to keep us all in line!
Bodie you are an insufferable ass.
Worse than that!
They apparently can't realize the irony of their attacking Cygnus the same way they think Cygnus is attacking Hartmann.
AND they seem to feel we are all obliged to confine our discussion to Hartmann's "talking points". A very anti-democratic attitude.
Thom is fair game. He has a big microphone, and it is HE who championed the Constitution, rule of law, the fact of an emergent Oligarchy, yadda yadda yadda.
Until of course, the zeros started growing on his paychecks, and some of those zeros became dependent on "access" to the inside the beltway movers and shakers.
That you can't follow a line of principle, is your problem. Just who is the right winger? I would think that you are, since you have chosen to support one of the chief apologists for Obama, who is without a doubt, far to the right of Ronald Reagan.
Ironic don't you think?
Excellent point, Cygnus. I heard that segment yesterday and found it ridiculous too.
Thom...Get some balls...When you and Bernie ..."chat"...you must stress the fact that there are karmic implications to what we are doing to people in other countries.
EVERY show should deal with the wars and depleted uranium subliminal nuclear war...(we have have been whores to the military for years...it must stop!)
When all else fails...GENERAL STRIKE...TEACHERS...POLICE... FIREMAN... AIR TRAFFIC...THE LIST IS LONG.
Please...
And furthermore...stop the stupid advertisements...
*******
Hell, democracy ain't even been BORN yet!
FREE AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY
*******
I'm happy with my pile of horseshit,my American Dream, because, who knows, it might be worth something some day.
I vote for democrats over republicans, because, who knows, they might be worth something some day. I doubt we will ever see a republican that will rise to the level of horseshit in value.
I like Thom Hartmann, because he's a nice guy and I tend to agree with him. Maybe being a nice guy these days is dangerous, but it used to be acceptable.
Oligarchs or fascists, what difference does it make? They both went to the same school of thought.
Wisconsin elections show to be at best a draw. What happened is that the conservatives bought time to organize and get a counterrevolution started. The left lost the momentum and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Money changes everything.
I agree with Thom's assessment of the result of this election. However, that takes the American people off the hook for being informed and responsible citizens. We now know what our efforts have to be aimed at, we must educate our fellow Americans at all cost now. We know we can't rely on a corporate controlled media to do it, we can't depend on our politicians to do it, and we can't continue with this excuse that most Americans are too busy trying to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. Because guess what, all that will be taken away forever if they don't educate themselves.
"As much as $40 million of our oligarch’s money was spent in Wisconsin in a handful of local races – a testing laboratory for strategies that will now be used against Democrats nationwide in 2012"
I think those $40million include a huge chunk of Union money spent to support the Democratic candidates.
Also: "likely illegal Supreme Court ruling,", uhh Thom, the Supreme court interprets laws and decides whether they are "legal" or not. There's no opther authority above them. So the term illegal Supreme court decision doen not make any sense...
Criticism of the messenger rather than just the message is appropriate where Thom Hartmann is concerned. He has a very large microphone, is supposedly a progressive, but is failing to provide true progressive positions. Most CD readers are aware that Thom is a Board member of PDA and has an institutional interest in getting people to join the Democratic Party. He won’t allow anyone on his shows to take him farther left than what he’s comfortable with. And by the way, no one is more impressed with Thom Hartmann’s intelligence than Thom Hartmann.
The only thing that will save this country now, if anything can, is a full-fledged revolution, but time is running out. In a few more years our home-grown royalty will have such a death grip on the US that no sort of revolt, no matter how extreme, will even be possible ......
The security apparatus, i.e, keeping the oligarchs aware of who their political opponents are, and what they are up to, is fully in place. The "non-lethal" technologies tested in Iraq, are at the ready, along with battle hardened paid thug mercenaries. It is maddening, sickening, and terrifying to think how far down the dark path the US has gone since 9/11.
(begin tongue in cheek)
But, whatever you do folks, DON'T EVER, EVER, EVEN QUESTION the events of 9/11. Not on a "progressive" forum like this, or any other. Because you know, there is nothing there to question right? I mean, WTC7, no biggie right? Or it doesn't matter of course, because after all, wouldn't someone like Glen Greenwald be all over that?
(removing tongue from cheek)
You are right about the non-lethal technologies, LRAD, ADS and the like, but I have, on my person, and at home, and in my car, some very, very lethal technologies. I intend to use them when the necessity arrives. And about 9/11, its just a small blip on the radar screen. Did you hear that on November 22, 1963, "they" assassinated our President in broad daylight and successfully covered it up to this day? ...and that those responsible are (mostly) still in power?