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US Elections: No Matter Who You Vote For, Money Always Wins
Dollars play a decisive role in US politics. And more so since the supreme court allowed unlimited campaign contributions
Republican presidential debates are not for the faint-hearted. Last week in Jacksonville, Florida, Rick Santorum warned of the "threat of radical Islam growing" in Central and South America. Newt Gingrich advocated sending up to seven flights a day to the moon, where private industry might set up a colony, and reaffirmed his claim that Palestinians were invented in the late 70s. Mitt Romney argued that if you make things tough enough for undocumented people, they will "self-deport".
Mitt Romney's personal wealth is double that of the last eight US presidents combined. (Photo: TJ Kirkpatrick/Corbis)
Given the general state of the Republican party, such comments now attract precious little attention. Truth and facts are but two options among many. The party's base, overrun by birthers, climate change deniers and creationists, floats its warped theories and every now and then one makes it to the top and bobs out into the airwaves.
So the oft-touted notion that these debates have been responsible for shifting the trajectory of this primary race would be worrying if it were true. It is difficult to think of anywhere else in the western world where these debates would have any credibility outside of a fringe party (even if the fringes in Europe are now spreading). Far from indicating America's exceptionalism, it looks more like an awful parody of the stereotypes most outsiders already believed about American politics at its most bizarre. "Those who follow this race daily may have long since lost perspective on how absurd it is," said the German magazine Der Spiegel last week. "Each candidate loves Israel. They all love Ronald Reagan. Each loves his wife, a born first lady, for a number of reasons."
The good news is, with the exception of Perry's demise, the debates have not been pivotal. The bad news is that the truly decisive element has been something even more insidious: money. Lots of it.
This is not new. But since a 2010 supreme court ruling allowing unlimited campaign contributions by corporations and unions, it has become particularly acute. Moreover, the contributors can remain anonymous. The organisations that are taking advantage of this new law are known as Super Pacs. Even at this early stage of the presidential cycle, their potential for framing the race is clear. In the whole of 2008 individuals, parties and other groups spent $168.8m independently on the presidential election. This year on Republican candidates alone, where voting started less than a month ago, the Super Pacs have reported independent expenditures of almost $40m. In 2008 election spending doubled compared with 2004. This year industry analysts believe the money spent just on television ads is set to leap by almost 80% compared with four years ago.
Money in American politics was already an elephant in the room. Now the supreme court has given it a laxative, taken away the shovel, and asked us to ignore both the sight and the stench.
The only real restriction is that there should be no co-ordination between the candidate and the Super Pac. In practice, this is little more than a fig leaf. A few weeks ago one of the ads, funded by the Super Pac supporting Gingrich, was slated for its many brazen inaccuracies. At a campaign stop in Orlando, Gingrich told supporters: "I am calling on this Super Pac – I cannot co-ordinate with them and I cannot communicate directly, but I can speak out as a citizen as I'm talking to you – I call on them to either edit out every single mistake or to pull the entire film."
Romney is no less compromised. His former chief campaign fundraiser and political director work for the main Super Pac supporting him, which was set up with the help of a $1m cheque from an ex-business partner. "This legalism of 'no co-ordination' is a filament-thin G-string," wrote Timothy Egan in the New York Times recently. "Everyone co-ordinates."
Money alone can't guarantee success. Santorum spent around 74 cents a voter in Iowa and narrowly won; Perry spent around $358 per vote and came a distant fourth. Debate performances, policy positions, personal histories and retail politics play a role. But the fact that money is not the sole determinant doesn't mean it's not the key one. Two months ago Gingrich's surge in Iowa was halted after Romney's Super Pac ploughed millions of dollars into campaign ads attacking him. Romney's commanding lead in South Carolina was similarly thwarted when Gingrich's Super Pac injected several million dollars.
This is not a partisan point. Almost two-thirds of Americans believe the government should limit individual contributions – with a majority among Republicans, Democrats and independents. The influence of money at this level corrupts an entire political culture and in no small part explains the depth of cynicism, alienation and mistrust Americans now have for their politicians.
The trend towards oligarchy in the polity is already clear. There are 250 millionaires in Congress. Their median net worth is $891,506, nine times the typical US household. Around 11% are in the nation's top 1%, including 34 Republicans and 23 Democrats. And that's before you get to Romney, whose personal wealth is double that of the last eight presidents combined. All of this would be problematic at the best of times, but in a period of rising inequality it is obscene.
The issue here is not class envy, hating rich people because they are rich, but class interests – cementing the advantages of the privileged over the rest. The problem is not personal, it's systemic. In the current climate, it means a group of wealthy people in business will decide which wealthy people in Congress they would like to tell poor people what they can't have because times are hard. And unless the ruling is overturned there is precious little that can be done about it.
Last week in a Massachusetts Senate race, both the Republican incumbent and his likely Democratic challenger signed a pact agreeing not to use third-party money. The trouble is that the agreement is completely unenforceable. Already at least one pro-Republican group has refused to commit to it.
Downplaying money's central role at this point merely buys into the illusion of participatory democracy, where ideas, character and strategy are paramount, while others are actually buying the candidates and access to power. The result is a charade. Fig leaf, G-string – name the scanty underwear of your choice. The emperor is butt naked. Whoever you vote for, the money gets in.
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33 Comments so far
Show AllIt's called a one-party system, with two right wings, or, more aptly and briefly, the Party of Money, Mr. Younge.
A decisive role? That's putting it mildly.
If voters didn't make voting decisions based on content-free, 30-second TV ads, Super PACs would be powerless to influence anything. You get the government you deserve.
Yup, so true. We're already seeing some of the Super PAC ads here in NC, and they are pitiful. I can't believe they could possibly have an effect on how people vote but sadly in many cases they do.
Rico & NC Tom: Your logic is inverted. Since only $ gets to pay to play, the voters' choices are pre-vetted and thus limited way before those 30-second commercials come into play. Nice try on a new take on blaming the 99% for the moves made by the 1%.
If you want to talk about how effective a programming device the media MSM is, then it's best to discuss why and how it got sold to 5 major broadcast corporations in the first place; it being The People's Air Waves and all that.
Second, you could discuss Bernays and the handful of incisive minds that have gone to work locating the buzz words and conditioning mechanisms that pass below the radar of ordinary consciousness. This is done to modify behavior en masse. It's studied just as the ways to torture persons in order to break down their minds, while leaving no evidence of organ failure is done. Your tax dollars at work.
But of course, if your intent is to preserve the status quo or you feel the need to blame your fellow citizens, you can always locate a modicum of circumstantial evidence with which to do so.
Well, you can have more than one thing happening at once you know. At the presidential level I agree that the candidates are pre vetted, but the ads are still being run in ADDITION to the vetting of the candidates.
My comment was just concerning how pitiful the ads were. Comments by the president or the candidates taken out of context, in many cases outright lies being peddled, and so many people just lap the stuff up. Some of the ads have been so bad that I've LOLed at them.
At some point people have to be held responsible for their ignorance. I was completely apolitical and didn't follow politics at all until Ken Starr's political lynching of Bill Clinton. It was so obvious that it was nothing more than a political hit job, but the M$M was acting like it was legitimate. That was my wakeup that there was more going on than what was being peddled as the official story.
I never went to college. I was never official taught about Bernays, or the PR industry. I just took the time to learn these things on my own, because I started to see what I was being told through M$M just didn't add up any more.
There really is no reason anyone with an internet connection to buy the B/S that is being peddled to them. There still are plenty of alternative news sites out there for people to go to when what they are told by the M$M no longer jives with their reality.
In ordinary times, when the media was not an Orwellian nightmare, your points might be valid. Not now. The greatest heist of the Amerikan 20th century (moving now into the 21st, to compete with the bankster bail-out) is the fact that most people do not realize the degree to which they've been seduced (to the point of near hypnosis) by an all-seeing, omnipresent media that presents news, itself, as propagandized fiction. So vast is its network of convenient fictions, so pervasive its voice, that those who see beyond it--much like those who found the courage to unplug from The Matrix--are seen as the Outsiders, the rebel freaks, the ones NOT in the know.
So your post fails to take the power of this mass mesmerization phenomenon into account.
Your perspective fails to recognize that few citizens hold the impetus to look further because, like the person who eats a daily cheeseburger, but reliably pops his vitamin, the perception is in place that he (or she) has gotten all that is needed in the way of Food For Thought from the existing media channels.
Thirdly, many people are working longer hours. The costs of living (and trying to keep up) are exhausting them. They do not have the energy to do the intellectual leg-work to seek out alternative news sources.
I have always questioned authority, and always thought for myself... regardless of whether the revelations I came upon were popularly received or understood, at all. Someone recently posted statistics which reveal that most societies have about 15% of their population pool resistant to authoritarian campaigns, however they are dressed up (i.e. as patriotism, campaigns of law & order, ridding citizens of Terrorists, etc.). That's probably reflective of the natural percentage of persons who seek out Alternative Media. And it's likely you and me... but we can't presume that others walk in our Iconoclastic moccasins.
I would rather focus on correcting all those aspects and elements that condition a population to abide by inhumane rules, then critique those who march lock-step because they have been conditioned to think that they are doing the right thing, helping society maintain order, and likely getting stroked by their religious institutions for this species of "numbifying*" conformity. (* Use of poetic license #449911-11)
It's libertarian, I think, to focus on "individual choice," and more Progressive to examine the cultural, economic & political institutions that limit the choice pool only to blame citizens for having made them. Catch-22 style! It's right up there with blaming Acorn for the Housing Crisis, or gays for Hurricane Katrina.
I don't think it's helpful to give the American public a complete pass. From an energetic point of view, if everyone envisions the US population as victims, then on a sublte level, it helps keep us that way. For a deeper change to occur, we would need to see how the game is rigged, and also how we play our role in it. Then we can figure out how to unplug from harmful thoughts and actions and attune ourselves to healthier, more positive ways of being instead.
@esabi
"I don't think it's helpful to give the American public a complete pass."
Yes. I think you're right. In other nations with fewer resources and recourses, the people have managed to organize themselves and fight back, even clandestinely.
Certainly there has been a massive plan for brainwashing and media concentration going on for decades, but even knowing that, too many people have willing permitted themselves to be seduced by: easy money, easy credit, easy readily available sports & entertainment, and "easy" political "choices" and simple narratives with emotional slogans that just reinforce the idea that Americans are "exceptional", brave and free. We had the Marlboro Man and weekend NFL religious experiences to prove it.
Much of what you say is true, Siouxrose, but don't tell me that such hatred and intolerance that fuels the idea that in the US we don't need to know about other languages and cultures was simply dictated from above. It is virtually part of our cultural heritage since the Puritans that different folk need to be moved, enslaved or exterminated. Sure it often came from a well-financed pulpit, but not always. Well before Bernays, people relished the idea that they were not responsible for the collective welfare of the community, and were emotionally satisfied with that. We've just done way too little to educate about or change that. The mega-communications complexes of today are reinforcement agencies for profit, but the ideas are not theirs. Sioux, get used to the idea that your ideas (for as well thought-out as many might be) are not the only valid game in town. Culturally, MANY parts of the US Experience and Narrative have helped lead us to today.
Labeling one part "bad" (no matter how big, rich or influential) and letting others off the hook, is counter-productive to seeking effective solutions for organizing a movement of education and resistance.
Some great points there, S.R. Especially the first paragraph.
Good point on the ads being so lame. People will only see it that way the longer they are away from the television. Good point about the internet connection too. It doesn't take a lot of money to get it right. Present the right stuff and motivate people to support real progressives and the American people won't have to be in the dark until it's too late. Glad I don't watch the telly much btw.
Both of you are correct.
I agree with Siouxrose there is serious filtering going on by the Powers That Be, as expressed in the mainstream media, to the point that many US Americans have unconsciously swallowed a poisonous system that makes it hard for them to articulate what's really going on and how to change it. So yes, we can safely say that many people are currently trapped in an inherited system of unhealthy beliefs and habits that they themselves did not initially create.
Rico's point also rings true. Mainstream US Americans can be lazy and gullible and, in having unconsciously accepted a greedy belief system, aren't much different in thought and action from our corrupt political and business leaders. Because the average US American wants what the powerful have -- more money, more power, more freedom, more youth, more sex appeal, less wrinkles, less fat -- it's just that the 99 percenter doesn't have the reach of a 1 percenter. But they're all chasing the same hungry ghosts...
If we think about corrupt power brokers (aka "producers" and "investors"), we can say that many harm people and the natural world in places they rarely visit, via sweatshops, fabricating arms to be used in foreign wars, mandating or allowing torture, building malls on wetlands, cutting down forests to make soft toilet paper, over-consuming, fabricating things no one really needs, biogenetic manipulation without consulting with the plants themselves, etc. We can also say that they try hard to buy lots of stuff on someone else's dime (often the taxpayers', or they expense it on business accounts, or figure out ways to avoid paying taxes; etc.).
Now if we look at non-wealthy mainstream US Americans: as "workers" and "consumers," many help keep sweatshop labor and destructive environmental processes in place by caring more about keeping a job or getting a bargain than who or what is harmed; many would never dump garbage on a neighbor's lawn, but they don't give much thought to how their work or home consumption is affecting other people and other places; many buy disposable rather than long lasting items and then junk the stuff 6 months later when it croaks or a few buttons fall off (heaps upon heaps of plastic going into landfills they never see); and many live beyond their means, purchasing stuff on plastic - ie hard to repay credit, wanting more more more because that's what we've all been told brings happiness.
So: although the current situation is something partly inherited, everyone perpetuates it as producers / investors (1%) or workers / consumers (99%), and thus everyone is partly responsible to change it. It's a both-and kinda thing.
On a more positive note: if a small, committed group of Americans (let's say 300,000 people) committed to seriously re-programming ourselves with a healthier worldview along with lifestyle changes, we could begin a revolution by taking steady action steps to get our values and dreams to align with our day to day lives. From this place, we would start to see different kind of production, investment, work, consumption and citizenship.
As it stands now -- we won't see new leadership until we begin to change ourselves first. Regardless of when/how it started and who began it, deep lasting change begins with us.
Since I am not an either-or person, and appreciate the layers of the onion (or Lotus Flower), I agree that your points complement mine. I differ, however, on this:
" if a small, committed group of Americans (let's say 300,000 people) committed to seriously re-programming ourselves with a healthier worldview along with lifestyle changes, we could begin a revolution ..."
Far more than that number has already made lifestyle changes such as living with a small ecological foot-print, giving up meat, purchasing recycled articles (from local merchants), turning off the T.V. etc. I practice that lifestyle. So the revolution is more like OWS, an alternative world system being created under the radar. Perhaps enough of its hubs will be in place to serve as something of a safety net when the old paradigm collapses due to the way it's trafficked in weapons, war, and grotesque financial counterfeits... added to arrogating to itself, the rights that simulate the worst of history's dictators, in the form of decimating PROTECTED human liberties.
Yes, thank you for clarifying that, Siouxrose. I totally agree that it isn't simply "lifestyle" changes, as in recycling and using different lightbulbs, that we need. It's a combination political-confrontation-creative community-personal shift, including Occupy, and hopefully other brave emergent groups, as well.
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Representative government is designed to fail.
Direct democracy
the title says it all: US Elections: No Matter Who You Vote For, Money Always Wins
since it don't matter, since we get the same pablum no matter what, i am hoping that gingrich wins the gop nom so that he can do his psycho thing all over obummer's birth certificate
that oughta be good
i would like to hear newt investigate obummer's past as an acolyte in the ford foundation tax fraud thingy
go newtie, ya crazy bastard ya
As usual the obvious solution - to reject BOTH parties - wasn't mentioned, but then again Mr. Younge may be aware that it is becoming increasingly difficult for a third party candidate to even participate in the election.... unless of course that a potential candidate (i.e. Tea Party) has corporate America's blessing! Quite often I read here on CD comments like... "Vote for Rocky Anderson" which I whole heartedly support, except that Mr. Anderson won't appear on the ballot in my district or in any District in California and a host of other States simply because his party was unable to meet the minimum requirements set by the electoral commission to qualify as a candidate.
This leaves the voter only three options in most cases... vote for a Republican, a Democrat or stay at home. All three choices are unacceptable... if we are to change the status quo... however I am at a loss at how to overcome these corporate designed road blocks to a participatory democracy!
Americans had a chance 8 years ago with Ralph Nader (though he also did not appear on the ballot in 13 States!), but too many people were still mesmerized by the MSM believing that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. Even today "Almost two-thirds of Americans (about 65%?) believe the government should limit individual contributions" which means that 35% think that everything is just fine. That same 35% is more likely to vote in November than the disappointed 65% further cementing our plutocracy. OWS may wake up more Americans to the reality of our government for the 1%, by the 1% and of the 1%, yet even if they do, a viable option may not exist on the ballot this November or on any ballot for years to come.
Classists refuse to inform people about real deals such as Anderson and Nader. Their history of apologizing for Obama and disrespecting, discrediting, and patronizing real progressives proves that they know what they're doing when they omit people like Nader and Anderson. True, it may be hard for third parties to get on the ballot but at some point, I find it dishonorable of anyone making it easier for the PTBs by omitting people like Nader, Anderson, Stein, etc...
True, money has its role in influencing but that doesn't mean we should give up supporting real progressives. It's also worth noting that it's wise to be wary of those especially Obama PR idiots suddenly complaining about money.
"... money has its role in influencing but that doesn't mean we should give up supporting real progressives."
But how can the public know for sure who is a progressive? A lot of people thought they were voting for a progressive in 2008 and they wound up with W's third term.
Good question. There's no way to get the public to know for sure but trust comes not from how hard someone justifies oneself but from actions done and/or doing. Compare Obama and Stein. Obama gives in to the 1% while Stein not only refuses but also takes party in Occupy events even if no one votes for her. Rocky is another interesting candidate who left the Democratic Party after the Democratic Party Establishment hated him for being populist progressive mayor of Salt Lake City, UT of all places.
For a brief time several years ago, I worked with Jill Stein. I can say that she has boundless energy, enthusiasm and optimism, and appears to really live her ideals.
The People need to realize that 'change' via electoral politics will never occur, as the system is gamed/managed as to not allow for any substantial change (that would benefit humanity) to stem from within the system's metrics ... and therein lies the trap that's been so effective for the tip-toe-totalitarianism of the last three decades; give The People the *illusion* of choice, because no matter which 'side' 'wins' the 'election' (100% phony) , Profit$ Over People and Police $tate are the ONLY 'winners,' guaranteed, iron-clad everytime (so, WHY expect anything different with each new (S)election cycle? DENIAL)
The problem is, such illusions are quite powerful within a corporate media-saturated social environment where imposed views become deeply ingrained beliefs, and the populace has been brainwashed to abide un-reality by way of cultural familiarity that doesn't require applying critical thinking because there's very little within the imposed mainstream discourse that encourages people to be wary and skeptical of Power. Hence the collective dismissal and/or castigation of those who point out the obvious as being 'crazy conspiracy theorists.'
In a recent opinion piece, Fidel Castro rightly said:
“The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is – and I mean this seriously – the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been.”
One needs to ask why such a sorry state of affairs has come to be. One important reason would seem to be the fact that money neutralizes all else.
"Mitt Romney argued that if you make things tough enough for undocumented people, they will "self-deport"."
Wow. That's a really well thought out plan. It will allow us to do things we never thought possible ... like pay $50 for a lettuce and tomato salad.
Please excuse my naivete and imcomprehension. But Why should money make such a difference?
Can people not think? or are we still bound by the belief a lie repeated oft enough become truth.
If this is true and I think it may be, what is to be done?
It's about control of the media. And who gets heard.
What happened to Howard Dean from a dumb sound? It ruined him.
The media is like old royalty with the power to christen some to fame and fortune, and turn others into lepers overnight.
The media, owned by right wing interests (since few with big money embrace a politics that would have them share more of it) puts such moral misfits as Anne Coulter into the spotlight. Why is less air time given to the likes of Medea Benjamin or Elizabeth Warren? Answer: To make sure consciousness is not raised!
You cannot chide a citizenry's poor choices when what's placed before them--as the only voices they get to see or hear--are those who have won favor (which is to say, sealed quid pro quo agreements favorable to those that purchased them) with deep pocket players.
Those who keep blaming the voters evidently don't want the TRUTH about our corrupted-by-money system to be heard, felt, or understood.
And dishonesty is so tiring... in fact, these days it's a betrayal to life, itself!
Even the best of thinkers can be psychologically pushed by money. Money shouldn't be as much a part of making a difference but the American people need to be trained out of it.
the money is a result of the violence, not the other way 'round...
the rich are rich because they are violent, not violent because they're rich...
The way out is to write in None of the Above. Defeat the billions with zero dollars and change democracy forever, for the better, this November. Write in None of the above.
"This year industry analysts believe the money spent just on television ads is set to leap by almost 80% compared with four years ago"
There's no turning back for Merkan elites on their Highway to Hell. Set all Controls for the Heart of the Sun. On their ekonomic growath Rocket Ride. Propaganda getting stale? Turn it up LOUDER. Raise the "value of influence" INFINITELY past the value of health. Concentrate production and property into the hands of the FEWER and FEWER. Dominate The World!!!!
Simply put, the rich own America. They own our Electoral System, our politicians and even the White House. This is not about class warfare, this is about capitalism out of control. This is about getting rid of the Electoral College and having complete electoral reform. Something that will never happen in this country. So what are the American voters going to do? Allow themselves to be divided by hatred, fear and lies spread by these self-serving hyenas in order to help them win elections. Then when in office, they proceed to destroy the working class, the working poor, the homeless, the poor and the elderly.
It seems even progressives can't see the forest for the trees. Money is not the problem. The faux election system from party run caucuses to the electoral college needs to be scrapped. No ads, no balloons, no making a presidential run a multi year campaign that only the 1% have the time and bucks for. For starters, same day voting across the nation for the primary, and real debates with broadcast time mandated by law. If people find that too dry to watch they can stay home. And 1,654 other changes, but I'm only posting a comment, not a new constitution.