Good government, Big money mutually exclusive
Editing, re-reporting, commentary by
Carolyn Bennett
Left-Right buyers, sellers
of policy
America the corrupt
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here’s nothing wrong with power ─ every individual needs and
possesses power ─ but inordinate power, absolute power, unchanging, entrenched,
unchecked power corrupts. It corrodes possibility. Destroys creative imagination
and all that is or might be good, progressive, and generally in the public
interest. This is why the people of the United States must sweep clean federal
Washington’s inordinate concentrated and tentacled power.
Press TV is reporting today on America’s corrupt governance
that is created and sustained by big moneyed interests, foreign and domestic, that
buy elections, determine winners and losers, seat certain personalities in positions
of power. “To the extent that concentrated non-corporate wealth corrupts policy
and distorts the fairness of elections… simply overturning Citizens United (corporations
as people whose speech is protected under the U.S. Constitution’s First
Amendment) will not go deep enough in uprooting corruption at its core, Press
TV quotes the self-styled “progressive liberal lefty” American Prospect magazine.
In early 2010, Today’s
Insight News referenced the case in “One sided with people & democracy
─ Justice Stevens: From David Hoffman’s “The Greatest Threat to America” and
from Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent in Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission
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n his dissent in CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION,
U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said:
“In a
democratic society, the longstanding consensus on the need to limit corporate
campaign spending should outweigh the wooden application of judge-made rules.
“The majority’s rejection of this principle ‘elevate[s] corporations
to a level of deference which has not been seen at least since the days when
substantive due process was regularly used to invalidate regulatory legislation
thought to unfairly impinge upon established economic interests.’ …
“At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the
common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent
corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have
fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering
since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.
“It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While
American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would
have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.”
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hat is required at this point to bring policymaking under the
control of a true democracy, Press TV continues its quote of the American Prospect,
is “a more thorough rethinking of political corruption, if not a different
understanding of the First Amendment in the context of ‘democratic’ elections.”
A case of inordinate power corrupting governance
Sky’s-the-limit Super PAC
facts and figures Press TV cites
Though they are required to make monthly or quarterly reports
of their donors to the Federal Election Commission and are prohibited from
donating money directly to political candidates (Open Secrets), Super
PACs (Technically known as independent expenditure-only committees),
unlike traditional PACs, are permitted to raise unlimited sums of money from
corporations, unions, associations and individuals. Then spend unlimited sums
to overtly advocate for or against political candidates.
2012 Super-PACked presidential elections
(Original source: Mother
Jones)
31 percent of $1.03 billion spent by outside groups in final
cycle of last election was ‘dark
money”: who gave the money or
where it came from was concealed from public review
Dark money funded 50 percent of outside groups’ television spending on the presidential race (huge portions backed attack adverts)
Thirty-two (a mere 32) giant Super-PAC donors matched the total
single-small-dollar donations ─ roughly (donors giving under $200 are undisclosed)
3.7 million people giving $313 million ─ to the combined campaigns of Barack
Obama and Mitt Romney.
Sixty percent of all Super-PAC donations in the 2012
campaign season came from 159 people ─ a sliver of the U.S. population
The United States of America is a
federal constitutional republic consisting of fifty states and a Federal
district.
Population: 313,914,040 (2012)
Voting-age population (2010): 219,553
– 234,564
Percentage voting in 2010: 37
percent
1,319 groups organized as Super PACs ─ as of today, February
22, 2013 ─ have reported in the 2012 cycle. (Original Source: Open Secrets)
Total receipts of $838,085,167
Total independent expenditures of
$631,470,703
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ow many public schools and teachers could be funded, how
much shelter and health care for the
homeless, how much eradication of diseases, how many returning soldiers could be
healed, how much peaceful diplomacy instead of endless wars could be funded
with a fraction of this waste that subverts democratic government and funds bad
governance in perpetuity?
Corruption crossing political spectrum
Super PACs
In today’s “Liberal Super PAC: Death to Super PACs!” report, Press
TV shows up what has been clear to me and no doubt many others for a long time:
the “liberal-conservative-progressive” or “Republican-Democratic-Independent” labels
are distinctions without any real difference in values, ethos, attitude,
practice.
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| U.S. assassination drone wars Killing sovereignty and civilians for sport |
If your tribe does it, it is okay. An ethics of expediency
does nothing to rout or remove corrupt governance.
“
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A liberal group hopes to convince voters in California to
rebuke the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens
United ruling, which paved the way for outside campaign spending groups
known as Super PACs”; but, the Press TV article astutely observes, “There is only
one problem: the group is itself a Super PAC.” In the 2012 election season, CREDO
Mobile/CREDO Super PAC reportedly spent “$830,999.”
The company’s website says CREDO was founded in 1985 and has
since that time grown and matured “with a clearer focus on mobile phones,” resulting
in “better service to our members” and “greater impact in our fight for social
change.” In 2007, the company says it “rebranded as CREDO Mobile, a subsidiary
of Working Assets” and has “raised $72 million for nonprofit groups working
hard for social change.”
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ut a Super PAC is still a SuperPAC doing what Super PACs do:
subvert self-governance, government of, by and for not only political elites.
Is the thought of “government of, by and for the people” just
another cliché in a culture in which moneyed corporations and organizations
plan product obsolescence; where issues and institutions are permanently funded
but never fixed; and where all things are traded and trashed, consumed and market
driven?
What if money were banned from politics all together? What
would happen if a nonpartisan, well-educated (not merely degreed), socially sensitive,
honestly caring, domestically, internationally, politically-engaged population
governed cooperatively for the common good?
Wouldn’t that rout the corrupt, end the status quo, and
change the world for the better?
Source and notes
“Liberal Super PAC: Death to Super PACs!” February 22, 2013,
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/290297.html
Article notes: Forbes estimates casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s
fortune at “$20.5 billion,” Press TV notes in today’s article; and to match his
$91.8 million (0.37 percent of his net worth) election spending would require “322,000
middle-income Americans: the entire population of Anaheim, California, minus a
few thousand folks, giving 0.37 percent of their net worth.
Citizens United has been opposed by more 350 cities. Eleven U.S.
states have called on Congress to overturn the ruling (Other sources: Public
Citizen and Raw Story).
“One sided with people & democracy ─ Justice Stevens” Posted by Bennett's study at Today’s Insight
News, Wednesday, January 27, 2010; From David Hoffman’s “The Greatest Threat to
America” and from Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent in Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission, todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com
CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, APPEAL FROM
THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, No. 08–205.
Argued March 24, 2009— Reargued September 9, 2009––Decided January 21, 2010,
Cite as: 558 U. S. ____ (2010) Opinion of STEVENS, J. ,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES , No. 08–205, CITIZENS UNITED, APPELLANT v.
FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA , [January 21, 2010] , JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom
JUSTICE GINSBURG, JUSTICE BREYER, and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, concurring in
part and dissenting in part. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf
USA: Government: Dominant-party system, Constitution, Democracy,
Federal republic, Presidential system, Two-party system, Republic, Federation, Constitutional
republic
U.S. Census report: Table
398 Resident Population of Voting Age and Percent Casting Votes—States: 2000 to
2010 [219,553 represents 219,553,000. Estimated population, 18 years old and
over. 2010 based on 2010 Census as of April 1. Includes Armed Forces stationed
in each state, (noncitizens), and institutional population] http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0398.pdf
CREDO Mobile says, “Every time our members use our services,
we donate a percentage of their charges to the progressive nonprofits that we
fund.” And among the groups it says it will fund 2013 are these 40:
Civil Rights
Alliance for Justice
Center for Constitutional Rights
ColorOfChange
Drug Policy Alliance
Medical Students for Choice
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Planned Parenthood (affiliates)
United We Dream
Economic & Social
Justice
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Democracy Now!
Mayors against Illegal Guns
Ms. Foundation for Women
National Domestic Workers Alliance
Physicians for a National Health Program
Sentencing Project
Social Security Works
Environment
350.org
Clean Water Fund
Defenders of Wildlife
Environmental Working Group
Ocean Conservancy
Pesticide Action Network
Rainforest Action Network
Union of Concerned Scientists
Peace &
International Freedom
China Labor Watch
Grameen Foundation
Human Rights Watch
Mercy Corps
Partners In Health
Pathfinder International
Ploughshares Fund
Women for Women International
Voting Rights &
Civic Participation
AlterNet
Free Speech For People
Green Corps
Media Matters for America
Mother Jones Investigative Fund
Progressive Congress
Project Vote
Wellstone Action
http://www.credomobile.com/mission/nonprofit-donations-current.aspx
http://www.credomobile.com/mission/history.aspx
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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