The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) recently ran an exposé about American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a back room coalition of Republican legislators who meet to create “model” legislation which can then be pushed on a state-by-state basis in coordinated fashion. In an open letter, the CMD’s executive director, Lisa Graves, writes:
At an extravagant hotel gilded just before the Great Depression, corporate executives from the tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, State Farm Insurance, and other corporations were joined by their "task force" co-chairs -- all Republican state legislators -- to approve "model" legislation. They jointly head task forces of what is called the "American Legislative Exchange Council" (ALEC).
There, as the Center for Media and Democracy has learned, these corporate-politician committees secretly voted on bills to rewrite numerous state laws. According to the documents we have posted to ALEC Exposed, corporations vote as equals with elected politicians on these bills. These task forces target legal rules that reach into almost every area of American life: worker and consumer rights, education, the rights of Americans injured or killed by corporations, taxes, health care, immigration, and the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink.
It is a worrisome marriage of corporations and politicians, which seems to normalize a kind of corruption of the legislative process -- of the democratic process--in a nation of free people where the government is supposed to be of, by, and for the people, not the corporations.
The full sweep of the bills and their implications for America's future, the corporate voting, and the extent of the corporate subsidy of ALEC's legislation laundering all raise substantial questions. These questions should concern all Americans. They go to the heart of the health of our democracy and the direction of our country. When politicians -- no matter their party -- put corporate profits above the real needs of the people who elected them, something has gone very awry.
. . . ALEC apparently ignores Smith's caution that bills and regulations from business must be viewed with the deepest skepticism. In his book, "Wealth of Nations," Smith urged that any law proposed by businessmen "ought always to be listened to with great precaution . . . It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."
One need not look far in the ALEC bills to find reasons to be deeply concerned and skeptical. Take a look for yourself.
In my article Fiduciary Duty vs. The Three Laws of Robotics, I took the position that not only are corporations legal people, but in fact they are “legal sociopaths.” That is, they are by fixed nature incapable of caring about their employees, their customers, or their community except insofar as such caring accidentally maximizes value of the corporation for its stockholders.
I've also argued in the past, as in my 2008 article Election Stratego, that the Republican party is trending toward running strategic configurations of players, who are really just game pieces for other entities coordinating matters behind the scenes. Others have referred to this same phenomenon by talking about puppet governments, shadow governments, or plutocracies. Once the stuff of conspiracy theorists, recent reports and analyses seem to increasingly suggest that the practice of corporations purchasing legislation is becoming a reality. ALEC is only the most recent example. There's the influence of the Family, the Koch Brothers, and Grover Norquist, and other people and corporations with seemingly disproportionate interest and power in modern politics.
The Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court has seemed not only to legitimize these activities, but to ignite a fire in them. They can now operate much more in the open than before. Events we've seen in Wisconsin and in Michigan are just a few prominent examples of increasingly organized attempts that are going on nationwide that seem single-mindedly bent on bringing American workers to their collective knees.
In her recent article Obama fights full-tilt Tea Party crazy, Joan Walsh suggested “the president is dealing with a conscience-free opposition.” Reading this, something clicked in my mind that connected up this notion I have of corporations as sociopaths, and I realized the cancer has spread, so now due to this effect of politicians being bought off by corporations, we not only have corporations acting as sociopaths, but we have politicians hell bent on doing the bidding of these corporations. And if the corporations are, as I've argued, sociopaths, then these all-too-willing servants of the corporations are almost literally “sociopaths by proxy.”
And this is especially bad because government is really the only entity that exists as a counterweight to the forces of business. Government regulation is, by design, capable of regulating industry in order to assure the general welfare. Yet if these businesses are by nature singularly interested in their stockholders' needs and in general obliged not to care the concerns of other stakeholders (such as their customers, their employees, or the communities in which the corporation resides and operates), then who is to look out for the individual? A single individual is often too small to stand up to a corporation in any test of wills. And with legislative action afoot to systematically dismantle and disempower labor unions and to reduce or eliminate the ability to bring class action, good old-fashioned government regulation is the last line of defense for the ordinary citizen—protecting, even if imperfectly, against the tendency of business to exploit and oppress populations for monetary gain.
I've heard it suggested that government should do for people only what people cannot do for themselves. But individual citizens cannot keep banks from adopting predatory lending practices. They can't keep oil companies from using unsafe drilling practices. They can't make sure the food we eat is safe. There are a great many protections that government has traditionally seen as their duty to provide, and yet we're watching an organized attempt by certain politicians—in eager service of corporations—to eliminate the FDA, the EPA, and even the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They speak of “starving the beast,” but in the end the ones starving if this keeps up will be us, the American citizens.
America is under attack from within by forces that do not have the best interests of American citizens at heart, indeed by entities that have no heart at all—by corporations—legal sociopaths—and their dutiful servants in Washington, the Republican Party. The Republicans fancy themselves leaders, but they are not leading, they're clearly following. If they step out of line, they're harshly dealt with by forces outside of our view or control.
The Democratic Party is not immune to the suggestions of Big Business either, but at least they are not yet moving in 100% lockstep to the tune of their corporate overlords. In spite of some partial influence, many elected Democrats are still advocating strongly on behalf of the common citizen. So at least with the Democrats there is hope.
And let's be clear, I'm not saying that this new class of Republican “leaders” are themselves sociopaths. It's not inconceivable that some are, but let's generously assume not, since it won't change my point. Whether they are themselves sociopaths or just willing proxies for behind-the-scenes sociopaths, it's all the same. America's citizens need and deserve a government of, by and for the people—the real flesh and blood people, the ones the founders of this nation originally wrote the Constitution to protect.
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Past Articles by me on Related Topics
To Serve Our Citizens
Fiduciary Duty vs. The Three Laws of Robotics
Teetering on the Brink of Moral Bankruptcy
Hollow Support
Election Stratego
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Comments
We were so concerned with communists, we gave "all the keys of our house" away to the capitalists, so that they would save us. But once the threat passed, the capitalists decided to rob us...
Just goes to show you. Never give your keys to ANYBODY...
First, either the legislators should not have been there, or the meetings should have been public and on the public record. It may even violate some state's open meeting laws. (And where not, it should).
Second, government regulation not only protects us from the power of businesses, it provides a level playing field for businesses. This sort of collusion is anti-competitive. Which also brings us back to the first point.
It certainly doesn't help that the Republicans encourage, and even reward, such behavior, by lowering taxes on the rich.
rated with love
How can you be so astute about the Team Repub sociopaths and so in denial of Team Dem sociopaths???? PARTIAL INFLUENCE only on Dems??? At least not 100% lockstep?????? Dear God! What, 99%???? MANY DEMS are still advocating strongly ... yada yada yada? Do you seriously believe that??? Yeah, that is the illusion they want you to have, but post-Bush there was no clean up. The lobby money runs both sides of the aisle and it runs BIG TIME. The Congressional profiteering is astounding!!!! And Obama is hungrier to gut social security and medicare, etc., than the Repubs. Explain that. Talking the talk is not walking the walk. They don't even have to talk the talk. They have got you to propagandize for them.
I can't believe you wrote this:
"The Democratic Party is not immune to the suggestions of Big Business either, but at least they are not yet moving in 100% lockstep to the tune of their corporate overlords. In spite of some partial influence, many elected Democrats are still advocating strongly on behalf of the common citizen. So at least with the Democrats there is hope."
Lots of evil is going around. I called the Repubs for a long time rabid rat bastards and the Dems rat bastards, but now I call the whole lot rabid rat bastards because of the astonishing AMORALITY going on. The profound ENABLING that is happening. They have all brought us to fascism. Amorality with our economy, amorality enabling corporate wars.
We need monitoring of the right and the awesome degree of psychopathology there. But to get to our present crisis, and under a Dem president, the Dems are profoundly guilty as well. Save for a handful from both houses. CORRUPTION CORRUPTION CORRUPTION. These bastards broke their oaths and their real constituencies are the elites pouring in their donations and contributing their corporate media to quid pro quo the sellouts. And the pol sell-outs have sold out so profoundly even they are clueless as to how shameless and betraying they have been.
... it's not just a river in Egypt!
Back in the '70s when I was in college, I bought a book at the college bookstore entitled "Who Rules America." Obviously, back then it was the corporations and wealthy Americans. Some 35 years later we're still talking about the same thing which is not a good indication of progress...
In looking at European social democracies that seem far superior to our own society ( despite their faults), it appears to me that a parliamentary, multi-party system just plain works better than what we have now. The checks and balances system guarantees gridlock on so many pressing issues, and the precedents laid down by the Supreme Court have allowed for the metastatic growth of corporate privilege at the expense of living, breathing souls.
I think we need to all think seriously about how a Constitutional Convention should be implemented in this country. Seriously.
The government is, for all practical purposes, now a fully owned subsidiary of these corporations. No major politicians can possibly get elected without the say-so of the Godfather er I mean the corporations who donate the campaign contributions that are now necessary to win thanks to Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens united.
There is no longer any sincere discussion about the issues by the Mass Media which is also a fully owned subsidiary of the sociopaths.
RW, it's in the nature of the game: live the day and worry about the next problems down the road another day is how a lot of people live, sometimes by necessity, and occasionally by choice. But even if it's a common necessity a lot of the time, on those rare occasions where we have a view farther down the road or a view from the air, we shouldn't squander the data or the opportunity.
Bob, those are some excellent points. Thanks for contributing.
Pedant, I think they're just pawns of the rich in their pursuit of that agenda. It's a kind of chicken/egg thing I guess how you view it.
Poetess, sorry to be the bearer of scary thoughts but I think it's better to confront them eyes open. And you mentioned climate, though probably not in the way it struck me: Climate Change will be the merciless test of whether we can compose a system that acts in the public good. Very soon now, we will go extinct, I expect, if we do not create a system capable of seeing beyond the profits of the current quarter.
Designanator, it is, as you say, an old game. And yet the tools have become scientific. I would liken it to the way your phone number used to be out in the open in a phone book, and yet now that it's on the web, still just out in the open, it's somehow more accessible and more possible to use for unwanted purposes.
Lefty, the problem with a Constitutional convention is that it would be controlled by these same forces. I think it's important to not do that. One must go for smaller fixes first until the system is stabilized better.
Christina, the Tea Party seems to be no single thing, but a lot of it seems to be about corporations tricking ordinary people into doing their bidding. They present simplistic messages that sound good on the surface and candidates buy into it and unwittingly push the corporate agenda. I don't think it's as unrelated as you're thinking, in other words.
Zachery, I use the term sociopath in the common street usage. I have a friend who constantly reminds me that the WHO's definition of these syndromes uses different terminology altogether. The previous article, Fiduciary Responsibility vs. The Tree Laws of Robotics and its sequel Teetering on the Brink of Moral Bankruptcy try to use these terms while offering backpointers to the WHO's terminology for those who want to dive deeper. Best I can do. And I agree with you that the hijacking of the media is a big part of this as well.
The open corruption and gaping mouth greed has tainted all of this said government. Such a group as ALEC which is stated its agenda is to rewrite so many state laws to improve a 'good business relationship' should prove the case in point.
The ideas for sweeping reform to 'deregulate' corporations i.e. by pulling the teeth of the EPA so the Clean Water Act no longer applies. So therefore our rivers and waterways can again become open sewers of industrial waste should make us all go beat on the gates to demand better. This one issue alone is maddening to me and should be front and center for us all.
Look at such a deregulated environment in China. So many without a drop of clean water to drink and rivers drained dry. And the ones left are toxic. Romantic Poetress should be more than scared, in fact, we should all be trembling in fear. For the complete evil wrought by groups of shadow government like this one will be a bitter harvest.
I only wish I could leave a better world for my grandchildren. Sadly, that wish will never be.
Just take one of your first examples. State Farm Insurance.
It is a mutual insurance company. Theoretically not for profit.
And they go head to head with stock property and casualty companies.
And the banks hate the insurers, and vice versa.
The only point is that if business were, in fact, a monolithic entity with shared, uniform interests, then things would be more or less hopeless.
However, a lot - if not most - of this stuff is business vs business in one form or another.
Your main point, however, is well taken.
I agree.
Zachery, I think it's an ongoing struggle I guess. I often define “ethics” as the practice of trying to continually question whether what one does is really the right thing to do. When one stops asking questions of oneself, that's the primary risk of dropping out of the zone of good ethics. I suppose the issue you raise of “trying to retain perspective” is similar. Who ever knows if it's being done right? The point is to keep trying.
Jonathan, thanks for the kind words.
Mission, some great points. At this point, my goal is to have a world at all. Better or worse seems almost a fine detail at this point. Once we sort through all of this economic junk, we still have to confront climate change. And, as you note, that's looking to have a bleak future.
I think it's pretty much over for us here in the U.S. as we experience the long, slow slide to the bottom. If anyone sees an alternative I'd love to hear about it.
However, in that comment, you made mention to a documentary called The Corporation. Someone on Facebook pointed me to this Youtube video (in 23 parts). Is that the work you meant? I've bookmarked it to watch.
Lots of food for thought.
R
I was thinking about what the British do when their government fails them. Their Parliment has a set time frame, and elections are held every five years. However, they have this wonderful "safety valve" they call it, where in times of emergency they (the PM) can call for a special early election:
"Clause 2 of the Bill provides for an early parliamentary general election to take place in two situations. First, where at least two thirds of MPs have voted in favour of a motion to that effect and, second, following the passing of a motion of no confidence in the Government."
Wouldn't it be nice if we could implement "votes of no confidence" on our elected officials? If the buggers thought they might get thrown out of office early, it does strike me as a safe "safety valve".
This is NOT hyperbole. And I'm guessing that a sizable number of those who read this clear, lucid and well written essay are not surprised.
In line with the NYT editorial this morning---the people you are speaking of here are creating their own reality. And what they are doing IS attacking.
All I can add to this is that the role of the enablers, the calm and rational sounding, "intelligent" David Brooks' of the world, the 'Oh yeah well the other guy does it too" whiners is becoming just as dangerous. Because there really is no rational compromise with flat out evil.
I think this is a good job of pointing out some of the failings of our current political system. I think you weakened your presentation by defending the Democrat Party. The problem isn't that there are no decent people in Congress, it's that NEITHER Party represents average Americans. As long as intelligent, knowledgeable people continue to deny this simple and obvious truth, nothing will change. The tw0-party system was never a good idea in the first place, but even that was better than what we have now.
The Dems do little more than pay lip-service to the ideals that once-upon-a-time they actively supported. Lip-service is of no value if they merely give in to every Republican-corporate demand.
Krugman has a new article that touches on this saying "...the cult that I see as reflecting a true moral failure is the cult of balance, of centrism."
But he ends up attacking the wrong people -- the media. He asserts that the media unfairly assigns blame to both political parties and asks, "...what would it take for these news organizations and pundits to actually break with the convention that both sides are equally at fault?"
Amazingly, the answer to his question is so simple that he has somehow missed it: all it would take would be for the Dems to actually make a genuine, bold stand on principle instead of constantly giving in to the Republican-corporate Party.
People are so afraid of losing, that they can't seem to recognize that they are losing because they try not to lose. Sometimes, certain victories can only be achieved via certain losses. We are faced with such a time.
I am sorry for the "intensity" and inventorying taking. I guess I hit a tipping point reading Dem loyalists and feeling despair. Enduring the pain of Obama's betrayal and the specter of another term for him, particularly by the stay the coursers who guarantee there will be no time for options, as they assert now there is no time for options.
THE POINT OF POWER IS ALWAYS IN THE PRESENT MOMENT so says Louise Hay. And 12 steps says the first step is really facing down the bottom you are at, how unmanageable it all really is.
Lesser of two evils is still E-V-I-L.
I know my stridency isn't helping me sell my case, but I have not cronied up that much here being such a newbie so decided to indulge in anti-cronyism bluntness during this not really honeymoon phase.
Take care.
The Corporation is a very long and awesome documentary. I was sure you knew of it. I do heartily recommend! libby
You say “they are losing because they try not to lose.” This seems to presuppose a theory that it's OK to lose. I judge (and it's just my position) that we're better off with the feeble stronghold of having even an ultra-Conservative Democrat like Obama in place than we are having a Republican in place. And I judge that third parties have Zero chance this year. That isn't to say I'll ignore polls if someone else runs, but it requires that someone to run. I don't see it.
I can't make candidates appear out of nowhere. So the burden is on you to say who it's better to have. If you're saying it's OK to just do a protest vote and throw away 4 years, I think you're dead wrong. 4 years of this party of absolutism that the Republicans have become is enough time to completely dismantle the possibility that anyone can run in the future. It's enough time for them to change voting laws, it's enough time for them to do all kinds of crazy things I'd never have imagined I'd ever seriously expect a party to do.
But it is just not acceptable to allow this sociopathic Republican party to get control. And if that means tolerating the Democratic party even knowing they have some of the same problems, at least I know they are not voting in the same lockstep as the Republicans. The Dems are not as good at the game as the Republicans, but in that not being as good is the safety of the ordinary voter, at least for the nearterm. Nothing I'm saying should be taken to be permanent truth, just my best assessment of the moment. I am not making a blanket endorsement of all things Democrat for all time. But I don't see a ready-to-go third party and if you want a chance to build a third party, you need the Democrats in place for the next 4 years to do it because they will preserve the right for someone else to be voted in. I don't know that of the Republicans. Democrats had control of both houses and the Presidency, and nothing bad happened (other than them failing to push the progressive agenda they were elected to do). If you gave the Republicans that control, especially with the Court leaning as it does, the outcome could be deadly to the nation.
It just isn't the time to be talking about the acceptability of defeat. It is not acceptable for the Republicans to win in the next election. If you think that's a defense of the Democrats, you're not hearing me. It's an indictment of the Republicans and a desire to survive to play another day.
On this we disagree. Evil is a crime of intent and ethics are a luxury that you engage when you have the capability. If you have but one choice, it cannot be characterized as evil or not evil. This is the reason we have a long tradition of forgiving people for killing in self defense, for example. We understand that the “evil” of killing is not in play if it's not really a choice but a necessity.
And while it may be seriously lamentable to have no choice that represents what we want, or to have no such choice that is electable (which is worse—if you know there's a candidate you'd like better but that not enough would vote for), it is not evil to decide to back the choice that is less good. I think calling it evil ends up condemning the voter rather than inspiring improvement. It makes people feel bad but it does not inspire good. It is just not evil to try your best to survive and do your part.
Our present situation is one of bad choices. I'm not a Democrat, and as such I'm not a Democratic loyalist. I'm an Independent. But looking in from the outside, I don't see choices. The Republicans are absolutely unacceptable in their present form. The Democrats are often ineffective, and the third parties are unelectable. That's an abysmal situation, but it still has a clear choice: the Democrats. At least for now. We need to get involved in making better choices, but at present they are not in place.
The Green Party has an interesting list of 10 issues, worthy of public discussion and debate, but their agenda is so detailed that it smacks of the same kind of lockstep principles the Republicans are suffering from right now. It doesn't seem to admit variation, and I don't see that resulting in mainstream acceptance, even as I agree with many of their issues. I'm just being realistic. I'm not goint to waste my time or money backing something I don't see achieving mainstream acceptance at the cost of losing an election to the Republicans. If the Greens start to get traction, I promise to reconsider. But it's on them to demonstrate.
The New Progressive Alliance looks even more interesting, as it has a much better platform than the Greens. I may separately write about it just to give them some visibility. But it's virtually unknown and I doubt they can get something in place by next year that can win. So they risk defeating the Democrats if they split the vote, and that would throw the election to the Republicans. I won't back that either, not this time around. But maybe for 2016 if they can get better visibility. I'd have to see their candidate, too, of course. Sometimes these things look good on paper but the candidate is just not credible.
I'll make two quick points:
1) putting a different Dem into the presidency will change nothing if the same Dems are still in Congress; and:
2) When you say, "...it is just not acceptable to allow this sociopathic Republican party to get control," I have to wonder who really has control right now. It doesn't appear to be the majority of average Americans.
Nowhere have I suggested the people are in control. However, even with the people not in control, I think the Democrats have more of the interests of the public at heart than do the Republicans. The Republicans want to eliminate health care, education, the EPA, etc. The Democrats, whether they are individually responsive to the people or not, generally seem to agree that health care, education, and the EPA are not things to be taken lightly. If I had to choose between lack of control under one party or lack of control under the other, I'd go for the one that at least acknowledges some of the goals I'd want, even if it's not hugely responsive.
You are joining in the gamesmanship-think which means it is a rigged game and no-win but you are willing to play.... why?.
There is a tipping point into a certain level of evil that defies a pragmatic consideration and we are there. Obama JUMPED THE SHARK long ago, as did the Dems. Maybe I am advocating a national strike, an "impeach all the bums" kind of protest. I am not sure what will follow but I sure as hell know I cannot vote for Obama again, even with a vomit bucket at the machine with me.
I hear you advocating an "ends justifies the means" kind of willingness to enable corruption with your:
"Evil is a crime of intent and ethics are a luxury that you engage when you have the capability."
ETHICS ARE A LUXURY????? That is why the world is a patriarchal paradigm all about power and control and not about partnership and cooperation and we desperately need a humanist paradigm if the world will be saved. When supposedly-good people do nothing. and call it pragmatism all is lost. I call it avoiding the challenge. I call it Good Germanhood!
I passed out flyers for the Green party the last election in Manhattan and got ignored a lot but those who spoke to me said contemptuously, "YOU WON'T WIN. WHY WOULD I VOTE FOR A PARTY THAT WON'T WIN?" I said, "If everyone feels like they won't vote for a party of peace and justice because it won't win, then it won't win because of their pessimism and individual refusals!"
You equate voting for the Dems as killing in self-defense? That is a bit too much for me to wrap my head around. Holding your nose and voting, especially when the stench has reached the proportions it has, is not on!
I think the Green Party should assume the integrity third party stance and be the one since it has an ongoing history and structure but efforts at other third parties are fine ... the MOMENTUM IS KEY. With the Greens the deal breaker for many seems to be the Palestine issue. That does need to be addressed and faced by the left. I think the issue of Israel really has whammied the Dem Party since the First Gulf War. The cronyism-tribalism with Israel made the pro-Israel and Jewish old anti-Vietnam War protesters rethink their anti-war stance since it threatened some intimate bonds and networks and begin separating out as liberal hawks. It really changed the liberals seriously. AIPAC has been very very very busy and naughty bribing and intimidating Congress so overwhelmingly.
The Green Party has had such an identity as the stoic iconoclasts holding the lantern for values and ethics, it needs HELP transitioning to a major third party. When I hear people like you and others say they will wait until the Greens prove something to them I say, "oy vey" ... waiting for a green-engraved invitation means it will never happen ... it won't do. Join up and do what you can to move IT forward. Principles over personalities. Herding iconoclasts is a lot like herding cats as they say, but God bless the long-time Greens who have been holding the place and the structure in the democratic (small d) system.
The idea of a shiny new group of egos organizing a third party makes me even more tired than the arguments among the Greens, even if I admire some of the heros and heroines organizing them. Firedoglake people, eh? FDL was not that embracing a website while I was there.
The Green Party is loose but international. Has a blueprint of principles based on respect for humanity. It needs time and people.
I registered last year. I am a newbie still. Again, I see so much work and need. But I am doing what I can and for me that is setting up a 5 week course for young people about the history of political issues in America to give them a fighting vocabulary and crash course to help empower them to fight the ethical fight. One of the Green founders has a quote that says that the Green Party is no longer the alternative, it is the imperative!
We need an ethical/spiritual counterculture. To call out the SHAM that is our government.
You talk about ALEC and the Repubs???? What about Obama and all his big pharma and health care industry buds. He wouldn't invite single payer doctors to the table, to the committee. The sociopathic corps were writing the actual legislation for the DEMS!!!!!
You and so many at OS seem to see the messengers of conscience as the "problem" ... they are the ones threatening the corrupt system to function in its crippled, limping way. So rotten and corrupt and so bad that 1 out of 4 American kids go to bed hungry, 1 out of 2 American adults is out of a job, and when the austerity bastards get through with the situation it will be even more. These bastards and the amoral media don't deal in real people. Like the people being incinerated by drones. The people starving or homeless or losing their jobs or dying without medical care. They deal in political gamesmanship rhetoric. And giving more money to the lobbyists to win another term and more perks from the bonus babies, the bastards of the universe!
SAYING NO IS THE CORNERSTONE OF IDENTITY. As a collective body of people with a conscience we must say NO to the bastards running the country who are pitting us against one another. Colluding with amorality is not the way to go. Getting down with dogs just gets you fleas.
We are not vigilant citizens. Now is the time to start. We dropped the ball. We gotta get courageous and take action to begin to recover. Obama betrayed us. I don't like being politically blackmailed. And Obama gives nothing back. Obama treats the constitution like a suggestion box.
Dems tell Obama we don't like what you do but we will still be voting for you in 2012. What kind of bullshit leverage is that? Nothing. Styrofoam!!!! Tea Party people play hardball. Look at the leverage they have gotten. The left won't play hard ball for ethics or food for kids and jobs and immigrants. How pathetic. If not now, when, Kent? ENOUGH!!!!!!
14 million Asians got killed or displaced while the American anti-war movement got it together. Nixon came in after Johnson and instead of ending it Kissinger kept it all going in spite of the angry voting mandate of the people. Those ego monsters playing deadly games with countries and people's lives. Don't preach waiting. Don't cherry pick one group of sociopaths and their dangerousness and ignore the matching set on the Dem side. Obama is not our friend. He is unwilling to assert accountability. We don't have allies except for those you can count on one hand with fingers left over in Washington. And Obama is NOT among them.
ENOUGH!
btw, thanks for responding and listening.
libby
i have seen no evidence that any significant portion of the people grasps the concept that if you want rule 'for the people,' you must have rule 'by the people.'
the electorate is willing to remain supplicants to the politicians guild. if you are too dim or too lazy or too ignorant to change the rules, learn to love the outcome, because it's not going to improve.
Thank you for this post; it's important information and it needs to be broadcast.
Dissent and acts of conscience are not "sure" things. But, as with children, learning to say "no" is the cornerstone of identity. We as a collective citizenry to sustain our own spiritual and moral identity (American character seems to be an oxymoron right now) must imho say no to both captured political parties and participate in the messiness and trauma of dissent.
It is a matter of individual conscience to decide when that point has been reached. When oppression is too great, when what one is enabling is just too evil, not to say "no" and take the risk.
Best, libby
(yes, that youtube is The Corporation documentary!)
I’d read about ALEC some months ago. They seemed like a training school cum think tank whose main aim was to construct tricky legislative acts promoting and enabling the usual right wing agenda – restricting abortion, sneaking prayers and religious instruction into school, creationism, curtailing unions’ rights, limiting governments’ ability to act etc. Then they’d feed these pieces to legislators, sometimes via lobbyists. And if they shotgun enough bills around the country, some will slip through.
As for the TP/Repubs, I’m often stumped. I’ve no doubt there are plenty of true believers. It seems condescending to hold that they are just staggeringly ignorant of how a modern society works, how other countries manage similar issues, and how a low-tax (they don’t even believe this!) government that spends disproportionately on its military, its prisons and a worse than useless drug prohibition is in no shape to provide a decent range of services that so many other countries enjoy.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the dupes from the spinners.
I thought that with the little time I might have left on this earth, true for any of us, I would dedicate myself to the arts, in all kinds of ways. But I was wrong because reading this article I see we must unite and find some way of hearing you and then doing something about this giantic scary greedy mess. But we don't really have many options, do we?
Would voting for Howard Dean change anything? Only if he won and the powers that be have already disallowed that. I wish Obama would not run again, and have someone better in the WH. However, that doesn't address all most of what you put forth. Because any President has energy fields, sociopathic seems a good word, surrounding him or her. So, I confess I despair. I would love to hear more about how we can get people into the streets again.
The problem with that isn't only that once there is high unemployment along with the ongoing corruption, makes everyone more depressed and depression (economic and psychological) is the opposite of activism.
So I think Open Salon with articles like yours and others also, needs to be a breeding ground of some seriously radical ideas. But we are not there by any means. The late Tony Judt wrote "Ill Fares the Land" and he has some very intellectual ideas, but we the people are surely not in general: educated enough to even read him or you or others.
So, to make this personal, I got my passport updated, you have to do so 6 months before the actual expiration date, and I have been longing to find another kind of place to live. This is a cop out and close to my apolitical choice of the last years.
But there must be better places to live, smaller, cheaper, kinder. This is one mean world here, lonely and narcissism rule in direct proportion to the hopelessness and fear many of us feel when reading you or others, Chomsky or the like. It's gotten so obviously bad that I don't know anyone who has the heart, as once we all did, to protest to go for change even at personal sacrifice. In the 60's things were easy to reject and reform and protest. This is another world, and one I cannot imagine as getting better not for a very long time, possibly never. I fear for our kids and grandkids and I think many are thinking of where to move that will feel less hopeless. My heart breaks knowing that we are at the hands, or in the mouths of these crazies. And like others I see injustices not just at the top but on the bottom that are not going away anytime soon. Sorry for going on so long when I have said nothing everyone here does not already know. I just feel a huge despair about this country. And I have become escapist, literally and mentally. Too fucking painful.
Despite my personal stance, I hope you keep on thinking through what we are up against and who and how to do something positive. I have been sorely tempted to risk my life on a boat to help the Gazans. Irony is that here I have no fantasies of how to risk anything which I would gladly do, to create change. This place is worse than Israel, because it's so huge and with so much huge greed and etc. WO
I've sometimes had similar thoughts about corporations; your phrase “legal sociopaths” is really striking. It's a good way of summarizing the problem. Corporations are sometimes described as being just a lot of people organized together, but there's a significant imbalance in power. For example, the idea of limited liability has always troubled me. It sounds fine from an economic standpoint. From a legal and political standpoint, though, I think it can produce serious distortions in good decision making, because if bad things happen (oil spills, mining accidents, etc.) it can be very difficult to assign responsibility so that they don't happen again.
http://www.change.org/petitions/expose-and-abolish-the-american-legislative-exchange-council-alec