Finally, I’ve discovered a prominent media spokesperson who has the guts to acknowledge that America is faced with a dangerous problem based on mathematical facts, a problem that is fueled by systemic financial industry corruption that thoroughly permeates both major political parties. He argues, loudly, that the first step to deal with this danger is for the President of the United States to take to the bully pulpit and to clearly acknowledge our problem rather than suggesting that the debate is between cutting $2 trillion or $4 trillion, both of which are merely kicking the can a few feet down the road (to 2017).
I literally stood up to applauded to my computer monitor after hearing Dylan Ratigan cut through the bullshit and nail this critical issue.
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Finally, someone is out there forcefully saying what needs to be said, with the right idea for a first step. Obama could make up for many of his previous sins if he dared to throw the Hail Mary pass Dylan Ratigan suggests. He needs to tell himself “screw 2017,” and begin a campaign based on getting into the faces of all politicians, Democrats and Republicans. He should shout from the highest pulpit to root out electoral/banking/trade/taxation/media corruption and he shouldn’t stop talking about this issue of monied political corruption, because there will not be any meaningful debate on any other issue until we dare to admit that private money in politics has completely perverted the political process. As Ratigan states, we shouldn’t be talking about $2 or $4 trillion. At least nine trillion, (and see here) and arguably dozens of trillions, as much as $70 trillion, are being siphoned out of the system thanks to the complicity of powerful people and entities that couldn’t care less about the future of the United States.
During his speeches, Obama should hold up traditional grade school civics textbooks and and then set them on fire because they are full of lies. They do not describe how the system works. Not even closely. The predominant political truth is that Congress is bought and paid for by big monied companies that currently control all three branches of government. Consequently, there are two Americas, and you are not part of the America that pulls any meaningful strings. Your vote is severely limited to support only members of the club of which you are not a member. Skip writing emails to your representatives, because those emails just annoy them. They are trying to work in a whirlwind of D.C. money that turns them into functional psychopaths. Good luck getting any federal agency to pay any attention to the needs of ordinary Americans, whether it be the FCC, the FDA or the SEC. The politicians who treasure the somewhat elevated stature of their jobs know deep down that they need to keep voting to further powerful corporations or else they will be swiftly boated from their jobs. We are in the era of Citizens United, where yes, you have a vote, but your choices have both been pre-ordained, pre-approved.
I wish I didn’t believe the things I’ve just written, but I’ve seen far too much evidence establishing that this country is not run by you and me, despite the popular rhetoric to the contrary. Let’s take that first step to force our politicians, especially the President, to admit that we absolutely need to discuss and deal with systemic corruption caused by private money drenching politics. Until then, everything we hear is merely a bunch of hot air dressed up to sound like meaningful conversation.
Sometimes it takes a funny man to speak the truth directly. George Carlin sounded warnings repeatedly while he was alive. E.g., see the video excerpt here: http://dangerousintersection.org/2011/06/06/still-laughing-with-george-carlin/ and see here: http://dangerousintersection.org/2011/08/06/channeling-george-carlin-in-these-difficult-times/
I hope we are now to the point where people who are not trying to be funny can become comfortable speaking these difficult truths just as Dylan Ratigan did on the above video.
I’m not calmed down yet . . . So how can it take endless intense debate when Congress is arguing whether the budget slicing should be 2 versus 4 trillion over 10 years, but when Wall Street claimed in 2008 that the sky was falling down, it was quickly handed as much as $70 trillion in front-door and back-door TARP to “save” an economy that is now, according to most knowledgeable observers, already, once again, fragile? What were we “saving” back in 2008? And notice how the public has not been at the table on either occasion; we weren’t part of the debate about what would be spent or cut. In 2008, it turns out that the United States was saving such needy entities as the National Bank of Libya and other insane causes that would NEVER have passed public scrutiny. This “saving” of the economy is a sick joke that frightens the public and fattens wallets of people who are undeserving. It’s a ploy that works so well, we’ll see it again and again.
It’s time for Barack Obama to blow the whistle, stop the game and admit that on the national level, “democracy” has become a sham and a fraud.
At Common Dreams, Michael Lewis sees the need for revolution:
“We cannot solve the problem of corrupt government by appealing to the corrupt government. Jefferson was fond of the concept of public dissent and rebellion: “Every generation needs a new revolution.”
. . .
The challenge at present is to penetrate the fog of lies and mindless distractions of popular culture sufficiently to foster such a revolution. The solution is simple: we tell the truth. The Orwellian bumper sticker tells us: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” Whenever we encounter a lie, we respond with the truth. From local neighborhoods to the White House, in the coffee shop or City Council chambers, we never let a lie pass unchallenged. This accomplishes two goals: we raise the consciousness of all within reach, and we challenge those who lie to us and expect to get away with it.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/08-3
To speak the truth effectively, one can start one-on-one, in cafes and street corners. Ultimately, though, one needs a megaphone, which is why media reform (including net neutrality and combating media consolidation) is a critical issue in this new revolution. For much more on media reform, see the website of Free Press. http://www.freepress.net/
If you never let a lie go unchallenged, what do you think about Geitner’s latest? It was always possible that we could have our credit rating lowered. The guy has no grasp of anything other than the policies of the Obama Administration. Just as he also had no grasp of how to pay his own taxes.
Dylan Ratigan has really impressed me over the past few years as being an “insider” who’s willing to say what needs to be said. He’s a Wall Street guy, and has a thorough understanding of the culture and the technical means by which the wealth of the U.S. population is being “extracted” (to use his apt description) by a malevolent and bipartisan plutocracy.
Anyone want to offer odds on Obama actually rising to the occasion? I’m personally not optimistic.
I’ve watched public sentiment on these issues closely since the bailouts began in fall of 2008. More and more people are becoming aware of the inescapable fact that things for the average person are getting worse all the time, while the wealthy are doing just fine, and getting even richer, in fact. Budding movements are springing up to demand rectification of this unsustainable situation. For example, one group is calling for an occupation of Wall Street, explicitly citing the example of the Arab spring:
Even if people aren’t able to articulate exactly what’s wrong, most people seem to feel it. Only 17% of the public says the federal government has the consent of the governed, which is a new low. Think about that for a moment– less than 1 in 5 Americans believe in the legitimacy of the federal government. This is not just a tea-party phenomenon, this is a broad-based realization that things are fundamentally wrong.
The amazing protests this year have swept the Arab world, as well as Greece, Spain, and now the U.K. While some dismiss the riots in the U.K. as pure mindless criminality, more thoughtful voices have suggested that perhaps Britain’s austerity measures (coming soon to the USA) and the levels of inequality may have played their roles as well. (If you’re curious, levels of inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient are much lower in the UK than they are in the US, see here also).
Can our politicians recognize that the tide is turning?
I’ve got to be careful how I phrase this, but aren’t these the sorts of conditions, stated in the Declaration of Independence, that justified a revolution in 1776?
Erich- I think one could certainly make a case for that point of view. During the (first?) American Revolution, some 40-45% of Americans were providing support for the revolution. About 15-20% were Loyalists. Consider that our federal government now enjoys a similar level of support among the populace as the King of England did at the time of the American Revolution.
Listen to Jack Balkin, professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale, describe the situation that birthed the Revolution:
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Wow, does that sound familiar?
“Extraction” is exactly the word. Recall I wrote about this process back in April— http://dangerousintersection.org/2011/04/27/the-free-market-problem/ — but perhaps was a bit too arcane.
Here is the philosophical problem: Americans believe everyone should be free to do what they want with their money, a principle which on the ground is sound. We have difficulty grasping the difference between someone who is very rich and some who is middle class when it comes to this—fair for one, fair for all. Grasping that difference is essential to this problem and until we realize that this is systemic and has nothing to do with individuals trying to figure out what best to do with their 401K we’re not going to make any headway. To get to that, though, we have to collectively stop regarding Finance as some kind of Natural Law problem.
Without attributing evil to anyone (though there’s plenty of that involved as well) the problem for the moneyed interests is this: it is incumbent upon them in their role (as they see it) as caretakers of investment to make sure the money in their charge is placed in the safest places possible. This means putting it where no outside authority can tell them what to do with their money, which means governments that have parallel but nonsimilar responsibilities. The extraction Ratigan refers to is borne out of that—they are taking the money and moving it out of reach of institutions that seek to tell them what to do with it.
Why is this bad? Well, if you cannot dedicate the maximum amount of your capital as you see fit, it will attract fewer investors, diminishing the longterm desirability of your portfolio. Meaning that if a significant portion of the capital is sequestered by taxes and other public incumbrences, it is not as potentially profitable as other pools of capital which are not.
The United States needs capital returned to infrastructure and institutional maintenance—none of which is at odds with these portfolios, but only if they are selected by the portfolio managers as profit-making investments.
Now that may sound complex, but it goes right back to the first statement. Americans believe no one should tell you what to do with your money.
What the average American is failing to grasp is that this is exactly what these huge transnational pools of capital are doing—telling people what to do with their money. Because people aren’t in control, obviously, of any part of how all that money gets spent and it is costing them through the gradual collapse of the middle class.
Until we get over this idea that capital is sacred, we will continue to deadlock on this issue and continue to get fucked.
Karl: I let many lies go unchallenged. There’s too many lies coming from too many directions to tend to them all. The percentage of statements made by people in positions of corporate and governmental power that are not true (or constitute paltering) are especially staggering. I’d put that percentage at 90% of all official statements. I’m no fan of Geithner, and I’ve made it clear before. He’s helping to lead the charge in the financial destruction of the United States in order to help his corrupt friends on Wall Street. http://dangerousintersection.org/2010/09/14/who-matters-most-to-timothy-geithner/
Dylan Ratigan is aware that he’s struck a chord with this impassioned plea. Today, he continues on his website, asking for us to put aside sham 2-party politics and pull together in a spirit similar to that which unified America around the goal of reaching the moon:
Amen to that addendum by Dylan Ratigan.
I agree that we need a big tent movement that recognizes the cancer that afflicts us – private money in politics. That is the problem, and its symptoms are many, including political corruption, of course, but that corruption leads to such things as big banks writing laws such that make destructive actions legal. This corruption also leads to a tax code that fails to capture contributions of large corporations, thanks to their ability to make their pawn members of Congress re-write the tax code grossly in their favor. This corruption is also destroying what remains of our formerly vigorous media, including the current attacks on net neutrality. This corruption allows industry consolidation to the point where the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile merger would mean there is only ONE player dominating 80% of the wireless market. Where is unified Congressional outrage to that merger? The irony is that having only one meaningful player dominate a field is a hallmark of communism, which terrifies conservatives. Why aren’t they up in arms in modern day America where it is common that one or two health care providers dominate entire regions? And consider that many abusive industries have arranged for their little lapdog, Congress, grant broad preemption. More recently, the U.S. Supreme Court has pulled some wacky reasoning out to rule that arbitrators (many of them smart retired judges) aren’t smart enough to resolve class cases (AT&T v Concepcion).
This is not a conspiracy theory. This is a lot of craziness going on for which there is ample evidence and a clear explanation. There is no better evidence than the actions of Barack Obama, who is one of the best bought-and-paid-for conservative Presidents America has ever had. He has thrown a few crumbs (and many rhetorical crumbs) to progressives, but when it comes down to it, the actions he has taken (other than stem cells and birth control) are thoroughly Republican. The insurance companies, phone companies, the military-industrial complex, the spying/torturing/govt secrecy contingent and the banks of America have never had a better friend. How could it be that a man who sang such beautiful progressive songs for his entire campaign could vote contrary to virtually all of those policies? It’s the corrupting power of money. Many a person has trashed high ideals for money (in Obama’s case, the money he needs to maintain power).
It’s up to all of us now to declare that we are no longer willing players to the charade called “the election.” We need to vocal 365 days a year, demanding of our politicians that they cannot any longer be trusted to do anything at all while the current corrupting system is in place.
John Nichols of The Nation, discussing the Wisconsin recall elections with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!:
“I think we have to say this was the first Citizens United election, obviously referencing that Supreme Court decision that allowed corporations and very wealthy people to basically do whatever they want in politics. So much money flowed into Wisconsin, and I have to tell you, Amy, I think that may be the biggest message out of Wisconsin from yesterday. That is, that as we look toward 2012, we have to acknowledge that we’re going to see absolutely unprecedented amounts of money coming into our politics, and we’re going to have to ask ourselves a question: do we have a democracy, or do we have a dollar-ocracy? In Wisconsin, in some of these recalls, it was a dollar-ocracy.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/10/wi_recall_marks_labor_win_election
Dylan Ratigan offers some more ideas for what to do next:
So what can you do? Well here are some action items, for starters.
1) Understand our situation, and make sure that your friends and family do as well. Our politicians and bankers play on our ignorance, since they think we won’t know what they are doing. That ends now. Watch our Jobs Wanted series on rigged Trade, Taxes and Banking, and forward it to your friends and family.
2) Use your twitter or Facebook account to be mad as hell. I’ve started the hashtag #ImMadAsHellBecause so people can be mad as hell in their own words. If you don’t know twitter is or what this means, don’t worry! Just go here and read what your fellow citizens are saying: #ImMadAsHellBecause
3) Call Congress and tell them NOT to pass NAFTA-style corporate trade deals with Panama, South Korea, and Colombia. The phone # for Congress is (202) 224-3121. If you are not sure who is your Representative, tell the operator you want to talk to “your House member” and give your zip code. You can find a script on what to say here: Speak Up! Take Action!
Visit the following site and click on the many links:
http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/08/10/americas-mad-as-hell-moment/
Dylan Ratigan follows up with a phone-in conversation on his own show. He focuses on the meaning of “extraction.” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/#VpFlash
Do rich people tend to be different than those who are not rich? This article at Common Dreams suggests they are different, and it’s not a compliment:
“Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich really are different, and not in a good way: Their life experience makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.
An article called “Social Class as Culture: The Convergence of Resources and Rank in the Social Realm,” published this week in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, argues that rich people are more likely to think about themselves. Because the rich gloss over the ways family connections, money and education helped, they come to denigrate the role of government and vigorously oppose taxes to fund it. In fact, he says, the philosophical battle over economics, taxes, debt ceilings and defaults that are now roiling the stock market is partly rooted in an upper class “ideology of self-interest.”
“We have now done 12 separate studies measuring empathy in every way imaginable, social behavior in every way, and some work on compassion and it’s the same story,” he said. “Lower class people just show more empathy, more prosocial behavior, more compassion, no matter how you look at it.””
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/10-7
This is some factual information concerning the recent Wisconsin recall elections.
Outside groups — led by national unions on the Democratic side and limited government groups such as the Wisconsin Club for Growth on the Republican side — have shoveled more than $25 million into the recall effort, with both sides spending about the same amount. The candidates, meanwhile, have raised more than $5 million.
Is there nothing wrong with “public” union money and/or using union employees during their paid hourly time in elections?
Here is the source of the tax revenue that this nation so needs at the moment.
As long as any group that pays its employees to work in lobbying efforts and campaigning during employment hours, or with expense accounts which encourages lobbying “after hours” remains tax exempt this entire mess will never go away. If the government can’t tax any individual or groups “net receipts,” they certainly can’t regulate what any group can do with their money, nor their employees. If they can always bring their annual reports down to a non-profit status or low profit status, the government has just allowed them to spend anything they desire on political activities.
America needs to tax all of the corporations, lobby groups, PAC’s, Unions and even the religiously oriented lobby groups with employees assigned to specific issues and/or elections. They need to be taxed upon their gross receipts, from all sources be they business, dues or contributions. If these groups complain they shouldn’t be allowed any further tax exemptions, until they can verify they are not trying to influence elections. A low percent flat tax (perhaps 2 or 3 percent) on all of the forms of gross proceeds, and a higher 25% tax rate on money earmarked specifically for political interests sould be what the doctor ordered.
Similarly, existing wealthy or popular politicians should have 50 percent of their incomes garnished, and 50 percent of their pensions removed if it is obvious they have flipped on policy issues from what they ran on during their last election cycle. If they believe in the merits of a policy so greatly, they should be willing to find other sources of income other than from what the people thought they elected them to do.
If someone wants to donate a million dollars towards a campaign they should be willing to realize that at least $250,000 is also going towards the cost of running the very government they so desperately want to influence. If individuals and groups knew that a fourth of their donation was going towards the cost of local, state, and federal government perhaps they would be a little more prudent in what they gave towards and who if any of their employees could be paid to work at influencing political policies and elections.
I forgot to add that everytime there is a transfer of dues money, or contribution money to another collective group involved in political activity another 25% should be kept in reserve for the government.
Let’s see at that rate many donations would probably end up only being about 57% effective and various governements from national, state and local could perhaps receive a share of the wealth that the advertising media and other campaigns now get the a majority of.
This would even make it clear foreign “investment” that to give to a candidate means you also are giving to support the governement that the person may or may not hold an elected office in.
Might that make the Saudi’s, Chinese, and various other foreign groups just a little bit anxious and needing to rethink their lobbying efforts?
Lets call it the “taxation if you want to buy representation” revolution.
What if this movement grew until it became incredibly annoying to all politicians? What if every press conference treated this systemic corruption as the number one problem in America? For example, when the President gives a speech about one of his wars, or the debt or jobless benefits, have all the reporters in the room raise their hand with the same question:
“Mr. President: How can we meaningfully discuss ANYTHING AT ALL when the entire political system is corrupted by private money? Please update us as to progress regarding a clean money election system, including Constitutional Amendments declaring that Corporations don’t have any right to participate in the election system, and money is not speech. To focus on any issue other than these is like trying to vacuum the living room while the house is on fire. Therefore, update us as to progress on repairing our democracy so that we can have meaningful dialogue on anything else.
Ah, but the “reporters” are in on the con game. They don’t want to dig into the real issues, or force any meaninful dialogue or change. I see the media as complicit pawns at best, and willful manipulators at worst. They are there to do the bidding of their Owners, and are ever busy at work steering the agenda (and bending the consciousness of the populace) down into whatever alleys the Owners find advantageous.
We are being misled not only on the surface, but at profoundly deep levels.
If the same applied to all manner of contributions (not just private ones) to campaigns of money, “paid employee time,” and lobby expense accounts, even from foreign investors, I think it would be a wise move. You can’t stop people from wanting to put their money into causes that they have an interest in, but you can help prevent them from outright buying their influence over those elected into political office.
How big is the disconnect between the rich people’s bitches (America’s current crop of politicians) and ordinary Americans? Llyse Hogue of The Nation offers some shocking statistics:
“Seventy-two percent of Americans polled between July 14 and July 17 said taxes should be raised on those making more than $250,000 per year, including 73 percent of independents and a stunning 54 percent of Republicans. Fifty-nine percent wanted taxes raised on oil and gas companies, including 60 percent of independents and 55 percent of Republicans. Yet Republican legislators refused to vote for any deal that included revenues, and the Democratic leadership capitulated, even though the GOP’s position was exactly the opposite of what large majorities wanted.”
http://www.thenation.com/article/162672/downgrading-democracy
Because the odds are the Republicans most responsible for this outcome were not elected by Those People. They are speaking for their constituents. And I repeat, the Tea Bag majority currently in congress is there by the vote of only 26% of eligible voters. So 73% of people want taxes raised? Did they vote in the midterms? Hmm. 73 from 100 leaves 27%. Gosh. Sometimes the numbers do make sense. And 54 to 60 percent want taxes raised on oil companies? Only There was only a 40% turn-out at the last election. Let’s see, 40 from 100 is 60%. Hmmmmm.
Erich – Why do statistics such as these continue to shock you? Why does Hogue find these data “stunning”?
Why do so many people still believe we live in a true democracy here in the United States? Is it wishful thinking, quaint nostalgia, or just flat-out delusion? The decisions made on Capitol Hill have absolutely no correlation to the the expressed desires of the majority of citizens. Can’t we all stop pretending? At this stage of the game all this shock and awe and incredulity is getting sort of embarrasing. The evidence of deep corruption within our government has been piling up for decades–it falls at our feet on a daily basis yet we don’t SEE it. Or if we do see it, we don’t really admit it for what it is.
Mike: I think I’ve had an epiphany recently. I didn’t want to believe things were as bad as they are. It took the election of the “Peace President,” the guy who offered “Hope” and “Change” to put me over the top, combined with Citizen’s United and the recent string of legislative “reform” packages coming out of the Capitol. It’s time to change the system, and that can’t be done by simply waltzing in and voting every couple years. We need a national movement to get private money out of politics. It needs to be pursued on an emergency basis. We need a strong and vigorous media to put it this issue on the headlines until it is fixed. That’s not going to be easy.
I do feel a bit naive. I always knew there were problems,
Republicans will likely vote for taxation upon foreign and union money connected to campaigning and lobby efforts. Democrats will likely vote for taxation upon foreign and religiously related money connected to campaigning and lobby efforts. Why not both agree and start by authorizing taxing any campaign contributions above $5,000.00 at a rate of 25%, above $25,000 at a 50% rate, and above 50,000, at a 90 % rate. Put an IRS official as the accountant for any campaign at the statewide and above level and allow them to take 90% off the top of all questionable contributions until it is clear who gave it and why.
If rolling back tax cuts is unacceptable but cutting spending is, I have a suggestion: Cut back on benefits to profitable industries.
Such as:
I’m sure we can scan the budget and find many set-asides for the wealthy that can be cut by popular vote.
Any new tax revenues should be from large campaign contributions, any single individual contributions over $5,0000.00. Secondly any campaign that accepts money that can’t be traced back to an individuals SS# or a corporations Federal ID number should be forced to surrender the funds to the IRS in total.
At Common Dreams, Drew Weston discusses the difficulty one faces when trying to bend the arc of history:
“But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.”