Restoring the American Dream - Part I

           CITIZENS IN ACTION CAN DEFEAT GOVERNMENT INACTION

“I remain just one thing, and one thing only – and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.” – Charlie Chaplin

The “Occupy” Movement. This movement has been active since September 17, 2011 . It was formed to bring attention to the fact that there are strong financial ties and mutual support between Wall Street and Congress that have contributed to some gross inequality, inequity, and iniquity. They drew attention to their cause by establishing encampments in cities across the country. Support comes not just from New York, but from all over the country and all over the globe. These are the cries of the weak, the needy, the down-trodden, the unfortunate, the disenfranchised, and of people of principle who unite with them in their struggle, not just for equality, but for survival.

“If you ask the government for permission to protest it, you deserve to be told no." – Jim Lesczynski, Manhattan Libertarian Party Chair

The Grievances. There are massive numbers of problems that beset our country and it people today, The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City by the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators outlined 21 major grievances, and even then noted that the list was not all-inclusive. With a little more thought, that list could easily have numbered 100 or more.

"Our tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past, while we silence the rebels of the present." – Henry Steele Commager

"During the last bubble (from 2002 to 2006) the top 1% of Americans -- paid mainly from the Wall Street casino -- received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90% -- mainly dependent on Main Street's shrinking economy -- got only 12%. This growing wealth gap is not the market's fault. It's the decaying fruit of bad economic policy … “My G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy. " – David Stockman, (former Director of Ronald Reagan's Office of Management and Budget)

The Over-Riding Point. The most important sentence in this Occupy Wall Street document sums up all the frustration and suffering that the people of our country have been forced to endure. It states,

“No true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic interests. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments.” – Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

Four key words in this statement are “corporations ... run our governments.” This is especially true at the federal and state levels. The bottom line is: All of the other issues spring from this one root problem.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

Big Money Drives Politics. Politicians need huge amounts of money to campaign for public office. Corporations (and the financial elite) need strong support in our legislative branches to ensure that their wealth will be protected and will continue to grow. The money brokers thereby become power brokers, helping to finance the campaigns of candidates who will protect the power elite's interests in return.

"A relatively small number of deep-pocketed donors exerted an outsize influence on Tuesday's [election] results," – Michael Luo/Griff Palmer, New York Times (11/3/10). "The big corporations are going to try to get what they paid for. – Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President, New York Times (11/3/10).

Money can't buy you love . . . but it can frequently buy you an elective office. Typically, in federal elections the candidate that raises the most money wins about 90 percent of the time. Most of this money comes from wealthy donors who expect something in return. And, whenever politicians accept huge monetary donations from deep-pocket sources, they are likely to feel indebted to do something for them in return, to ensure that those same sources will contribute again in future elections. Because money plays an undue role in how politicians are elected, it also plays an undue role in how they act. Even Glenn Beck agrees.

“Wall Street owns our government. Our government and these gigantic corporations have merged.” – Glenn Beck, New York Times (9/19/09)

How Many Millionaires Does It Take to Take Control of the Politics of a Whole State? In the October 10, 2011 issue of The New Yorker, Jane Mayer reported how one conservative millionaire did exactly that. In North Carolina, a swing state that is expected to be important in the 2012 elections, one millionaire bankrolled the campaigns of 22 conservative candidates for the state legislature. Eighteen of them were successful, giving majority status to the Republicans in both houses of the state legislature for the first time since 1870.

“For an individual to have so much power is frightening. The government of North Carolina is for sale.” – Chris Heagarty, Democratic candidate for the North Carolina legislature in the New York Times (10/10/11)

Money talks, and politicians listen . . . and they respond in kind to the benefit of corporations and the wealthy.. Was it just a coincidence that three of the five top corporate donors to the candidacy of Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008 (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Citigroup Inc.) were all among the top ten financial firms to be bailed out, to the tune of $80 billion? That amount of money could have provided from $25,000 to $50,000 for 1.6 million to 3.2 million homeowners to escape foreclosure and potential family ruin. The big three donors were seen as being “too big to fail,” but 1.6 million to 3.2 million homeowners, individually or collectively, were apparently not “too big to fail.” Let's face it. Big money owns Big Business, and Big Business owns the government (at both the federal and state levels).

If you are a major contributor and go to Washington, you might have a chance to have lunch with a senator or representative; or if you are a really big contributor, you might even end up at the White House. The closest chance you or I have at having lunch at the White House is buying a hot dog from the vendor on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the building. – Marc A Triebwasser, How Corporations Influence the Government (1998 )

Congress Members' Loyalties Once elected, members of Congress frequently ignore the people whom they are elected to represent. Their first priority is to get reelected. Their second allegiance is to their political parties. Third comes their financial backers. Then come their supporters – the people who voted for them, followed as a distant fifth the people in their district who did not vote for them,. And, dead last, come the needs and welfare of our country and all of its people.

A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation. — James Freeman Clarke (1810–1888), Unitarian clergyman, writer

So, when Congress members say that they are going to consult with their constituencies, it isn't necessarily the people in their representational district to whom they are referring. They are just as likely to be conferring with their financial backers and lobbyists. When they do meet with their true constituency, it is just as likely that they will be trying to convince them on his or her stand of an issue rather than soliciting their input on the subject. A Congress member's constituency should be all of the people in the country. Next, it is supposed to be the voters or residents in a district represented by an elective officer. However, it doesn't always turn out that way. Here is a more realistic way of how many Congress members view their constituencies

Wall Street's Views of the OWS Protest. With regard to the Occupy Wall Street movement, one Wall Street money manager recently expressed disappointment that their New York Congress members had not “come out swinging for an industry that donates heavily to their campaigns.” He stated, “They need to understand who their constituency is.” He is saying, in effect, “To hell with the people; we are the ones they really represent.” Unfortunately, there is a great deal of truth to that premise.

"We've got government to the highest bidder. We've got auction block democracy. It's not true that each voter counts for one and only one; that's the way it's supposed to be in a democracy. Money determines who gets to run for office, how people run for office, it determines what people do while in office and the fact of the matter is the vast majority of people are cut out of the loop." – Senator Paul Wellstone (1992)

Continue to Part II

Political Duopoly: Working Partner of the Plutocrats

Definition Of Duopoly.  The American Heritage Dictionary defines a "duopoly" as: "An economic or political condition in which power is concentrated in two persons or groups." (source: http://www.dictionary.com/duopoly)
             
The Problem With Duopolies.  The people who are dependent on a duopoly for necessary goods or services are only slightly better than those subject to a monopoly,  Because the two entities that comprise the duopoly are the only providers, they jointly control all aspects of research, development, production, marketing, pricing, and delivery of their products and services.  In so doing, they exercise an inordinate amount of power and control over their customers, and their customers have little or not control over them.
 
Our Political Duopoly.  The same problem described above also applies to our political system.  We have a  political duopoly.  The Republicans and Democrats dominate American politics, and minority voices are usually either drowned out, forced out, or made irrelevant. Our elected officials in Washington are supposed to represent their country first, and then the citizens in the areas they represent (regardless of political affiliation).  However, they appear to represent their own personal interests first (doing whatever they think will get them re-elected), their party's bidding second, and their financial backers third. If they listen to the "people back home," it is usually only to those of their own political persuasion, because, after all, they are the ones who are most likely to vote for them again.

Lack of Accountability.  Members of the federal government cannot be recalled by the people. Therefore, elected officials are pretty much free to do whatever they want between elections, and many do not feel that they need to be accountable to the people they were elected to represent. This works to the detriment of a democracy, even a democratic republic.
    
Presidential Debates.  This are a prime example of an area in which the duopoly dominates.  These debates are administered and controlled by a non-profit organization founded by the duopoly.  They set the rules, and the rules essentially exclude any participants other than Democrats and Republicans.  Ross Perot was allowed to participate in the debates in 1992, and viewership was the highest for any presidential debate at almost 70 million viewers.  However, he was excluded in later years, thereby losing major exposure to the voting public and all but killing his chances for success.a plutocracy governed by a duopoly.

By excluding third-party candidates from the debates, the duopoly is able to deprive the American voter of exposure to the positions and issues of the third-party candidates, and the duopoly is, to a great extent, able to direct the outcome of the elections to one of the members of the duopoly.
   
Political Appointments.  A particular danger with our political duopoly lies in the fact that the president makes appointments to the Supreme Court.  While such appointees are supposed to be non-partisan, they almost never are, and both the president who nominates them and the Senate who approves them tend to do so purely along their party's ideological lines.  Inasmuch as these are lifetime appointments, they can have very long-lasting effects -- for good or for bad.
   
Congressional Deadlock.  Another negative effect of our particular duopoly is that it can become highly polarize and rigid along party lines, and the two parties can get locked in disputes that do not serve their constituencies or their country well.  This can drastically slow down the legislative process to the detriment of our country and has resulted in a government shutdown in 1996 and threats of a shutdown and a financial default in 2011.  The people are powerless in these sorts of situations.  They can write to their Congressional representatives, but they seem to get ignored unless they agree with what their representatives wanted to do in the first place.
   
Coming Up:

	Plutocracy to Plutonomy: From Bad to Worse!
	Campaign Funding's Impact On Democracy
	Money Talks, And Politicians Listen!
	U.S. Congress: Bought And Paid For

We Must Drive Big Money Out of Politics!

Fundamental Reasons Why We Must Do This To Save Our Democracy.

Words of Wisdom From Two Great Republican Presidents

Introduction. The thoughts expressed herein are a reflection of my personal interests and beliefs. They are the reason for this blog. We have a great country, but it is not as great a country as our forefathers envisioned. The problems that beset us today are not new. We have faced them and conquered them before. We must once again regain our democracy or forfeit it forever.

Popular Government Must Triumph. "Our country -- this great Republic – means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him."

Promises Without Action Are Empty.  “… words count for nothing except in so far as they represent acts. This is true everywhere; but, it should be truest of all in political life. A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics. No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life."

“In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will."

Duty of Humankind.  Theodore Roosevelt referred to Abraham Lincoln as “the man to whom we owe (the) most,” and cited a couple passages from The Great Emancipator:

"I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind."

Labor Is Superior To Capital.  And again:

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

Special Interests Are Entitled To Justice ...”Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. That is one of our tasks today."

… But Not To Political Power.  “... every special interest is entitled to justice, but not … to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation.”

The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being.”

Control of Corporate Political Activity. “There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done”.

“It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.”

Corporate Accountability. “I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors, of corporations should be held personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law.”

Duty of Congress. “The duty of Congress is to provide a method by which the interest of the whole people shall be all that receives consideration."

Change Is Needed. “The prime need to is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise.”

“We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.”

Government Intervention Required. “This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.

The Path To Ruin. “Those who oppose reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism.”

Government Responsiveness To The People. “If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the political domination of money in any part of our affairs. We need to make our political representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive to the people whose servants they are. More direct action by the people in their own affairs under proper safeguards is vitally necessary.”

Removal of Non-Responsive Representatives. “I believe that the prompt removal of unfaithful or incompetent public servants should be made easy and sure in whatever way experience shall show to be most expedient in any given class of cases.”

Government Should Serve People, Not Special Interests.  “One of the fundamental necessities in a representative government such as ours is to make certain that the men to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom they are elected, and not the special interests.”

The Bottom Line.  “The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so long as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens.”

The Moment Of Truth.  Although I agree with and embrace all the statements made above, I cannot claim authorship of any one of them, Although we are at a time in history when these statements and observations are extremely appropriate, they weren't made in recent times, but they were made to address the same type of situation such as we now have. The people who made them were both Republicans who saw the same kinds of problems for our country that beset us again today. The bulk of the comments were made by Theodore Roosevelt, with a couple of additional comments from Abraham Lincoln. These are all extracted from a speech that Roosevelt delivered approximately 100 years ago. His message is just as pertinent today as it was back then. The full text of his speech can be found at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=501.

It Is Time To Reclaim Our Democracy.  The past has repeated itself inasmuch as big financial interests (private, corporate, and political) have once again wrested our democracy away from the people and usurped it for their own gains. Can we also repeat the past and rid ourselves of their stranglehold, thereby restoring democracy to its rightful place with the people of America? Our country's fate is in our hands.

Coming Next:  First, Let's Define Democracy.