June 9, 2012 |
Leave it to Bill Moyers, one of America's most useful citizens, to sum up our country's present political plight in a
succinct metaphor:
"Our elections have replaced horse racing as the sport of kings. These
kings are multibillionaire, corporate moguls who by divine right--not of
God, but [of the Supreme Court's] Citizens United decision--are now
buying politicians like so much pricey horseflesh."
Pricey, indeed. In its disgraceful, democracy-crushing
judicial edict of January 2010,
the Court took the big advantage that America's corporate elite already
had in politics--and super-sized it. This is the first presidential
election to be run under the rigged rules invented by the Court's
five-man corporatist majority, and even though voting day is months
away, we can already see the results of the thuggish power they bestowed
on the moneyed few.
In this year's Republican nominating contests, a new,
supremely-authorized critter not only arose, but instantly became the
dominant force in the game, allowing a handful of extremely wealthy
players to shove their selfish agenda ahead of all other interests in
the election process:
SuperPACs!
These are secretive money funnels that various political partisans have
set up to take advantage of the Court's implausible finding that the
Constitution allows corporations and super-rich individuals to put
unlimited sums of money into "independent" campaigns to elect or defeat
whomever they choose. (I should note that the justices' ruling was a
model of fairness in that it also allows poor people to put unlimited
amounts of their money into SuperPACs.)
These new entities amassed and spent vastly more than the campaigns of
the actual candidates. Nearly all of this SuperPAC cash was used to
flood the airwaves with biblical levels of nauseatingly negative attack
ads, further debasing our nation's democratic process. Thanks for that,
Supremes.
The Court's surreal rationale for allowing this special-interest
distortion of elections was that SuperPACs would be entirely independent
from the candidates they back. In his Citizens United opinion, Justice
Anthony Kennedy blithely wrote: "We now conclude that independent
expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to
corruption or the appearance of corruption."
Wow, if ignorance is bliss, he must be ecstatic! Not only are SuperPACs
and candidates tighter than the bark on a tree, but allowing unlimited
special-interest money into campaigns is inherently corrupting.
Of course, these justices knew what they were doing: enthroning the
wealthiest Americans, not merely to reign supreme over the political
process, but also to control government. In a nation of 313 million
people and an electorate of 217 million, fewer than a hundred
über-wealthy individuals and corporations (a tiny fraction of a fraction
of even the 1 percent) shaped the GOP presidential debate and
nomination to their personal benefit.
While the conventional media dwelled on such sideshows as the snarling
nastiness among some of the candidates and whether or not Romney could
get any love from the GOP's hard-right, Bible-pounding, social-issues
faction--the million-dollar-plus givers to the SuperPACs were having
one-on-one conversations with each candidate "in quiet rooms" (as Mitt
Romney so-genteelly
put it).
There, they flexed their enormous money muscle to make certain that the
core Republican agenda would be their own, squarely-focused on the
narrow economic, financial, environ- mental, governmental, and
international interests of the 0.01 percent.
As of May 4, this corporate clique had poured an unprecedented
$94 million into the SuperPACs of
the leading five GOP contenders (with $52 million of that going to
Renew Our Future, Romney's money funnel). This firepower was all the
more potent because it was targeted at only the few thousand voters in
each state who participated in the caucuses and primaries. And it bought
just what the moneybags wanted--the lockstep commitment by all
contenders that--no matter how they might differ on abortion,
gay-bashing, and such--they would govern according to the Holy Kochian
vision of a regulation-free, union-free, tax-free America. Thus, no
matter which horse any of the multimillionaires and billionaires bet on,
they would cash-in as winners, for this tiny group now owns one of
America's two major parties (and, yes, often rents the other).
The result is a suicidal diversion of our country's political process
from addressing the urgent needs of the majority (and of the country
itself). Instead, the presidential and congressional debate has wandered
down the rabbit hole into the Mad Hatter's tea party, where the number
one political priority is to protect and extend the wealth and power of
the privileged class! There's an old-time word for this:
plutocracy.
Throughout our nation's history, that word has been an expletive, an
anti-democratic abomination. Astonishingly, however, it's back with a
vengeance. We see in Congress, in numerous state governments, in the
media establishment, in corporate-funded academia, and now in the race
for president an all-out push to ennoble rank plutocrats as "job
creators," to emasculate the people's authority to control the
narcissism of the rich, and to make American citizens swallow the lie
that corporations are "people" with a constitutional right to purchase
our democracy.
SuperPACs are only Wave One of the financial tsunami sweeping over America's politics this year. Wave Two, also authorized by
Citizens United,
will be even larger, for it allows Fortune 500 giants to siphon as much
money as they want directly out of their corporate vaults and pour it
into campaigns--while keeping the sources of the money secret from
voters. These totally secret, corporate political funds are laundered
through outfits organized under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code as (
WARNING: The following fact is so stupefying that it can cause temporary insanity in sensible people)
non-profit "social welfare organizations" engaged in charitable work!
Never mind that the welfare of the plutocracy is the cause being served
by this perverse philanthropy.
At present, the largest of these is
Crossroads GPS,
created by the noted political altruist and GOP hatchet man Karl Rove.
It alone expects to raise $240 million from undisclosed corporate
interests and spend nearly all of it on venomous attack ads to defeat
Barack Obama this fall. You'd need more than a GPS to find all the
sources of Crossroads' cash, but it's known that nearly 90 percent of
the $77 million it raised in the last six months of 2011 came from a
couple of dozen donors chipping in from $1 million to $10 million each.
Name that plutocrat!
If they're trying to purchase our elections, shouldn't we at least know who they are? At your service! In this issue of the
Lowdown,
we'll focus on the check writers fueling the SuperPACs, giving you a
snapshot of the biggest of these heavy hitters, including indi-cations
of what they want for their generosity. Let's start with the
"Super-Duper Seven." Of the $94 million amassed by SuperPACs backing the
major GOP wannabes (Romney, Santorum, Paul, Gingrich, and Perry),
nearly half came from these seven men:
Sheldon Adelson, $21.5 million. "I'm
against very wealthy people attempting to influence elections," Adelson
asserted in Forbes magazine in February, "But as long as it's doable,
I'm going to do it." Nice code of ethics there: It's wrong, but count me
in. One of the 10 richest billionaires in our country, this 78-year-old
longtime funder of Republicans and the ultra-right literally built his
fortune on gaming the system. He now reigns over the Las Vegas Sands
Corporation that runs luxury casinos in the US and China's special
administrative region, Macau.
By the grace of
Citizens United, America has Adelson to thank
for Newt Gingrich's preposterous presidential run this year, for he
single-handedly kept the insufferable blowhard in the race by dumping a
stunning $21.5 million into Gingrich's Winning Our Future SuperPAC. He
said he was willing to put down $100 million on the Newt to win the
nomination, but alas, the candidate was so pompous and unpleasant that
few people besides Sheldon found him appealing.
It's not that Adelson was in a swoon over Gingrich --rather, he knows
from experience that the former Speaker would do some heavy lifting for
him if he won. In the mid-1990s, Gingrich went to Nevada to support the
casino boss in a fight to weaken unions, and he later helped move a bill
in Washington that was beneficial to gaming moguls. He also became an
ardent advocate of Adelson's rabid right-wing embrace of Israel's most
fanatical nationalistic factions. In turn, Adelson has been a reliable
donor over the years to various branches of Dr. Newt's Snake Oil
Emporium. He is quite fluent in quid pro quo, and he certainly could use
a trusted consigliere in the White House these days, for his gaming
conglomerate is under scrutiny by two federal agencies over accusations
that it bribed its way into China.
Newt's gone, but Adelson is not. He's expected to appear on Romney's
list of super-givers, and he suggests that next he will funnel untold
sums of money into an anti-Obama "(c)(4)," such as Rove's Crossroads
GPS.
Harold Simmons, $5.2 million. An
80-year-old multi-billionaire based in Dallas, this hardcore rightist
is both a corporate buccaneer and political profiteer, often combining
the two to line his own pockets. A sterling example of this was his
investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars in Rick Perry's
gubernatorial runs. Then, with a grateful governor in power, one of
Simmons' corporate entities, Waste Control Specialists, applied in 2004
for the permit to build and run the state-authorized nuclear waste dump.
After studies and hearings, however, scientists at the state
environmental agency nixed WCS's West Texas site, for it endangered the
invaluable Ogallala freshwater aquifer. Out of the blue, though, the
agency's executive director (appointed by Perry) nixed the scientific
nix, formally recommending to the agency's commissioners (appointed by
Perry) that they approve the WCS application for the license, which they
did. The director has since resigned his state position to become a
lobbyist--for WCS.
Simmons was all over the GOP primary contests this year, betting on
various candidates as one after another surged in the polls. He put a
million bucks behind Perry, $1.1 million behind Gingrich, $1.2 million
behind Santorum, and presently has $800,000 on Romney. But his favorite
role is political assassin-- he bankrolled the Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth's untruthful ambush of John Kerry's campaign in 2004, and he was
the sole funder of a nasty PR attempt in 2008 to tie Obama to a former
radical from the 1960s. "If we had run more ads," Simmons later
bemoaned to the
Wall Street Journal, "we could have killed Obama."
He's trying harder this year, having already put $12 million into a
Karl Rove SuperPAC that's presently softening up Obama with a series of
early attack ads.
Bob Perry, $4.1 million. Even
though they're unrelated, this 79-year-old Houston homebuilding tycoon
is nonetheless Gov. Rick's "daddy," having fathered his gubernatorial
career with a big infusion of money and nurtured it with more cash over
the years than anyone. And when daddy calls, Rick jumps. For instance,
after Texas homeowners began filing mold-related lawsuits against Perry
Homes and other builders in 2003, the furious billionaire got his boy to
pass a law that shunted aggrieved consumers away from the courts into a
new regulatory agency called the Residential Construction Commission.
This body was such an industry-controlled sham that it even embarrassed
the Texas legislature, which dismantled it in 2009.
In the current campaign, Perry dropped a token $100,000 into Rick's
2012 presidential flop, before putting $4 million into Romney's
SuperPAC. In addition, Perry has been a longtime deep pocket for Karl
Rove's right-wing rampages and other extremist political ventures,
including being top donor to the 2004 "Swift Boat" ad blitz and--no
surprise--then giving $500,000 to Wisconsin's autocratic, anti-worker
governor, Scott Walker. Rove's Obama-bashing SuperPAC has already banked
$2.5 million from Perry for this year's election mischief and will
likely be blessed with much more.
Next comes a covey of four SuperPAC donors of at least $2 million each:
Peter Thiel, a
one-time Wall Street derivatives trader who later founded and was CEO
of PayPal Inc., as well as being an early investor in Facebook. This
internet billionaire has long been involved in anti-government
ideological groups, including such Koch-funded operations as the
Federalist Society and the Pacific Research Institute. He has become the
best pay pal by far of Ron Paul's Endorse Liberty SuperPAC, filling it
with $2.7 million.
William Doré, chieftain
of Doré Energy, his eponymous oil & gas corporation based in
Louisiana. A newcomer to the big-game safari of national politics, the
69-year-old near-billionaire got turned on by Rick Santorum's
religio-politico crusade, putting $2.25 million into the donation plate
of his Red White and BlueSuperPAC.
Foster Friess, a
multimillionaire stock speculator (Brandywine Fund) who moved to
Wyoming because of its regulatory leniency and tax-friendliness to the
wealthy. This vain and boorish 71-year-old has been a major donor to
Christian, Republican, and radical right causes (including at least a
million bucks to Koch fronts and campaigns), and he helped fuel
Santorum's SuperPAC with $2.25 million this year.
Steven Lund, the
former president of Nu-Skin, a Utah-based vitamin-supplement-ointment
direct marketer that has a history of legal problems over accusations
that it is a pyramid scheme. He turns out to be the secret source of
two, separate million-dollar donations to Romney's SuperPAC, one listed
as coming from "F8 LLC" and the other from "Eli Publishing." While both
"companies" reported that their business address was "Suite #420" in a
Provo office building, there is no such suite, nor do the companies
exist. Lund says he used the fake storefronts because he didn't want to
draw attention to himself.
Thanks a million!
Of course, in our Brave New SuperPAC Democracy, you don't have to give
two-to-20 million dollars to be considered a valuable citizen--as little
as $1 million can buy you some influence in your government!
One group that is buying heavily into Romney's Restore Our Future
SuperPAC is a band of citizens that feels the government is inattentive
to their needs: Wall Street bankers. Hedge fund billionaire Kenneth
Griffin issued the group's poignant
cry for justice:
"I think [the wealthy] actually have insufficient influence [in
Washington]. Those who have enjoyed the benefits of our system [must]
protect the system."
Accordingly, this patriot of plutocracy has put just over a million
into Romney's fund and another million into Rove's SuperPAC.
These one-percenters understand that Restore Our Future is a
code--meaning their future--not yours and mine--and the SuperPACs'
biggest source of cash is from the high-rollers of high finance. Mitt
is, after all, one of them, and he has taken a blue-blood oath to
"protect the system" of rigged rules, lax regulation, and extraordinary
tax breaks that create their wealth.
This is what it means to let unlimited special-interest money gush into
American politics--it dethrones democratic rule, corrupts government,
increases both wealth disparity and social injustice, and destroys
essential public trust in our society's commitment to fairness.
SuperPACs are but one of the pipelines allowing corporate money to drown
America's historic ideal of egalitarian self-government. The secret
(c)(4) corporate "charities," the corporate "bundlers" who collect
billions for the candidates' campaigns, the myriad fundraising
committees run by both political parties, the sham "foundations" that
permit corporate favor-seekers to make tax-deductible donations to
elected officials--these and all other channels of private purchase must
be capped if America is ever to have a government of, by, and for the
people.
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the new book, "
Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow." (Wiley, March 2008) He publishes the monthly "
Hightower Lowdown," co-edited by Phillip Frazer.
No comments:
Post a Comment