Harry Targ : The REAL Scandal at the IRS

"Can't make 'em see the light? Make 'em feel the heat" -- Hugh Fike, coordinator of the Heritage Society for America's "Sentinel" program.

The IRS 'scandal' is not
what opportunists claim it is

If the Internal Revenue Service is to be criticized, the attacks should be leveled at the government’s inadequate scrutiny of political lobbying groups who are granted tax exempt status

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / May 20, 2013

"Heritage Action for America is a unique combination of top-notch conservative policy analysis, a widely respected governmental relations team and dedicated grassroots activists that advance conservative policy.

"...As a 501(c)(4) organization, Heritage Action for America allows unprecedented coordination and communication with concerned citizens who want to be part of their national dialogue. We speak directly to the American people and help them break through the establishment in Washington." -- from Heritage Action for America website.

According to the Internal Revenue Code organizations may apply and be eligible for tax exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) if they engage primarily in “social welfare activities.” Contributors to 501(c)(4) organizations need not disclose their names.

In a recent website update on legislative issues being debated in the House of Representatives, Heritage Action for America, a 501(c)(4) advocated the repeal of the Affordable Care Act; endorsed the Full Faith and Credit Act, which would prioritize debt payment before financing federal spending; and supported legislation, the Preventing Greater Uncertainty in Labor-Management Relations Act, suspending the National Labor Relations Board from acting until such time as the Senate approves appointments to the Board.

Indiana Congressman Todd Rokita (4th Congressional District) wrote his constituents on May 17, 2013 that “...the IRS had specifically targeted legally-established non-profit conservative groups by singling them out for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.”

Heritage Action for America assigned Rokita a grade of 79 (out of 100) for his legislative record in the last session of Congress, not far behind long-time right-winger Dan Burton and new Indiana governor Mike Pence. Conservative former Democratic Congressman, now Senator, Joe Donnelly received a score of 23.

The principle of granting tax exemptions for groups that engage in social welfare was introduced in the Revenue Act of 1913 and revised in the tax code of the 1950s. Once groups are declared eligible, such as the Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Action for America, donors can contribute anonymously. Meanwhile the organizations so approved can advertise on television, radio, and the print media against programs advocated by those with different political orientations.

Ironically groups like Heritage Action for America define their political advocacy for tax purposes as social welfare. And, most important, organizations supporting the candidacy of right-wing Republicans such as Todd Rokita are receiving tax exemptions.

In short, Rokita has a high Heritage Action for America favorability score for opposing affordable health care for most Americans; federal programs for childhood nutrition, education, and emergency health services for the elderly; and government protection for worker rights.

If the Internal Revenue Service is to be criticized, the attacks should be leveled at the government’s inadequate scrutiny of political lobbying groups who are granted tax exempt status contrary to the intention of the law.

Those of us who are concerned about the undue intrusion of big money in politics should be working to insist that the tax code be applied as it was intended so that politicians like Rokita cannot get away with railing against “big government” while they benefit from how it has been applied to them.

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University and is a member of the National Executive Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. He lives in West Lafayette, Indiana, and blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical. Read more of Harry Targ's articles on The Rag Blog.]

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Steve Russell : Citizens United and 'Scandalgate'

Richard Nixon: "I am not a crook!"
Scandalgate

The Citizens United case has put us in a situation where Watergate is such small potatoes that it's almost quaint.

By Steve Russell / The Rag Blog / November 2, 2012

Luke Russert, son of the late and much admired journalist Tim Russert, recently referred to Watergate as "the mother of all political scandals." He’s right, given our predilection to add “-gate” when we describe any serious scandal. That rhetorical flourish is of a piece with “mother of...” -- a superlative lifted from our late and unlamented adversary, Saddam Hussein.

Russert’s Watergate remark reminded me of the night at The Daily Texan, my undergraduate student newspaper, when I led an editorial "We take no pleasure in the resignation of President Nixon..."

My conservative critics attacked that as rank hypocrisy, given my role in longstanding and public criticism of Nixon on grounds related and unrelated to Watergate.

What they did not understand is that no serious person could find joy in a situation where the President of the United States could announce "I am not a crook!" and a majority of the country would be thinking "Oh yes, he is!"

The Citizens United case, where limitations on corporate spending in elections were held to violate the free speech rights of corporate persons, has now put us in a situation where Watergate is such small potatoes that it's almost quaint.

In Watergate, Nixon had to beat the bushes to come up with a million bucks in his slush fund for the burglars, since it contained a mere $700,000. We say "slush fund" because it came from wealthy donors who were buying the kind of access donations always buy in politics without identifying themselves.

In the post-Citizens United world, a million dollars won't get it. We have billions pouring into our politics with no fingerprints on the billions.

George Soros, the boogeyman of big political money from the right's point of view, is so down on President Obama that he actually threatened to fund a primary challenge from the left. This nicely demonstrates the great irony of this election: much of the left is holding its collective nose very hard to vote for Obama and that's "vote for" as distinguished from "support."

I personally had decided to merely "vote for" rather than "support" based on my disgust with Obama's negotiation style, where he seems to throw the best ideas under the bus at the front end. Then I read Obama's book and discovered he really did believe that most Republicans want the best for the country. I presume that illusion has been shattered by these years of autopilot veto.

I sat down and made a list of Obama's first term accomplishments against overwhelming odds. I watched the GOP scream "socialism!" over mainstream Keynesian economics, the normal method of handling fiscal policy since FDR gave us a clinic in the role of aggregate demand in a capitalist economy.

I listened to the GOP critique of the very idea of government responsibility for everyone's access to health care. I remembered that this party that never met a war it didn’t like tried mightily to prevent Sen. Jim Webb’s update of the greatest engine of social mobility in American history, the GI Bill.

That finally brought me to the fact of the matter. As much as I find this flabbergasting, as much as it turns my knees to jelly and my brain to mush... we are refighting the election between FDR and Herbert Hoover! We are in a time warp.

Keynes is no longer conventional wisdom.

The National Labor Relations Act, Social Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Griswold v. Connecticut (access to birth control)... everything we worked for but, more importantly, everything our parents worked for, is now once again controversial.

Dwight Eisenhower, the hero of WWII, chose to run as a Republican and led the nation to essentially ratify the New Deal. The worst pullback of the Eisenhower years, Landrum-Griffin, was a tinkering at the margins that did not challenge the fundamental right to independent unions.

Keynesian economics was taken for granted because it had worked, and you could follow the aggregate demand curve when FDR briefly succumbed to attacks on temporary deficits and the recovery started to falter, only to be revived by the unbridled demand of WWII.

I remember when the John Birch Society got written out of the Republican establishment for calling Eisenhower a Communist.

Now Obama does things Eisenhower would have approved and gets attacked as un-American.

An incumbent President is about to be substantially outspent by a challenger with invisible money. Contrary to the criticism mouthed by Justice Samuel Alito during the State of the Union, the money could damn well come from foreign corporations because Citizens United has given us a world where we don't know where the money comes from.

I'm not so concerned about money from overseas. In our times, national borders have become technicalities unrecognized by corporate power.

I'm concerned about the kind of money that turned public opinion for to against Hillarycare with the Harry and Louise ads. I'm concerned with the kind of money that has rendered the obvious fact of global warming controversial. The kind of money telling us that Obama has increased taxes and government regulation in the face of hard facts to the contrary.

Watergate may have been the mother of all political scandals, but what is happening in our time puts Watergate in the shade. And the most scandalous thing is that it's all perfectly legal.

[Steve Russell lives in Sun City, Texas, near Austin. He is a Texas trial court judge by assignment and associate professor emeritus of criminal justice at Indiana University-Bloomington. Steve was an activist in Austin in the sixties and seventies, and wrote for Austin’s underground paper, The Rag. Steve, who belongs to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is also a columnist for Indian Country Today, where this article first appeared. He can be reached at swrussel@indiana.edu. Read more articles by Steve Russell on The Rag Blog.]

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Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman : Will the GOP Steal the Election?

Political cartoon by Bob Englehart / Hartford Courant. Image from Collin Dems.
Will the GOP steal America's 2012 election?

Would the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, the Chamber of Commerce, and their related billionaires spend tens of millions of dollars to win the White House but stop short of spending the relatively small amount it would take to flip the vote?

By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman / The Rag Blog / September 10, 2012

The Republican Party could steal the 2012 U.S. presidential election with relative ease.

Six basic factors make this year's theft a possibility:

1. The power of corporate money, now vastly enhanced by the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens' United decisions;
2. The Electoral College, which narrows the number of votes needed to be moved to swing a presidential election;
3. The systematic disenfranchisement of -- according to the Brennan Center -- 10 million or more citizens, most of whom would otherwise be likely to vote Democratic. More than a million voters have also been purged from the rolls in Ohio, almost 20% of the total vote count in 2008;
4. The accelerated use of electronic voting machines, which make election theft a relatively simple task for those who control them, including their owners and operators, who are predominantly Republican;
5. The GOP control of nine of the governorships in the dozen swing states that will decide the outcome of the 2012 campaign; and,
6. The likelihood that the core of the activist "election protection" community that turned out in droves to monitor the vote for Barack Obama in 2008 has not been energized by his presidency and is thus unlikely to work for him again in 2012.

Winning a fair and reliable electoral system can be achieved only with a massive grassroots upheaval.

The power of money is now enshrined by the infamous Citizens United decision. In at least 90% of our congressional races and at least 80% of our U.S. Senate races, the candidate who spends the most money wins.

From the presidency to the local level, our elections -- and thus control of our government -- are dominated by cash.

For more than a century, the ability of corporations and the super-rich to buy in directly has been legally constrained. But the concentration of media ownership in the hands of ever-fewer corporations has vastly enhanced their power.

Already in 2012, the tsunami of dollars pouring in from corporations and super-rich individuals has soared to entirely new levels. Even the floodgates opened by Citizens United can't handle the flow. With its June decision denying Montana's attempt to keep some spending restrictions in tact, the John Roberts U.S. Supreme Court has inaugurated an era in which virtually unrestrained "pay-to-play" money will redefine the electoral process. Republicans in the U.S. Senate have also blocked attempts to require that these campaign "donations" be made public.

It's not hard to guess where this leads. The June 2012, recall election in Wisconsin saw at least eight times as much money being spent on protecting Republican governor Scott Walker as was spent to oust him.

Barack Obama has spent much of his presidency courting corporate interests. But he will be out-raised by the corporate/super-rich 1% backing Mitt Romney. A handful of high-profile billionaires will spend "whatever it takes" to put the GOP back into the White House. Just a dozen of them have already provided more than 70% of Romney's early campaign budget.

Most of this corporate money is being used to persuade voters to oust Obama, which they may well decide to do. But U.S. history shows that some of it can also restrict the ability of Americans to vote. It can then "bend" the vote count in ways the public may not want.

Our nation's history shows that given the same chance, the Democrats would gladly do the same to the Republicans. And it's happened many times, especially in the Jim Crow south.

But in 2012, it will be primarily Republicans using gargantuan sums of corporate money to take control of the government from Democrats, and democracy be damned.


We are not writing this in support of Barack Obama or the Democratic Party. We are mystified by their unwillingness to fight for meaningful electoral reform. Both Al Gore and John Kerry were legitimately elected president, but neither was willing to fight for significant change, or even to discuss the issue. When we broke many of the major stories on the theft of Ohio 2004, it was the Democrats who most fiercely attacked us.

We're continually asked why the Democrats have been willing since 2000 to sit back and let the GOP get away with this. Frankly, we have no answer.

But for us, the more important reality is that this electoral corruption dooms the ballot as an instrument of real democracy. A system this badly broken means a bipartisan oligarchy can always deny third and other grassroots parties the use of elections to challenge the status quo, in this case one increasingly defined by war, bigotry, injustice, moneyed privilege, and ecological suicide.

Thus it's been a century since the last significant electoral challenges to the Democrat-Republican corporate domination of the political system.

That challenge was staged by the People's (Populist) and then Socialist Parties. In rapid succession they rallied huge grassroots followings demanding core changes to the corporate domination of American politics. The 30-year upheaval they represented laid the groundwork for major changes. But it failed to crack the corporate domination of our political system.

The Populists were shattered in 1896 with a combination of cooption by William Jennings Bryan's Democratic Party and election theft engineered by Mark Hanna's Republicans. (Republican strategist Karl Rove, a serious student of the 1896 election, considers Mark Hanna to be one of his great heroes.)

The Socialists were co-opted and divided in 1916 by the Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who then crushed them in the most violent wave of physical repression ever imposed by a U.S. President on a mass movement that derived from the heart of America's working public.

No third party has since risen up with enough real political clout to threaten corporate power through the electoral system. As long as our ballot box is corrupted and unaccountable, none will.

That one party could steal an election from the other means our democracy, if it could still be called that, is essentially in shambles.

Would the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, the Chamber of Commerce, and their related billionaires spend tens of millions of dollars to win the White House but stop short of spending the relatively small amount it would take to flip the vote?

Thankfully, we are citizens of a nation born with the bottom-up overthrow of the planet's then-most powerful king. As believers in grassroots democracy, we know that the survival instinct is ultimately more powerful than the profit motive. When it comes to the basics, we have no doubt the power of the people will ultimately prevail.

For those working on the 2012 election, and for democracy in general, that will mean an extraordinary commitment to protecting the registered status of millions of Americans, getting them to the polls, guaranteeing their right to vote once there, and making sure there is an accurate vote count -- electronic and otherwise -- once those votes are cast.

[Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are authors of Will the GOP Steal America's 2012 Election?, their fifth book on election protection. It is available as an e-book at harveywasserman.com and freepress.org. Read more of Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis' writing on The Rag Blog.]

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Tom Hayden : Save Democracy While We Can

Image from OB Rag.
Stop the hemorrhaging:
Save democracy while we can

Democracy movements must try to stop the stolen elections now, and delegitimize any mandates claimed from them in the future.

By Tom Hayden / The Rag Blog / September 3, 2012

Only you and I can save democracy this time and for times to come. If we all play our part now, Obama and his popular majority will win. If not, we need to be clear and fortified for big confrontations ahead.

Let's look at where democracy movements must intervene to stop the hemorrhaging before a final collapse. Democracy movements must try to stop the stolen elections now, and delegitimize any mandates claimed from them in the future.

1. Let the people decide: Stop voter suppression. Among "registered but unlikely" voters, Obama leads Romney 43%-20%, and in favorability by 55%-25% [New York Times, Aug. 18]. Examples: a Pennsylvania Republican leader bragged in June about a voter ID law "which is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania -- done!" The Republican governor blocks plans in that state allowing voters to apply for absentee ballots or to register online.

The naked Republican strategy is to make it as hard as possible for people of color, student, and the elderly to vote. Thanks to the civil rights movement, the 1965 Voting Rights Act provides tools to fight to maximize voter turnout. Local activists should be attacking their governors, legislators, and registrars for erecting unconstitutional barriers to voting, and for their refusal to permit early voting or provide enough accessible ballot boxes and election observers.

Civil rights lawyers should mobilize to monitor and protest wherever the machines break down and the lines become too long in freezing weather. Ballot boxes should be installed on campuses.

2. Stop secret corporate money. Buckley v. Valeo [1976] and Citizens United [2010] have opened the sewage gates to secret money's power to pollute the democratic process. In the next two months, all people can do is make righteous noise against these pernicious threats and force their disclosure in the media on an everyday basis.

Besides attacking Sheldon Adelson [war against Iran] and the Koch brothers [big oil], the movement must make the case that this flow of private funds is creating a legitimacy crisis for democracy. This same worry apparently led Chief Justice John Roberts to narrowly approve Obamacare [but not Medicaid] while delegating its ultimate fate to the voters this November. President Obama has endorsed a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United, a good basis for a long-term organizing strategy.

But what is really needed is a new generation of law students who aspire to be the Thurgood Marshalls of campaign finance reform, attacking Buckley v. Valeo as a perverted violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments [money is not an unfettered instrumentality of speech]. Currently the weakest link in the Supreme Court's case is the secrecy afforded big donors until after the election. A militant demand for disclosure before the election will put the Court and the Republicans on the defensive.

There are other battlefronts in the fight for democracy, from greater transparency in the derivatives market, to disclosure of thousands of unregistered corporate lobbyists, to the need for a rewrite of the War Powers Act to rein in drones and secret wars. But the sharp point of the spear in the next two months are [1] the Republican plan to keep people from voting, and [2] the Republican plan to keep millions in campaign contributions secret until after the election.

These lines of attack are complements to the growing hubbub about unprecedented levels of deceit by the Romney-Ryan ticket. They and Karl Rove believe that enough secret money and voter suppression can prevail.

The theme song should be Leonard Cohen's "Democracy is coming to the USA."

[Tom Hayden is a former California state senator and leader of Sixties peace, justice, and environmental movements. He currently teaches at Pitzer College in Los Angeles. His latest book is The Long Sixties. Read more of Tom Hayden's writing on The Rag Blog.]

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RAG BLOG DEBATE / David P. Hamilton and Jay D. Jurie : Electoral Politics and the Left

"Citizens United Carpet Bombing Democracy." Cartoon by DonkeyHotey / Flickr Commons.
A Rag Blog debate:
Electoral politics and the left

David Hamilton argues that the U.S. federal elections in 2012 don't merit being the focus of our attention, while Jay Jurie contends that they still offer worthwhile opportunities for progressives and that the electoral arena should not be abandoned to the Right.

By David P. Hamilton and Jay D. Jurie / The Rag Blog / July 10, 2012

The following exchange between David Hamilton and Jay Jurie began on The Rag Blog's email discussion group, a lively forum in which Rag Blog contributors and followers debate issues of the day with, shall we say, great vigor!

Being a presidential election year, the left in the U.S. is locked into its recurring debate on how to relate to the federal elections. There are always those who decide that the Democratic Party candidate is good enough or the Republican candidate is bad enough that it is essential to support the former -- with one's vote, if not with one's enthusiasm.

Then there are always those who declare that the Democratic Party candidate is essentially subservient to the same corporate interests as the Republican and that we shouldn't be associated with either. When this position involves a third party candidate such as Ralph Nader, the discussion can become bitter.

Here David Hamilton argues that the U.S. federal elections in 2012 don't merit being the focus of our attention, while Jay Jurie contends that they still offer worthwhile opportunities for progressives and that the electoral arena should not be abandoned to the Right.

David P. Hamilton:
The corruption of U.S. electoral politics.

U.S. federal elections are corrupted by capitalist class money to the point that further participation by the Left primarily lends credence to a charade hiding the continuing evisceration of American democracy.

• In 93% of races for the House of Representatives and 94% of races for the Senate, the candidate with the most money wins. In 98% of the races where the incumbent has the most money, the incumbent wins. The obvious strategy for a candidate is to have the most money; to have your own and/or cater to moneyed interests. For the moneyed interests, the obvious strategy is the way Reagan defeated the Soviet Union in the arms race, by making continued participation financially crippling if not impossible.


• Presidential election spending is increasing geometrically.
  Total spending on U.S. presidential elections:
  1992 - $ 192.2 million.
  1996 - $ 239.9 million, up 25%.
  2000 - $ 343.1 million, up 43%.
  2004 - $ 717.9 million, up 109%
  2008 - $ 1,324.7 million, up 85%
  2012 - Estimates of total expenditures by all candidates in federal elections go over $5 billion. A conservative estimate is for a 100% increase in expenditures of all candidates in the presidential race over 2008, reaching a total of roughly 13 times more than 20 years ago. It is logical to expect this process of expenditure growth to accelerate markedly in the wake of the “Citizens United” decision.


• In 2008, small contributions ($200 or less) provided 9% of the funding for House Democrats and 14% for House Republicans. Those percentages are historically declining. The rest comes from the 1% in the form of large contributions, PAC money and self-financing.


• Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin won his recall election 53 to 47 while spending a record amount of money (over $50 million), outspending his opponent over 7 to 1 and receiving over two-thirds of his money from big out-of-state capitalist donors, specifically the Koch brothers.

In a capitalist hegemony such as in the U.S., all things of social value become commodified, especially political power. The strategy of the capitalist class, that richest less than 1% who own and control the major corporations, is to own the federal government by commodifying elections, largely because the federal government funnels hundreds of billions to them annually and protects their economic privileges.

A crucial part of their strategy is to increase the price of elections as much as possible so that elections must be bought at a price only they can afford. As their money increasingly dominates elections, democracy increasingly diminishes, the principle political objective of the capitalist class.

For the Left to participate in this electoral charade is to give it credibility it does not disserve. Whatever benefits might once have derived from participation now pale compared to the legitimacy the Left stands to gain by leading the denunciation of the system’s inherent corruption. There is no inside-outside strategy, because you don’t have that very expensive entrance ticket and the event is sold out.


Jay D. Jurie: 
Electoral politics: A path to the future or a road to ruin?

That money shapes elections is undeniable. National, state, and even most local elections cannot be won without enormous cash infusions.

As of April 30, the Obama campaign had raised nearly $217 million while the Romney campaign had raised more than $98 million. In the Ohio senatorial race, incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown had raised over $12 million by March 31, while Republican Josh Mandel had raised over $7 million. Graphically depicting the funding disparities, Independent Scott Rupert had raised some $2,000 (Source: opensecrets.org).

Some contend that grossly disproportionate amounts of spending have made participation by progressives in the electoral process meaningless. However, there are other aspects that must be considered. One would be not just the amounts of money, but its sources.

While the U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission decision (2010) opened the floodgates to money, that includes cash from labor unions and civic organizations as well as corporate donors. In addition, individual contributors remain a significant factor. For example, the top five contributors to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, included four labor unions and a citizens association. Of the nearly $5.4 million his re-election campaign has raised so far in the present electoral cycle, over $3 million came from small contributors, that is, those contributing less than $200 (Source: opensecrets.org.)

Although for-profits and wealthy donors have deeper pockets, funding from not-for-profit sources and small contributors may be significant, as shown in the Sanders example. Also illustrated by the Sanders example is the particular candidate or party involved.

Sanders has carefully constructed a base, and has such name recognition, that he may be very difficult to unseat in Vermont. In cases such as these, stepping away from the electoral arena would be self-defeating, it would only abandon turf that has already been won.

An aspect of vital importance is the campaign message, and how effectively it's packaged and delivered. Particularly in swing elections, or districts, a well-crafted campaign message is an essential complement to campaign finance. Without a message that captures the mindset of the voters, or when running a scandal-ridden candidate, a monetary advantage may not suffice.

Depending on circumstances, timing may outweigh money. Since there is effectively a two-party system in the U.S., the only way people have to "punish" those in power is by voting "for the other guy." Due to their displeasure with the George W. Bush regime by 2008, the Republicans took a beating. Two years later, the Democrats under President Obama took a "shellacking," as he expressed it.

Most would likely agree that saturation of the media with campaign ads is the primary concern raised by the Citizens United decision. Those without the funding to outspend their opposition with ads usually understand they must rely instead on a ground game; going door to door, driving voters to the polls, and so on.

A good ground game can sometimes beat a well-financed corporate campaign. In 2004, the Florida branch of the now-defunct ACORN organization caught corporate interests off balance and got a minimum wage added to the state constitution.

Although the leadership of the Democratic Party functions as the junior partner of big business, there is no doubt that the Republicans are the senior partner. Historically, both parties have viewed it as important that some differences be maintained so as to preserve overall system legitimacy. So long as this Janus-style duality exists, the doors to moderation and a certain level of change have not been slammed shut.

For instance, it would be better for Sherrod Brown to remain in the Senate than for him to be beaten by Josh Mandel. If the playing field is abandoned to the far right, then so are appointments to the courts. Participation in electoral politics guarantees neither a rosy path to the future nor a road to ruin, but it remains part of a long journey that has to be taken.

There is no question but that campaign finance reform must be at the top of the list on any meaningful electoral reform agenda. Though it will take considerable pressure from outside the system, ultimately, this sort of change cannot be brought about without recourse to the electoral system. For those who want to participate in such an effort, go here to get involved with overturning Citizens United.

For more about why elections are an imperative component of a comprehensive social change strategy, see this excellent article in The Nation magazine:


David P. Hamilton's response:

“[I]n political science terms, if you are outspent... the way that Republicans can outspend Democrats with unlimited corporate money, the Democrats are going to lose.” -- Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

“The system is totally gamed.” -- Chris Hedges on Truthdig.

“I most certainly do believe the patient is critically ill, but... I haven't given up hope entirely.” -- Jay Jurie on Facebook.

Though admitting that the system is “critically ill," Jay Jurie’s apologia for the existing electoral system would have us continue putting our energies into life-support mechanisms. He fails to mention that the patient is terminal.

There remain instances where participation in electoral politics continues to make sense, but the point is that with the onrushing tide of corporate money in politics, these instances are rapidly diminishing and those that remain are almost always restricted to supporting the less horrible of the two options presented to you by the 1%.

The idea that the financial support from non-profits can meaningfully mitigate the advantages of the for-profits ignores the existing wide disparity of financing and the actual record of overwhelming success enjoyed by better-financed corporate candidates.

The point is that when campaigns become more costly, as is happening now at a very rapid pace, the advantages of the wealthy increase. Jurie fails to acknowledge this dynamic or its implications for the future.

Sometimes electoral opportunities do arise on a local level that call for our commitment, but these are increasingly rare and don’t happen outside isolated constituencies. Bernie Sanders is a perfect example of such an aberration. He represents Vermont, which has the second smallest population of any state. There are more registered voters in the city of Austin than there are in Vermont.

Sanders ran statewide four times during the 1970’s without ever getting more than 6% of the vote. Finally, in 1981, Sanders won a mayoral race in Burlington, a college town with less than 40,000, by a 10-vote margin with four candidates running and the Democrats divided. Being the great guy he is, he won three more terms as mayor, but was defeated twice more before winning his first statewide office (on his seventh attempt) with his election to Congress in 1992.

He has consistently been reelected ever since and is now a U.S. Senator. That.experience was unique in time and place, little liberal Vermont in the late 20th century. I cannot conceive of a similar scenario occurring in any other state henceforth.

The capitalist hegemony is growing quickly. What Bernie Sanders once accomplished in Vermont, however laudable, is not a model that is very relevant today.

Leftist cadre should have more fundamental concerns than the devotion of their attention and political energy to helping elect Democrats. It is more important to focus on the rapid diminution of democracy that is concurrent with the rising power of corporate capitalist money, now dominating the electoral arena. The death of meaningful democracy given this power inequality is the principal issue of politics in the U.S. today.

Jurie’s argument essentially boils down to another rationalization for supporting Democrats, relying on their strongest argument, that the other guy is worse. This might be acceptable if you limit your political ambitions to marginal gains one might potentially achieve within the confines of identity politics.

Were gay rights my overriding goal, I would be more supportive of Obama. If your political horizons stop at verbiage in support of marriage equality, the right to fight in the imperial army, or the preservation of the Roe decision, you might be happy with the Democrats. But Obama is living proof that identity politics are innately reformist and do not significantly impact issues involving class relationships.

Capitalist hegemony can accommodate the civil rights of non-whites, women’s equality, and gay rights. It can live with legal pot and abortions. But it will not accept reforms that effect their class privileges, existing wealth and income inequality. Progressive taxation, taxing capital earnings the same as wages, estate taxes, wealth taxes, financial transaction taxes, uncapped social security taxes, widespread worker ownership, promotion of union membership, or the provision of good social services to the entire population are forbidden.

The capitalist class abhors democracy, a public sector devoted to social well-being for all, and the protection of the environment, all of which diminish their power and bottom line. It cannot tolerate the diminution of U.S. militarism or the end of a drug war, because it profits by tens of billions annually from each. Our electoral system is now incapable of impinging upon these core economic interests of the capitalist ruling class or their ownership of the political processes.

In response to this condition, Jurie recommends support for a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision. This effort is doomed because it ignores of the fact that such an amendment would require the vote of two-thirds of each house of the Congress, plus majority passage by three-fourths of the state legislatures, all already densely populated by politicians on the payroll of the capitalist class and likely to soon become more so.

One might reasonably ask why a very large majority of these legislators, being corrupted fronts for the capitalist class, would vote against the class interests of their benefactors and themselves on a matter so grave as a constitutional amendment to reduce their power.

The Left, at least those to the left of the Democratic Party, has the opportunity to champion democracy. There is already widespread awareness of the rampant economic inequality and the rapid erosion of political democracy that has resulted from the growing influence of corporate money.

It was reflected in the instant popularity of the OWS themes. It is reflected in the lowest voter participation in the developed world. Anti-bankster consciousness is even common among Tea Party adherents and Ron Paul fans. It remains a consciousness without organized leadership. The Left can fill that breech.

But besides advocacy of both economic and political democracy, this leadership challenge requires a thorough critique of the advanced state of corruption of U.S. politics, maintenance of a steady focus on the overall system’s inherent undemocratic defects and rejection on principle of participation in all but the least corrupted electoral venues.

Jurie’s argument is trapped in the “duopoly” of conventional American two-party politics. Those who want fundamental change must escape that duopoly. Leftist leadership has more important things to do than support marginally better candidates trying to pass themselves off as reformers while hiding their corporate affiliations.

The electoral system engenders adherence to its norms, rewarding candidates who accommodate. It will increasingly operate in the interests of the capitalist class as the commodification of the electoral process continues unrestrained. To play in this rigged game is like being an old slot machine junkie living in a Vegas casino.

There is scant opportunity for an inside-outside strategy when there is no room available inside except at a price you cannot imagine.


Jay D. Jurie's response:

"A revolutionary dialectic of the correct transitions must regard the 'long march through the institutions' as a practical and critical action in all social spheres. It must set as its goal the subversive-critical deepening of the contradictions, a process that has been made possible in all the institutions that participate in the organization of day-to-day life." -- Rudy Dutschke, German New Left leader, 1968.

In seeking a straw man for debate, David Hamilton has mischaracterized my position on electoral politics. For instance, my initial statement made it abundantly clear that I am acutely aware of the corrupting influence of money in politics, especially in the wake of the Citizens United decision.

My primary emphasis is on the construction of a vibrant grassroots movement that can challenge not only corporate power in the electoral arena, but replace capitalism itself with a system that, on a far more inclusive and democratic basis, serves the needs and aspirations of society as whole.

This would necessarily involve both electoral and non-electoral means. Not only would Hamilton abandon the electoral field of battle to corporate interests, so also would he leave millions in the lurch. Hundreds of thousands have fought for, and some have died, to secure the right to vote in this country over the past two and a half centuries. Most often the deck was stacked against them, but they put their shoulders to the wheel, built movements and slowly rolled society forward.

Electoral politics and social movements have had a reflexive relationship. Movements have made gaining wider public access to the ballot box possible, and use of the ballot has brought about important social changes. By way of example, the Civil Rights movement began after World War II and some 20 years later, resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

 Since that time, African-Americans have not only experienced far greater access to accommodations and elected thousands of their own representatives to office, but have experienced access to numerous other opportunities, ranging from education to employment to fair housing.

To proclaim "game over" as Hamilton has done, denies all this history and those who not only fought for these gains, but for better or worse, those who still believe participation in the electoral process has some potential. To tell progressive constituencies such as labor, minorities, women, gays, or seniors that such participation is meaningless smacks of white upper middle class privilege, and will surely be regarded that way.

If the process doesn't work, if it's overwhelmed with money, and dominated by a duopoly, which it is, then as Rudi Dutschke informed us, all the more reason to be involved. There are a multitude of ways the present system can be confronted, challenging it to greater openness, responsiveness, and representation.

Again, the weight of history is behind this type of approach, and turning away from it does nothing to challenge the inherent contradictions. Exploiting these contradictions would eventually open the door to class conflict, or if not, at least help spark a legitimacy crisis.

Worse yet, while repudiating electoral participation, Hamilton provides nowhere else to turn. While he vaguely argues we should "champion democracy," he doesn't specify what that means. If change cannot be brought about through voting, then what else does Hamilton propose? He essentially urges a boycott of the polls in return for nothing to show for such an effort. This is a "bargain" very few will likely accept.

Hamilton's position would be far more persuasive were he to propose a non-electoral strategy that might be viewed as feasible and capable of actually "making a difference."

This reply is dedicated to the memory of Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore, who in 1951 gave their lives, in part, in the struggle to secure suffrage for everyone.

[David P. Hamilton, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin in history and government has been an activist since the Sixties when he was a contributor to the original Rag. Jay D. Jurie, a resident of Sanford, Florida, has been involved with social change for several decades. He researches, writes, and teaches in the areas of public policy, public administration, and urban planning. Read articles by David P. Hamilton and Jay D. Jurie on The Rag Blog.]

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Peter Dreier : How the Big Bucks Won in Wisconsin

Walker spent 88% of the money
to get 53% of the vote

The real winner in Wisconsin on Tuesday was not Gov. Scott Walker, but Big Money. And the real loser was not Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, but democracy.

By Peter Dreier / Reader Supported News / June 6, 2012

Here's a headline you won't see, but should: "Scott Walker Spent 88% of the Money to Get 53% of the Vote."

Political pundits will spend the next few days and weeks analyzing the Wisconsin recall election, examining exit polls, spilling lots of ink over how different demographic groups --- income, race, religious, union membership, gender, party affiliation, independents, liberals/conservatives/moderates, etc. -- voted on Tuesday.

But the real winner in Wisconsin on Tuesday was not Gov. Scott Walker, but Big Money. And the real loser was not Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, but democracy.

Walker's Republican campaign outspent Barrett's Democratic campaign by $30.5 million to $4 million -- that's a 7.5 to 1 advantage. Another way of saying this is that of the $34.5 million spent on their campaigns, Walker spend 88% of the money.

Walker beat Barrett by 1,316,989 votes to 1,145,190 votes -- 53% to 46% (with 1% going to an independent candidate).

Here's another way of saying that: Walker spent $23 for each vote he received, while Barrett spent only $3.47 per vote.

But the reality is even worse than this, because the $34.5 billion figure does not include so-called independent expenditures and issue ads paid for primarily by out-of-state billionaires (like the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and Joe Rickets), business groups, and the National Rifle Association, which were skewed even more heavily toward Walker.

Once all this additional spending is calculated, we'll see that total spending in this race could be more than double the $34.5 billion number, that Walker and his business allies outspent Barrett by an even wider margin, and that he had to spend even more than $23 for each vote.

In other words, business and billionaires bought this election for Walker. The money paid for non-stop TV and radio ads as well as mailers. There's no doubt that if the Barrett campaign had even one-third of the war-chest that Walker had, it would have been able to mount an even more formidable grassroots get-out-the-vote campaign and put more money into the TV and radio air war.

Under those circumstances, it is likely that Barrett would have prevailed.

Pundits can have a field day pontificating about the Wisconsin election, but in the end its about how Big Money hijacked democracy in the Badger State on Tuesday, and how they're trying to do it again in November.

[Peter Dreier is E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and director of the Urban Environmental Policy program at Occidental College. He is the co-author of Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century and The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City." He writes regularly for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and American Prospect. His next book, The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame, will be published by Nation Books in the spring. This article was first published at and distributed by Reader Supported News.]

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David P. Hamilton : U.S. Presidential Election Is Bought and Paid For

Cartoon from Political Resources, Inc.
Bought and paid for:
The Left and the 2012 presidential election

By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / May 17, 2012

"[No] serious candidate will rely on the public funding system during the primary phase of future presidential campaigns.” -- Politico, 2008.

“[A] sharp rise in the costs of elections... drove the political parties even deeper into the pockets of the corporate sector.” -- Noam Chomsky, Occupy speech, published 5/8/12.

The Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision opened the floodgates for the capitalist ruling class to make the U.S. presidential election, in fact every federal election, more than ever, determined by finances.

This is a long proven winning strategy given that in over 90% of U.S. elections, the candidate with the most money wins. By making effective campaigning progressively more expensive, the capitalist class and their political minions strengthen the inherent disadvantages faced by their adversaries. They seek to further commodify political power and raise its price to the point that only they can afford it.

The more expensive the campaign, the more it is controlled by the capitalist class and the more democracy withers. In 2012 the democratic process in the U.S. is almost totally corrupted by corporate money. That is the most salient feature of the U.S. political landscape.

Total spending by presidential candidates:
1984 - $103.6 million.
1988 - 210.7 "
1992 - 192.2 "
1996 - 239.9 "
2000 - 343.1 "
2004 - 717.9 "
2008 - 2.4 billion
2012 - 5+ billion projected
(Sources: US News & World Report, 10/21/08, and Wikipedia)

The cost of elections in the U.S. is now accelerating geometrically. The Democratic Party will necessarily and increasingly become more dependent on the capitalist class for campaign financing in order to remain competitive. There will be less political space between the U.S. presidential candidates on those issues basic to the economic privileges of the capitalist class. The strategy of this less than 1 percent is to increase campaign spending to the point that both major party candidates become entirely dependent on their financing.

The principal result of this process is that the candidates for the two major parties become increasingly similar in their support of fundamental capitalist class interests. Compare, for example, the ideological space on the issue of government financing between two finalists in the French presidential election compared to the two major party presidential candidates in the U.S.

Roughly similar ideologically to a moderate U.S. Republican like Mitt Romney, Nicolas Sarkozy argued that government debt was the primary issue and advocated reducing it by cutting government employment and spending on social services, while reducing taxes and regulations on corporations.

His opponent, Francois Hollande of the Socialist Party, ran on increasing taxes on the rich capitalists including a 75% tax bracket on income above a million euros a year, raising the existing top income tax bracket rate from 41 to 45%, a financial transactions tax, ending tax havens, cutting 29 billion euros in tax breaks for the wealthy, taxing investment income at the same rate as salaries and wages, capping executive compensation and separating investment banking from retail banking.

Thus, the economic platforms of the two leading candidates in the French election were almost diametrically opposed on issues that are basic to capitalist class interests. Hollande also favors gay marriage and adoption nationally, immediate French withdrawal from Afghanistan, international recognition of the Palestinian state and drug law reform. Try to imagine Barack Obama embracing such a platform.

Yet, Hollande is typically referred to as a “moderate” and a pragmatist among French socialists.

The French system offers this far more distinct choice because corporate donations to political campaigns in France are completely forbidden, the state tightly regulates and partially funds political campaigns and campaign costs are a tiny fraction of what they are in the U.S. The U.S. has a population roughly five times larger than France, but the amount spent in the U.S. presidential election in 2012 will be at least 50 times, possibly 100 times greater than the amount spent in the 2012 French presidential election.

Symptomatic of this corporate corruption of the political process are incidents such as a Las Vegas gambling tycoon forking up $15 million to inflate the campaign (and ego) of Newt Gingrich, the billionaire Koch brothers buying $6 million in air time to run negative attack ads against Obama (only the beginning) and Obama’s goal of raising a billion dollars to fight back, principally from wealthy donors, like the $15 million he raised at “an exclusive backyard soiree at George Clooney’s house.”

Your choice is to be governed by oil company executives and their financiers or film moguls and their financiers, who happen to be the same people as the other financiers.

When the Supreme Court legalized unlimited corporate campaign contributions and spending in January 2010, the already astronomical price of the presidency began escalating radically, making political decisions increasingly the sole prerogative of the plutocrats. Only they can pay to play on the level of expense that has been achieved.

The more unlimited and privatized campaign funding, the more expensive elections become and the more the political process is corrupted by obvious political bribery in the guise of campaign contributions and PAC funding.

In this context, neither major U.S. political party can effectively advocate for interests that are contrary to those of the capitalist ruling class. Government actions anathema to the capitalist class include steeper progressive taxation, taxing capital at the same rate as wages, inheritance taxes, wealth taxes, eliminating the income cap on social security tax liability, financial transaction taxes, and greater banking regulation.

Likewise anathema is higher government spending on the health, education, and welfare of the general population that would require greater government revenue. For the capitalist class, the state must be confined to approved roles, principally the privatization of profits and the socialization of costs.

Regarding the maintenance of capitalist privileges and benefits there is great class consciousness and unity. The essential prize for the capitalist ruling class is its control of the federal government, its expenditures and its monopoly of legal coercion.

It is no accident that half the richest counties in the U.S. border on Washington D.C. It is no accident that the majority of the members of Congress arrive as millionaires and retire to earn many millions more lobbying for major corporations.

Much of what the federal government does functions economically as transfer payments to further enrich the capitalist class. The principal beneficiaries of the annual trillion in “defense” spending are the major stockholders of the corporations that have been blessed by their political functionaries with bounteous largesse at the federal government trough in the form of procurement contracts with generous guaranteed profit margins. These minions also instigate the requisite wars to require the enormous purchases of these otherwise useless products.

Average citizens pay the taxes to finance this exercise in the provision of investment opportunities while our rulers automatically garner enormous wealth on an unprecedented scale and the political power that comes in its wake.

Because of this corruption of the democratic process, the focus of the left during the 2012 federal elections ought not be on candidates. With few exceptions, they don’t merit our attention. There are a plethora of wonderful hypothetical socialist candidates -- Barbara Ehrenriech, Cornel West, Media Benjamin and many others. But on what basis would you want them competing in a rigged game?

The fix is in. Our responsibility is not to participate in a fraud perpetrated on the American people. It is instead to point out the dead body of democracy smelling up the room.

[David P. Hamilton, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin in history and government was an activist in Sixties Austin and a contributor to the original Rag. David writes about France and politics (and French politics) for The Rag Blog. Read more articles by David P. Hamilton on The Rag Blog The Rag Blog

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Danny Schechter : The Big Money That Is Sinking Democracy

Titanic: Iceberg ahead. Image from Luther, Out of Station.
Iceberg ahead:
The big money that is sinking democracy

It is hard to wrap your head around the scale and immediacy of this danger.

By Danny Schechter / The Rag Blog / May 9, 2012

I keep thinking of that clear April night 100 years ago when the unsinkable HMS Titanic steamed towards New York. It was actually on its way to dock just a few blocks from where I live at what are now the Chelsea Piers. There was a sense of optimism abroad as a new record for a speedy transatlantic passage was about to be set.

There was music, dancing, and fine wine. That is, until they saw that iceberg high in the water. The Captain and his mates were aware that 80 percent of it was underwater and out of sight. They didn’t react in time.

Everyone knows the story -- most recently recreated in 3D -- but the lesson is really not just about that great ship that went down, or even the company that bypassed safety regulations, or even the hubris of the owners whose greed sent so many passengers to that legendary “watery grave.”

It was also about not seeing the dangers in front of us.

That’s the real story of this moment in our political lives, as the 2012 elections begin in earnest, and we ignore, to our detriment, that vast iceberg of money, stacked in the billions, that threatens to sink what’s left of our democracy.

It is hard to wrap your head around the scale and immediacy of this danger.

And it’s not just about the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court. It’s about the way Democrats think and Republicans act. It’s about the growing way money has been allowed to dominate politics in a game both parties play.

It is an outgrowth of our vast economic inequality and the policies that promoted it. Its about state laws limiting the franchise in the name of fighting voter fraud with so-called Voter ID laws, and ordinary Americans becoming so tired of electoral lies and the arrogance of power that they don’t vote.

Mary Boyle, a vice president of Common Cause is concerned about that, telling me,

one of the dangers, particularly around this campaign, is you read these headlines from people who aren’t really engaged in politics. You just read headlines about “super PACS raking in millions of dollars” or “outside groups spending 10 million dollars on negative ads.” And for a lot of Americans that’s just kind of background noise that makes them go, “Uh, they’re at it again.” And it does make people cynical. It makes them tune out and that is a huge concern because then that leads to people not voting and that’s a bad thing.

This information overload is a product of a media ecology that tunes us out and a news business that avoids truth at all costs. It’s about analysis that leads to paralysis and cynicism that allows political manipulators to prevail in league with a media system that simplifies, scandalize, and spins news to advance partisan agendas.

I recently sat in a lecture at the New School on "The Anatomy Of Campaign Finance,” featuring two experts, Professor Jacob Hacker of Yale and journalist Joe Hagen who writes for New York Magazine and described what he saw in Karl Rove’s living room.

They painted a picture of a vast organizational imbalance between the parties.

The lectures took place on May Day just as the impressive citizen “armies” of Occupy Wall Street were leaving Union Square for the trek to Wall Street.

Obama’s funding base is not, said Hacker, even comparable to the treasure chest that Rove has mobilized.

One factor: The Bush tax cuts have permitted the right to amass a major war chest, in part because the average Republican-leaning millionaire became $300,000 to $500,000 richer, 53 percent of all after tax gains went to the rich, the top 10 percent of 1 percent. 60 percent of corporate money comes from the finance sector.

The beneficiaries of this transfer of wealth to the top understood that their windfall came about through politics, and to keep it they have to invest more in politics. Says Hacker, “Everyone can vote but not everyone can donate. Money changes the relationship between the politicians and donors. Money has a 'distortion effect' on what politicians focus on.”

This is why the former Obama Chief of Staff and now Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said famously, You need three things to win in politics: money, money and money.

Chicago Magazine explained his well-honed technique back when he worked for Bill Clinton:

Here’s how to be the most effective fund-raiser in politics today: Plaster a phone to your ear. Speak rapidly, in barely restrained tones of impassioned outrage. Tell the important person on the other end of the line that the large check he’s just written for your candidate’s campaign isn’t large enough. Say this: “Five thousand dollars? You, you, you -- I wouldn’t embarrass you by having it listed that you only gave $5,000? You’re a $25,000 person; better to give nothing and say you were out of town. If you want to give $5,000, fine, but don’t call me when people start asking you if you’re going bankrupt. People of your stature are giving $50,000.

The Republicans have more donors in it for the ideology, not the ego. They don’t have to be begged. Their greed, animus towards Obama, and sense of self-interest is their driver.

The effect of all this money has been different for Democrats and Republicans, “ says Hacker. Repubs have moved further to the right than Dems to the left. Money is not neutral in effect. Republicans have been emboldened.

On the basis of his reporting, Hagen notes how politics has become an industry with an orientation towards raising and managing money. It deploys its millions not only supporting candidates but backing the disciplined infrastructure led by professional political consultants who plan the strategies and run the show, coordinating the Super-posses and orchestrating the troops.

This fraternity, he says, convinces politicians that they are the “tool” they need to win, and get paid huge amounts of money.

He says that together they form a “presidential election industrial complex.” He says its point is destruction, with opposition research driving negative ads and vitriolic campaigns.

That’s one academic and media view. What about the people who are monitoring this madness, like Sheila Krumholz, the director of the Center for Responsive Politics, who posts data money in politics on the must-read website, Open Secrets.org.

She told me recently:

There's been a seismic shift in money's influence in politics and on legislation and policy, ultimately. Primarily because of the Citizen's United decision taken by the Supreme Court in January of 2010, which opened wide the flood gates on money -- and for the first time arguably in decades or even a century allows this money to come directly from corporate and labor union treasuries and trade associations -- to be spent to influence the election of federal candidates.

I asked her, “Does this mean that American voters have less and less influence on what's actually happening in America?”

Her response:

It certainly means that American voters have less information about the organizations which are trying to influence who wins office, and ultimately what laws get passed. Does it then take away some of the influence that they have? Yes, because they're making decisions in the dark.

And there we are, back in the dark. On the edge of an abyss, as the Iceberg looms and many of us want to look the other way,

[News Dissector Danny Schechter blogs at Newsdissector.net. His recent books are Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street and Blogothon (Cosimo Books). He hosts News Dissector Radio on PRN.fm Fridays at 1 p.m. His latest film is Plunder: The Crime of Our Time. Email Danny at dissector@mediachannel.org. Read more articles by Danny Schechter on The Rag Blog.]

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Ted McLaughlin : Can the Republicans Kiss and Make Up?

And the losers are (clockwise, from upper left): Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Jon Huntsman (who dropped out of the race on Jan. 16). Caricature by DonkeyHotey / Wikimedia Commons.
A tough primary season:
Republican Party suicide?

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog / February 1, 2012

"I spent much of my academic career telling reporters, 'Relax, this is not the most negative campaign ever.' Well, this IS the most negative campaign ever." -- Ken Goldstein, Campaign Media Analysis Group

Politics has always been a rather brutal undertaking, and never more than in a general election or a party primary. The stakes are high and the loser goes home while the winner assumes a lot of power -- or in the case of a primary, the right to run for that power position.

Even the tamest of primary campaigns can rightfully be compared to a bare-knuckles brawl, where even the winner comes out bloodied (and must heal his campaign before taking on his opponent in the general election).

But this year the Republicans have turned that bare-knuckles fight into a gutter fight with knives and other weapons, and some are now wondering whether the eventual winner (and possibly even the party itself) might be mortally wounded when it is all over. Americans are used to negative campaigning, but the Republicans seem to have kicked that negativity up a few notches this year.

Just listen to the words of Ken Goldstein, president of Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), who says, "I spent much of my academic career telling reporters, 'Relax, this is not the most negative campaign ever.' Well, this IS the most negative campaign ever." And he has the facts to back up that statement. Consider the following facts gathered from just the Florida campaign:

• $19.9 million dollars were spent on ads in Florida -- $15.9 million for Romney and $4 million for Gingrich. In 2008, John McCain spent only $11 million in his entire 50-state primary campaign.
• A total of 11,586 TV spots were aired in Florida between January 23rd and 29th, with 10,633 (91.8%) of those being negative and 953 (8.2%) being positive.
• The Romney campaign ran 3,276 ads and 99% of them were negative. The Gingrich campaign ran 1,012 ads and 95% of them were negative.
• The Romney super PAC ran 4,969 ads and 100% of them were negative. The Gingrich super-PAC ran 1,893 ads and 53% of them were negative.
• The Florida ads broke down this way -- 68% were anti-Gingrich, 23% were anti-Romney, 9% were pro-Gingrich, and less than 0.1% were pro-Romney.

To me, that sounds like the very definition of a negative campaign. And it's already having an effect beyond the borders of Florida. While the negative ads were run within the state, they were reported by the media all across the country. And it all seems to be having a negative effect on the Republican Party -- even among the GOP faithful.

A new survey by the prestigious Pew Research Center shows that now a majority of Republicans believe their field of presidential hopefuls is only fair/poor. This is the first time in that survey that more than 50% have believed that.

As late as December of 2011, only 44% of Republicans thought their presidential field was only fair/poor, while 51% believed the field was good/excellent. Those numbers have now flipped. Now 52% of Republicans believe their field of candidates are fair/poor, while only 46% believe that field in good/excellent.

Republicans seem to be losing faith in their presidential candidates, and that is not good for their hopes of winning in November. At this point in 2008, about 68% of Republicans rated their field of candidates as good/excellent.

The fact is that there is now a significant split in the Republican Party -- a split between the teabagger/evangelical/ultra-right-wingers and the establishment/moderate-conservatives. And the two groups don't like each other at all.

The race between Romney and Gingrich is more than just a contest between those two men. It is a proxy fight for control of the party going into the future -- and it is a dirty no-holds-barred proxy fight.

Can these two disparate elements in the Republican Party kiss and make up after the primaries are over? They will try, but whether that effort will be successful is getting more doubtful every day -- especially with Romney's big victory in Florida. It wouldn't take too many Republicans to go over to a third party or just stay at home on election day, to have a disastrous effect for the Republicans' down-ballot on election day.

And worse yet for Republicans is that there is no reason to believe these party divisions won't be just as bad two or four years from now. What we are now witnessing may be more than just a very negative campaign. We could be watching the slow suicide of a once-respected (remember Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt) political party.

[Ted McLaughlin also posts at jobsanger. Read more articles by Ted McLaughlin on The Rag Blog.]

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David P. Hamilton : 'Citizens United' and the Corruption of American Politics

Political cartoon by Adam Zyglis / The Buffalo News / Daryl Cagle.
The 'Citizens United' decision
and the terminal corruption of
American electoral politics

By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / October 28, 2010

This article by The Rag Blog's David P. Hamilton is an extremely timely and relevant assessment of the state of politics in this country following the Supreme Court's game-changing decision opening the floodgates to even greater corporate dominance of the electoral system -- and after the many failures of the Obama administration in bringing about meaningful progressive change. We hope it will stimulate discussion in the progressive community.

However, to the extent that David is suggesting the left should boycott the electoral system, we strongly disagree -- especially at this point in history -- and that should not be taken to be The Rag Blog's editorial position. We believe that -- lacking a coherent strategy on the left that offers a clear and well-articulated alternative course of action to participation in electoral politics -- it would be a self-defeating choice.

We believe, in fact, that everything possible must be done to stop the mushrooming anti-intellectual neo-nativist far right surge, and strongly urge all of our readers to vote this Tuesday, November 2.

But our participation in electoral politics should be done with our eyes open and without unrealistic expectations. And we must always remember that voting is not enough. That our primary responsibility as progressives is to organize and educate outside the political system if we are ever to bring about meaningful basic social change.

-- Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog

The primary political story of this year’s midterm election flows from the Supreme Court’s recent “Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission” decision. This 5-4 decision held that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment.

The already apparent result has been that millions of corporate dollars are flowing into the campaigns nationwide attacking Democrats. Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics predicts "$3.7 billion will be spent on this midterm election," up 30% from the last midterm election. Spending on political ads has increased 75% compared to the 2008 presidential election year.

This flood of ungoverned cash is only just beginning. Increasingly, these contributions are being made anonymously with impunity. Karl Rove now controls a campaign fund 10 times larger than that of the Republican National Committee, 95% of it from three militantly right-wing billionaires. The Chamber of Commerce, with 300,000 members, has raised a huge political fund and spent $28 million, largely from just 45 members, $7 million from "Swiftboat" Bob Perry of Houston.

Money coming from outside the country is also involved, but that fact is marginal to the larger issue. Amounts being spent by these political action committees to defeat Democrats are unprecedented. More than ever, elections are a commodity for sale and the price is being driven up so that only the very rich can afford them.

The consensus prediction of the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections is the widespread defeat of Democrats, losing control of the House and possibly the Senate too. This result will be determined primarily by the sad state of the economy and the failure of Obama’s leadership.

However, as a result of Citizens United the process has fundamentally changed. The playing field has never been level, but the advantages now enjoyed by the capitalist class in the electoral system have reached a qualitatively new high. The primary advantage of the right has been unleashed. Under the new rules governing political campaign financing, the capital class hegemony over the upper strata of U.S. government has been institutionalized.

Leftists have always argued that there is a U.S. capitalist ruling class with its power based in its control of the major corporations and that capitalist class money corrupts elections. Because of the lack of public funding and the high costs associated with running for office, big private sector money has long been necessary to be a serious player.

However, in the past there were legal limitations on corporate contributions that allowed non-corporate elements to compete, albeit at a financial disadvantage, usually losing to the better financed candidates. The restrictions that remain are quickly becoming irrelevant and no new ones can be reasonably expected from a government increasingly beholden to corporate capitalist interests.

NPR recently reported that one Republican-supporting political action fund, among many, was spending over $100,000 for negative advertising at just one small market newspaper in one closely contested congressional race. That’s the new norm. Millions in these funds are currently being spent to defeat progressives like Alan Grayson of Florida. The possibility of public funding of elections coming from politicians in the service of big capitalist interests is slight indeed.

The capitalist ruling class has globalized. They are no longer the U.S. ruling class so much as the largest national sector of an increasingly integrated international ruling class. Capital knows no borders. You can buy any publicly held stock in the world in dozens of stock markets worldwide 24/7. The heretofore essential countervailing sector, labor, has no chance to exert close to an equivalent influence while operating in a national context.

What has changed is the depth and reach of capitalist ruling class control. Like their wealth, their power has grown exponentially; they have increased their range of operation and become internationally integrated in recent years. In the U.S., their control has now become enshrined in the basic law of the land.

In this stagnant democracy where, outside of presidential elections, large majorities don’t participate, the Republicans have correctly adopted the Rovian strategy emphasizing base mobilization rather than appealing to the largely mythical center. Thus, their motivating ideology has become more radically rightist. Disguising their racism as concern for immigration, crime, busing, private education, etc, is their specialty.

As a silver lining to this dark cloud, it is logical to assume that more people will see the validity of the assertion that democracy in America has been corrupted by corporate money. The socialist left should grow in the context of imperial decline and political polarization. Never has serious reform looked more improbable and never have the culprits looked so conspicuous.

If elections have become a fraud perpetrated upon the public, is participation in them unprincipled in that it lends credence to this fraud? Should we encourage people to vote for liberal Democrats or Greens or anyone when we know the game is rigged? Must we accept competition on an unlevel playing field on our opponent’s home turf with them providing the referees?

Or should we instead be encouraging the refusal to participate in corrupt elections? Is authentic democracy impossible under the current system? Should a primary goal of the left in the future be to delegitimize this corrupt electoral system? Is that impossible if you participate?

This hypothesis concerning the reach and power of capitalist class control has been substantiated by Obama. Given a unique opportunity to lead toward real change, he has instead proven himself to be just another politician who protects the interests of the capitalist class first and foremost.

During the 2008 presidential campaign while standing in front of an Austin audience, he repeatedly called himself a “progressive." That was pure pandering. Instead, his administration has expanded American militarism with more money and more U.S. troops fighting in more countries than ever; has produced a health care “reform” that in no fundamental way reforms health care, that mandates you buy a faulty product in the private sector, and that was written largely by health industry lobbyists; and has passed financial “reform” written by lobbyists for the financial sector and their past executives now working within the Obama administration after first forking over hundreds of billions of your tax dollars to “stimulate” them instead of us.

Obama's administration has failed to curb corporate compensation; has failed to close Guantanamo and has expanded CIA assassination programs that include the targeting of American citizens (later defending the practice in court as a “state secret”); has raided the homes and offices of antiwar leaders and confiscated their records; has failed to help millions faced with foreclosure after promising to do so and has announced it will appeal any court ban on future foreclosures while continuing to bail out investment banks who leveraged up the housing bubble.

The administration has shown itself unwilling to pressure Israel to make peace with the Palestinians; has done next to nothing to end the Drug War; has allowed environmental disaster in the Gulf through incompetence and a failure of regulatory oversight and then quickly lifted the ban on deep water drilling, etc, ad nauseum.

Now the Obama Justice Department has successfully appealed the federal judge’s ruling that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is unconstitutional. Before a national audience this ex-professor of constitutional law achieved his nadir of veracity by arguing that protecting gays from continued oppression by the military was best accomplished by a legislative branch that had only recently refused to do so and where his majority is about to shrink if not disappear.

This was soon followed by news that Obama’s “Justice” Department will defend Bush’s attorney general, John Ashcroft, against legitimate charges that after 9/11 he ordered Muslim Americans to be held without charges, denied them access to lawyers, and had them carried off to secret prisons and tortured.

Obama’s record is only progressive in comparison to reactionary Republicans and its lack of progressivism is the principal reason for the “enthusiasm gap." Next week, the Republicans will get no more votes nationwide than they got when they were soundly defeated in 2008. However, the Democrats will receive many fewer than 2008. Most of those who have abandoned Barack Obama are to his left. Meanwhile, most Democrats continue to pursue the outmoded strategy of appealing to moderates.

Of course, merely not voting is an insufficient response. Denouncing the process would be not only truthful but very likely a productive strategic innovation for the left in the future -- to picket polling places, to urge people to deface ballots, to publicly destroy registration cards like Vietnam-era draft cards and to proselytize around the analysis that the electoral system and the politicians it produces are inherently corrupt.

Fundamental reforms that reverse Citizens United, ban corporate money from political campaigns altogether, and establish publicly-funded elections are reasonable and popular but unachievable goals in the present political context and, hence, revolutionary. This irreconcilable conflict of fundamental interests will promote political instability that will increase as this corruption becomes more glaring, entrenched and widespread.

[David P. Hamilton has been a political activist in Austin since the late 1960s when he worked with SDS and wrote for The Rag, Austin's underground newspaper.]

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Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman : Rove Served for Election Theft

Danse Macabre: MC Karl Rove, choreographer of election theft. Photo from AP.
Facing the nation:
Karl Rove deposed for election fraud

By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman / The Rag Blog / October 26, 2010

Election woes got you down?

Imagine the look of contempt on Karl Rove’s face this past Sunday as he swaggered toward his star turn on CBS’s Face the Nation only to be served with our subpoena sanctioned by the Secretary of the State of Ohio.

The federal subpoena orders Rove to testify in deposition. Our attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, intends to ask Mr. Rove about his role in the theft of the 2004 election, and to discuss his orchestration of tens of millions of corporate/billionaire dollars in the one coming up on November 2, 2010.

As co-counsel and plaintiff in the on-going King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal lawsuit, we have fought for six years to win justice and full disclosure in an election that Rove stole for George W. Bush.

In the course of this civil rights federal suit, we have seen the illegal destruction of hundreds of thousands of paper and electronic ballots that were supposedly protected by federal law.

We have seen 56 of 88 Ohio counties destroy most of their poll records, making a full recount of the 2004 vote an impossibility. Some of this destruction, for which no one has been prosecuted, was done in defiance of federal law and a federal court order.

We have also seen the very mysterious and disturbing death of Michael Connell, Rove’s former chief computer guru. Rove used Connell to establish the electronic tools and architectural framework through which the vote count manipulations that shifted the election from John Kerry to Bush were accomplished.

An experienced professional pilot, Connell died improbably in a fiery crash at his home airport in Canton in December 2008. Connell had been deposed the day before the November 2008 election. Attorney Arnebeck was in the process of preparing for another round of questioning when Connell’s life was ended.

Our subpoena is aimed at letting Rove explain all he did to give himself, Bush, and Dick Cheney another term in the White House.

But there is much more. With the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United decision, the floodgates have opened to an unprecedented wave of cash coming from corporations and billionaire donors such as the Koch Brothers. By many accounts at least $150 million in corporate/billionaire lucre is being laundered through Rove’s American Crossroads.

Under Rove’s orchestration, this money is being used to wipe Democrats out of Congress and to take control of the apportionment process at the state level throughout the country.

“Rove is the de facto head of a coordinated Republican national campaign in which Tom Donahue of the Chamber of Commerce is a senior partner, while the Republican National Committee has been relegated to junior partner status,” says Arnebeck.

“Rove has filled the airwaves with high-priced attack ads funded by the mega-corporations and billionaires that stand to benefit most from another assault on the public trust and treasury.

“He and the Koch Brothers have also funneled large bundles of cash to a Tea Party astroturf organization meant to give the Republican campaign a grassroots veneer.

“From the fiasco of Florida 2000 through the theft of Ohio 2004 to the present, there has been no significant federal reform of the electoral process or curtailment of the use of easily manipulated electronic voting machines,” adds Arnebeck. “With the added tsunami of cash from Citizens United, Rove's role as the principal perpetrator of a racketeering conspiracy, as defined by the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act, has been vastly enhanced."

"Our lawsuit stemming from the widespread 'irregularities' that defined the 2004 election has never been settled," concludes Arnebeck. "With the approval of the out-going Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, we have served Mr. Rove with a legally binding requirement that he answer a few questions."

Stay tuned.

[Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-counsel and plaintiff in the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal lawsuit, and have co-authored four books on election protection at www.freepress.org, where donations to this lawsuit can be made via the CICJ election protection at the online store, where the Fitrakis Files also appear. Harvey Wasserman’s History of the United States is at www.harveywasserman.com.]

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