No republic in history has ever survived as a functioning democracy more than a few generations once political bribery is legalized or becomes widespread
You are right, though it is more than just Buckley and Citizens United. The military-industrial-security system gives rewards to each Congressional district in the form of contracts from that very same government, with lobbyists shepherding the connections. While the campaign contribution rulings closed the loop, with corporations giving some of that same profit back to those who voted for their contracts, much of the system was in place for decades. And as Gore Vidal noted, there's always some level of corruption, it's just a matter of how big it is.
But things have gotten out of control, and it doesn't help that few states have non-partisan drawing of House boundaries, not to mention the cost of running for office has become astronomical. Perhaps we need a new Constitution, though that could be very dangerous, or at least several Progressive amendments, but getting those through is also a heavy life.
So long as the U.S. tries to be a military superpower with an informal world empire, and runs the national debt up to the Moon, this situation will likely continue. Environmental disasters, a weakening of military power, and the end of the dollar as the world's reserve currency will stop all this...and likely open the door to a real dictator, unless we are very fortunate and don't go the way of the U.S.S.R.
If you look at the "rewards" handed out, paying $1,000 for them to create $100 of jobs in our town is incredibly stupid. End the military and spend the $1,000 locally, or better yet, spend the $100 and cut taxes on working people $900.
I completely agree with you, this makes no economic sense...except in the not so long run it may be necessary. I don't know about "ending" the military, but it could and should be vastly reduced (the security state too). In a country with the national debt approaching 29 trillion dollars--and that curve getting steeper every day--the whole economy could unravel if we don't that spending But how it can be reined in when so much of the economy is tied to Washington's military-industrial-security state is a serious question.
But in the 19th century people talked about Turkey as the "Sick Man of Europe" and Imperial China the "Sick Man of Asia," big and once powerful countries that had to be propped up for the stability of the world. In a generation that could be America. And if our military falls apart there is nothing much left here unless we have a decent industrial base. This country won't sustain itself by selling primary products such as oil and wheat; that's a colonial economy. The two states I just mentioned did not last, and they were carved up amid domestic chaos.
Another approach that should go with this shift is what Thom has so correctly said is needed, free higher education and national health care not tied to one's job. A sick and poorly prepared workforce is no future for America either.
Costa Rica was a typical "banana republic", surrounded by enemies and constantly changing government. Then the general took over, scheduled elections, announced he wasn't running, and disbanded the military. I've spent a fair amount of time there. They eliminated themselves being a threat so their neighbors have never bothered them
The days of war to gain land or industry are over. These days, everything is made everywhere, and If your city conquers my city, you have to feed us and build your own houses. One thing for certain is adopting a violent stance is stupid. If two or more parties always respond to violence with violence, war is guaranteed.
When Costa Rica got rid of their military, they didn't get rid of ANY of the politicians who started all wars. Instead, they pulled their teeth (the politicians).
Would Cheney have been so frantic to invade Iraq if he had to pick up a tree limb and attack? I think not, but he sure talked like he would.
So, remove the teeth.
And don't forget that military installations are 90/10 investments. We pay $1,000 in taxes, and it is split $900 to war profiteer CEOs and $100 in your town. Let's spend $500 and keep $500 and we can even QUINTUPLE the military welfare for our town. I don't care if the CEO of Ratheon starves, he's a mass murderer for hire.
The solution to all of America's problems is education. Look at Europe. Europe either never quit being fascist, or kept falling back into fascism, for all of recorded history, until about 1960. About 1960, they realized that when citizens are gullible, fascists can negate years of work with half a dozen clever lies. So, Europe educated everyone. Yes, education has other benefits, but it's primary justification is that education is the only known vaccine for fascism.
Europe has as many greedy monsters pushing fascism for personal profit as the USA. The difference is education. I was in Oslo once when a friend and I ran into a guy trying to sell fascism. My friend laughed and walked around the fool, and so did everyone else. It was like watching a petulant 2 year old having a tantrum, the adults were not fooled. In Naples Florida, the guy would quickly be surrounded by red hat wearing ignoramuses.
A good history but not mentioning that Democrats are a major part of the corruption so just campaigning against it is as hollow as Biden's public health policy. The problem is not messaging. It's that Democrats campaign on one thing and then do the exact opposite when they get into office. Those who are aware of what Biden is doing, or failing to do, like younger people as in my young adult children, overwhelmingly despise Biden for what he is. Meanwhile, your show props him up as the next FDR. Therein is the problem--enabling a judgment-addled, donor-serving party to continue their doctrine of "incremental change" which if you haven't noticed has not only gone in the wrong direction but has been easily accelerated by Republicans who are not even in the majority. That's what Biden's meeting in the middle/centrist nonsense garners--a Democratic Party moving to the right for fear of what Republicans will say about them.
"The entire Republican caucus in both the US House and Senate and every Republican in every state house and senate in America are on the take" -- as are so many Democrat lawmakers. We deal with surface realities, like these, instead of addressing what's causal to them, which is a worldview based on money instead of on morality. UBI, which has been successful in all the small experiements that have been initiated, remains a whisper. How to get it to be a roar? Lift people out of dealing with survival and they can think about higher order issues, where, if we were basically cooperative instead of self-interest being paramount, we could deal with what to do for the good of the whole.
What's UBI? Your point connects to the emphasis Thom was putting on the oligarchs' program to strangle public education a few days ago. "The good of the whole" was accelerated down the rabbit hole by Covid. Suddenly it became a point of pride to claim one's "freedom" to spread the death around. Bizarre. The most unpatriotic concept imaginable, if America is the sum of its citizens. Death to America, in the name of Liberty! That psychological perversion actually goes deeper than money.
We are an evolving species -- not our bodies which seem fully cooked but that added element we have of self-awareness that other anuimals don't have, and in that department we have a long way to go.
The Tilman Act targeted and prohibited corporate contributions to political campaigns, a critical element in the corruption of democracy. Tilman was eviscerated, as Thom points out, and since then the money pouring into politics has become astronomical. In the 2020 election cycle $14.4 billion was spent on political campaigns, as tallied on the Open Secrets website. Presidential races totaled just over $5.7 billion. Congressional campaign spending topped $8.7 billion. This was more than twice the spending in the 2016 election cycle, which itself was the most expensive campaign in history. Now Senators spend, on average, $19.3 million to get re-elected; Representatives about $2.3 million. President Biden’s campaign raised $1.624 billion, Trump’s $1.087 billion.
There are two problems here: a literal campaign INDUSTRY has been created; ad agencies, writers, consultants, media experts and of course the major recipients of all the money, the media corporations, now concentrated into about six national behemoths. This industry has an enormous vested interest in the system, and will fight to the death to maintain it. The other problem: Representatives and Senators now spend, literally, half their days in fundraising activities--when they might otherwise be working to serve the interests of the nation and their constituents. The $14 billion in political contributions is a problem that defies solution, absent an overturn of Citizen's United.
But campaign contributions are just one side of the equation: the other side is spending all that money in campaign expenditures. In 1910 Congress looked at that and passed a companion to the Tilman Act: the Federal Corrupt Practices Act. It said nothing at all about the campaign contributions a candidate could receive. Instead it imposed severe and inflexible limits on their campaign expenditures. Candidates could spend no more $0.03 per constituent, up to caps of $5,000 for House campaigns and $25,000 in Senate races. Similar modest limits today (let’s adjust for inflation) would liberate candidates from the burden of raising millions—you don’t need what you can’t spend—and no candidate could outspend another to buy an election. Effective campaigns of informing the voters would be adequately funded, but the marathons of spectacle would end. Quick. Simple. Effective. If you want to get Big Money out of politics just make it, in a roundabout way, illegal.
Limiting candidates’ expenditures is commonplace. Eighty three of the world's 97 democracies do so: the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Austria, France, Ireland, Belgium, New Zealand, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Mexico, Bulgaria, Poland, Chile, Italy, Portugal, and 66 more.
The spending caps in Canada and the UK have been in place for more than a century, and both countries limit expenditures by the political parties as well; US$24.9 million per election cycle in Britain, in Canada US$21.0 million. The Individual candidates can spend no more than US$91,700 in Canada and US$131,000 in Britain: trifles compared to the millions their American counterparts must raise. And isn’t $100,000, plus-or-minus, adequate? Are these countries less well governed? Are their democracies intact?
But the Federal Corrupt Practices Act was ruled Unconstitutional in 1976, in the Buckley v. Valeo decision. Spending by candidates was ruled an act of free speech.
So there we have it. Corporations are people, money is speech, democracy is damned nearly dead.
(I've lifted much of this from a book I'm working on, and an online essay published in 2019: "Torpedo Citizen's United to Save the Green New Deal: a 1910 Law Shows How."
Dear Professor: Is there any historical evidence of a culture/nation recovering from the current USA level of governance by greed and mass brainwashing/conditioning/habituation? I threw in modifications because I suppose serfs in 900AD brutally mutually policed their "uppity" occasional neighbor who didn't adequately bow as the Lordship rode by. Generally, any upset of the degree of division in wealth and power we live in now has historically resulted from climate devastation. French Revolution: crop failure: famine. So incipient now, with famine in Central America, and the North Atlantic Current hasn't even failed yet. Lake Chad is almost gone!(It's a Baby Boomer encyclopedia thing.) It is so sad that the peons slaughter each other before they realize, it actually is a zero sum game, and they lost, and it actually wasn't their (Jew, colored, immigrant, effeminate, liberal) neighbor who did it to them. Ho hum. It's the savage, normal human race. Not seeing a step up to better outcome this eternal time around.
Thom says "No republic in history has ever survived as a functioning democracy more than a few generations once political bribery is legalized or becomes widespread"
I'd add that every republic in history was formed to end widespread political bribery.
I'm an optimist. I think we will break the cycle - and die from AGW instead.
Well they also see a vacuum of leadership from Joe Biden and that Republicans in the minority manage to get almost everything they want. They see constant excuses from Democrats and endless reference to the process as you seem to focus on, but that is not the only way to get things done. In addition, over 150 Biden staffers in health and environmental agencies just wrote a letter to Biden, his OWN staffers mind you, to get off his ass and do something about climate change AND about Manchin. They offered the same suggestions as I have in writings, including stripping of his chairmanship of the Energy Committee (why the hell is he the chairman anyway?), blocking of amendments etc. Funny that Democrats are warning us about Republicans getting everything they want if they return to the majority in the next election, yet Democrats can't seem to do anything at all with theirs. Strange isn't it?
Not too strange at all that this centrist, or "moderate, "administration, as well as Obama's, haven't accomplished nearly as much as we would have liked, since they were afraid to offend Trumpist Republicans by offering the American people the progressive changes that they wanted and so sorely need. This attitude stems from the last two Dem presidents' naive belief that they can work with the Republican congress, and trust them to do what's best for the country.
Agreed and I believe that is largely because they are serving many of the same corporate masters as Republicans, which makes much of their rhetoric about climate change and workers rights performative. And yes Obama and Biden are both weak and extremely naive.
Let me add that Biden is sucking more oil out of the ground than previous record-setter Obama and in his first year extracted 34% more oil than Trump. As this is the number one driver of climate change, everything else he does will not reverse yet another broken campaign promise. Not only a broken promise, but a complete reversal.
Monster Oil is sucking as much oil out as it calculates to keep Americans on the teat but always hungry. All the permits were in place before Biden announced to run. But why should Exxon and the Kochs and the Saudis drill cheap, when they can wait for a war and screw everybody? Mr. Kaufman, if Biden instigated "tough love" to further transition to green, it is patent that you would have a rationale that he was wrong for that. You are busted.
Journalism is helpful in sorting out "tough love" from exacerbating climate change by expanding its primary driver. Your excuses are ideal for electioneering liberals who imitate the behavior of millionaire pundits and progressives assimilating into the morass of Democratic-party media spin outlets, but as you tell the Trumpers who won't believe anything in order to preserve the cult of celebrity, Biden is just another rudderless neoliberal Establishment politician making excuses for his indelible inservitude of special interests whose only interest is profit. https://theintercept.com/2022/07/06/biden-oil-gas-drilling-royalty-rates/
Baloney. Supply side economics are total BS. Oil is a commodity like wheat. Oil companies can no more force us to buy more oil than wheat growers can force us to eat more wheat.
Commodities are demand driven.
Read "The Color of Oil" by Michael Economides, it's thin. Economides points out that standard of living and cost of energy have a 98% negative correlation.
The main result of oil burning is increased standard of living. Yes, it's damaging the atmosphere but look at London or Manchester or LA or NYC before oil - all were hazy and respiratory diseases were the main killer.
Therefore oil is a clean and wonderful energy source - compared to chopping down and burning forests.
Agriculture can ONLY support 100 times as many humans as can survive because of oil. If we end oil, we end food. I'll say it differently - OVER 90% OF OUR FOOD WOULD VANISH IF WE END RATHER THAN REPLACE OIL
We need to end burning oil, not using energy. The best means is replacing oil with the vast array of cheaper alternatives.
If we just shut off the oil rather than replace the energy, we will destroy civilization and plunge the world into starvation.
The world burns FOUR BILLION gallons of oil every day. The USA burns ONE BILLION. Shut that off and 25% of the planet is out of work until the oil runs out, then 98% will be starving.
So, quit complaining about high gasoline prices with one breath and oil drilling with the next.
Do what I did. I have bought the car that burns the least oil since my very first car. I bicycle or walk when I can. I'm getting an electric car as soon as my oil burners wear out. It's horribly polluting to replace them sooner. My house is powered by solar and I've taken the steps that even when I lived in Naples, FL, my electric bill was never more than $50.
Most important, I resisted the incredibly strong drive to make babies. All of my kids are adopted from less responsible humans.
Act, don't complain, and don't tell me what to do, I'm doing it, have been for decades, and I'm not alone, in fact it's crowded here, but we have room for everyone.
Went back and read myself. I didn't think I'd told you what to do, but if I had, it would have looked a lot like what you're doing! Kudos! I'll keep an eye out for the Economides book, even though I generally eschew tomes less than 400 pages. Is anybody talking about "just shutting off" oil? I haven't heard that one. I thought my point about high gas prices was clear, that I subscribe to the observation (refs. Thom Hartmann, Robert Reich, etc.) that they are being manipulated, and represent greed, neither supply nor demand.
I understand you are part of the Biden fan club, which presents a bias towards defending him rather than clearly seeing his weakness and lack of a moral compass. You likely ascribe to "incremental change" and believe that progressives present a "purity test." That being said, your response is extremely lenient as to what the president can and cannot do, but suffice it to say that Chuck Schumer has the power to strip members of committee assignments etc. Here is the letter from the staffers and all Biden has to do is declare a climate emergency and he immediately has considerable power to initiate action: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmn48/165-government-staffers-beg-biden-to-do-something-anything-on-climate
Playing politics like chess is what got us here. While you might not be a Biden fan, so excuse my assumption, you have been affected by corporate media. Obama and Clinton claimed they were "pragmatic progressives," yet by its nature of truthtelling and eschewing corporate rule it not pragmatic at all. So pragmatism, doing only what the lobbyists and donors will allow, have given us the half-measures and neoliberal public policy that have put over 20% of Americans in collections for medical debt and shuttered 70% of American manufacturing which has helped to usher in the era of Trump. Politics is not a game, although Democrats play the line with their donors while handing us rhetoric, promises and excuses. It is not like chess, but we are indeed the pawns who Democrats and Republicans alike keep divided for their own vested interests. And being afraid of "pissing people off" is the crux of the Democratic Party conundrum. Biden and his VP Harris are truly nightmarish in their zombie-like repitition of meaningless rhetoric and their slaps in the face to the constituencies that got them into office. I phonebanked for pro-abortion, pro-labor, anti-gun Jessica Cisneros only to have AIPAC and Pelosi fund anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-labor Henry Cuellar who won by a couple hundred votes. Rand Paul blocked Biden's lifetime appointment of an anti-abortion federal judge in Kentucky. Democrats are funneling money in Michigan to promote Trump-aligned madman John Gibbs, a strategy they used to promote Trump in the 2016 Republican primary with disastrous results. If that's their idea of chess, it is no wonder it is checkmate for us.
You are right, though it is more than just Buckley and Citizens United. The military-industrial-security system gives rewards to each Congressional district in the form of contracts from that very same government, with lobbyists shepherding the connections. While the campaign contribution rulings closed the loop, with corporations giving some of that same profit back to those who voted for their contracts, much of the system was in place for decades. And as Gore Vidal noted, there's always some level of corruption, it's just a matter of how big it is.
But things have gotten out of control, and it doesn't help that few states have non-partisan drawing of House boundaries, not to mention the cost of running for office has become astronomical. Perhaps we need a new Constitution, though that could be very dangerous, or at least several Progressive amendments, but getting those through is also a heavy life.
So long as the U.S. tries to be a military superpower with an informal world empire, and runs the national debt up to the Moon, this situation will likely continue. Environmental disasters, a weakening of military power, and the end of the dollar as the world's reserve currency will stop all this...and likely open the door to a real dictator, unless we are very fortunate and don't go the way of the U.S.S.R.
If you look at the "rewards" handed out, paying $1,000 for them to create $100 of jobs in our town is incredibly stupid. End the military and spend the $1,000 locally, or better yet, spend the $100 and cut taxes on working people $900.
I completely agree with you, this makes no economic sense...except in the not so long run it may be necessary. I don't know about "ending" the military, but it could and should be vastly reduced (the security state too). In a country with the national debt approaching 29 trillion dollars--and that curve getting steeper every day--the whole economy could unravel if we don't that spending But how it can be reined in when so much of the economy is tied to Washington's military-industrial-security state is a serious question.
But in the 19th century people talked about Turkey as the "Sick Man of Europe" and Imperial China the "Sick Man of Asia," big and once powerful countries that had to be propped up for the stability of the world. In a generation that could be America. And if our military falls apart there is nothing much left here unless we have a decent industrial base. This country won't sustain itself by selling primary products such as oil and wheat; that's a colonial economy. The two states I just mentioned did not last, and they were carved up amid domestic chaos.
Another approach that should go with this shift is what Thom has so correctly said is needed, free higher education and national health care not tied to one's job. A sick and poorly prepared workforce is no future for America either.
Costa Rica was a typical "banana republic", surrounded by enemies and constantly changing government. Then the general took over, scheduled elections, announced he wasn't running, and disbanded the military. I've spent a fair amount of time there. They eliminated themselves being a threat so their neighbors have never bothered them
The days of war to gain land or industry are over. These days, everything is made everywhere, and If your city conquers my city, you have to feed us and build your own houses. One thing for certain is adopting a violent stance is stupid. If two or more parties always respond to violence with violence, war is guaranteed.
When Costa Rica got rid of their military, they didn't get rid of ANY of the politicians who started all wars. Instead, they pulled their teeth (the politicians).
Would Cheney have been so frantic to invade Iraq if he had to pick up a tree limb and attack? I think not, but he sure talked like he would.
So, remove the teeth.
And don't forget that military installations are 90/10 investments. We pay $1,000 in taxes, and it is split $900 to war profiteer CEOs and $100 in your town. Let's spend $500 and keep $500 and we can even QUINTUPLE the military welfare for our town. I don't care if the CEO of Ratheon starves, he's a mass murderer for hire.
The solution to all of America's problems is education. Look at Europe. Europe either never quit being fascist, or kept falling back into fascism, for all of recorded history, until about 1960. About 1960, they realized that when citizens are gullible, fascists can negate years of work with half a dozen clever lies. So, Europe educated everyone. Yes, education has other benefits, but it's primary justification is that education is the only known vaccine for fascism.
Europe has as many greedy monsters pushing fascism for personal profit as the USA. The difference is education. I was in Oslo once when a friend and I ran into a guy trying to sell fascism. My friend laughed and walked around the fool, and so did everyone else. It was like watching a petulant 2 year old having a tantrum, the adults were not fooled. In Naples Florida, the guy would quickly be surrounded by red hat wearing ignoramuses.
Thank you for continuing to push "Article 3 Section 2 Clause 2" as a key in solving this crisis. Scotus truly is the enemy of progress in America.
The citing of "Article 3.2.2" on legislation will be essential to saving America on probably every other problem Scotus inflicts upon America:
1.. Abortion rights
2.. Banning guns
3.. Scotus term limits and expanding the court.
4.. EPA powers and that of other federal agencies.
5.. Stopping the "independent state legislature theory" ruling coming later this year
6.. Gerrymandering.
A good history but not mentioning that Democrats are a major part of the corruption so just campaigning against it is as hollow as Biden's public health policy. The problem is not messaging. It's that Democrats campaign on one thing and then do the exact opposite when they get into office. Those who are aware of what Biden is doing, or failing to do, like younger people as in my young adult children, overwhelmingly despise Biden for what he is. Meanwhile, your show props him up as the next FDR. Therein is the problem--enabling a judgment-addled, donor-serving party to continue their doctrine of "incremental change" which if you haven't noticed has not only gone in the wrong direction but has been easily accelerated by Republicans who are not even in the majority. That's what Biden's meeting in the middle/centrist nonsense garners--a Democratic Party moving to the right for fear of what Republicans will say about them.
"The entire Republican caucus in both the US House and Senate and every Republican in every state house and senate in America are on the take" -- as are so many Democrat lawmakers. We deal with surface realities, like these, instead of addressing what's causal to them, which is a worldview based on money instead of on morality. UBI, which has been successful in all the small experiements that have been initiated, remains a whisper. How to get it to be a roar? Lift people out of dealing with survival and they can think about higher order issues, where, if we were basically cooperative instead of self-interest being paramount, we could deal with what to do for the good of the whole.
What's UBI? Your point connects to the emphasis Thom was putting on the oligarchs' program to strangle public education a few days ago. "The good of the whole" was accelerated down the rabbit hole by Covid. Suddenly it became a point of pride to claim one's "freedom" to spread the death around. Bizarre. The most unpatriotic concept imaginable, if America is the sum of its citizens. Death to America, in the name of Liberty! That psychological perversion actually goes deeper than money.
Universal Basic Income. Google it.
We are an evolving species -- not our bodies which seem fully cooked but that added element we have of self-awareness that other anuimals don't have, and in that department we have a long way to go.
The Tilman Act targeted and prohibited corporate contributions to political campaigns, a critical element in the corruption of democracy. Tilman was eviscerated, as Thom points out, and since then the money pouring into politics has become astronomical. In the 2020 election cycle $14.4 billion was spent on political campaigns, as tallied on the Open Secrets website. Presidential races totaled just over $5.7 billion. Congressional campaign spending topped $8.7 billion. This was more than twice the spending in the 2016 election cycle, which itself was the most expensive campaign in history. Now Senators spend, on average, $19.3 million to get re-elected; Representatives about $2.3 million. President Biden’s campaign raised $1.624 billion, Trump’s $1.087 billion.
There are two problems here: a literal campaign INDUSTRY has been created; ad agencies, writers, consultants, media experts and of course the major recipients of all the money, the media corporations, now concentrated into about six national behemoths. This industry has an enormous vested interest in the system, and will fight to the death to maintain it. The other problem: Representatives and Senators now spend, literally, half their days in fundraising activities--when they might otherwise be working to serve the interests of the nation and their constituents. The $14 billion in political contributions is a problem that defies solution, absent an overturn of Citizen's United.
But campaign contributions are just one side of the equation: the other side is spending all that money in campaign expenditures. In 1910 Congress looked at that and passed a companion to the Tilman Act: the Federal Corrupt Practices Act. It said nothing at all about the campaign contributions a candidate could receive. Instead it imposed severe and inflexible limits on their campaign expenditures. Candidates could spend no more $0.03 per constituent, up to caps of $5,000 for House campaigns and $25,000 in Senate races. Similar modest limits today (let’s adjust for inflation) would liberate candidates from the burden of raising millions—you don’t need what you can’t spend—and no candidate could outspend another to buy an election. Effective campaigns of informing the voters would be adequately funded, but the marathons of spectacle would end. Quick. Simple. Effective. If you want to get Big Money out of politics just make it, in a roundabout way, illegal.
Limiting candidates’ expenditures is commonplace. Eighty three of the world's 97 democracies do so: the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Austria, France, Ireland, Belgium, New Zealand, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Mexico, Bulgaria, Poland, Chile, Italy, Portugal, and 66 more.
The spending caps in Canada and the UK have been in place for more than a century, and both countries limit expenditures by the political parties as well; US$24.9 million per election cycle in Britain, in Canada US$21.0 million. The Individual candidates can spend no more than US$91,700 in Canada and US$131,000 in Britain: trifles compared to the millions their American counterparts must raise. And isn’t $100,000, plus-or-minus, adequate? Are these countries less well governed? Are their democracies intact?
But the Federal Corrupt Practices Act was ruled Unconstitutional in 1976, in the Buckley v. Valeo decision. Spending by candidates was ruled an act of free speech.
So there we have it. Corporations are people, money is speech, democracy is damned nearly dead.
(I've lifted much of this from a book I'm working on, and an online essay published in 2019: "Torpedo Citizen's United to Save the Green New Deal: a 1910 Law Shows How."
"https://www.laprogressive.com/economic-equality/save-the-green-new-deal)
Dear Professor: Is there any historical evidence of a culture/nation recovering from the current USA level of governance by greed and mass brainwashing/conditioning/habituation? I threw in modifications because I suppose serfs in 900AD brutally mutually policed their "uppity" occasional neighbor who didn't adequately bow as the Lordship rode by. Generally, any upset of the degree of division in wealth and power we live in now has historically resulted from climate devastation. French Revolution: crop failure: famine. So incipient now, with famine in Central America, and the North Atlantic Current hasn't even failed yet. Lake Chad is almost gone!(It's a Baby Boomer encyclopedia thing.) It is so sad that the peons slaughter each other before they realize, it actually is a zero sum game, and they lost, and it actually wasn't their (Jew, colored, immigrant, effeminate, liberal) neighbor who did it to them. Ho hum. It's the savage, normal human race. Not seeing a step up to better outcome this eternal time around.
Thom says "No republic in history has ever survived as a functioning democracy more than a few generations once political bribery is legalized or becomes widespread"
I'd add that every republic in history was formed to end widespread political bribery.
I'm an optimist. I think we will break the cycle - and die from AGW instead.
Great article. To me, the swamp has reached our chin and we can't swim.
Gotta wonder if this will hold…
“Manchin Deal”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/manchin-schumer-climate-deal_n_62e1a677e4b07f83766bafbb
Well they also see a vacuum of leadership from Joe Biden and that Republicans in the minority manage to get almost everything they want. They see constant excuses from Democrats and endless reference to the process as you seem to focus on, but that is not the only way to get things done. In addition, over 150 Biden staffers in health and environmental agencies just wrote a letter to Biden, his OWN staffers mind you, to get off his ass and do something about climate change AND about Manchin. They offered the same suggestions as I have in writings, including stripping of his chairmanship of the Energy Committee (why the hell is he the chairman anyway?), blocking of amendments etc. Funny that Democrats are warning us about Republicans getting everything they want if they return to the majority in the next election, yet Democrats can't seem to do anything at all with theirs. Strange isn't it?
Not too strange at all that this centrist, or "moderate, "administration, as well as Obama's, haven't accomplished nearly as much as we would have liked, since they were afraid to offend Trumpist Republicans by offering the American people the progressive changes that they wanted and so sorely need. This attitude stems from the last two Dem presidents' naive belief that they can work with the Republican congress, and trust them to do what's best for the country.
Agreed and I believe that is largely because they are serving many of the same corporate masters as Republicans, which makes much of their rhetoric about climate change and workers rights performative. And yes Obama and Biden are both weak and extremely naive.
Let me add that Biden is sucking more oil out of the ground than previous record-setter Obama and in his first year extracted 34% more oil than Trump. As this is the number one driver of climate change, everything else he does will not reverse yet another broken campaign promise. Not only a broken promise, but a complete reversal.
Monster Oil is sucking as much oil out as it calculates to keep Americans on the teat but always hungry. All the permits were in place before Biden announced to run. But why should Exxon and the Kochs and the Saudis drill cheap, when they can wait for a war and screw everybody? Mr. Kaufman, if Biden instigated "tough love" to further transition to green, it is patent that you would have a rationale that he was wrong for that. You are busted.
Journalism is helpful in sorting out "tough love" from exacerbating climate change by expanding its primary driver. Your excuses are ideal for electioneering liberals who imitate the behavior of millionaire pundits and progressives assimilating into the morass of Democratic-party media spin outlets, but as you tell the Trumpers who won't believe anything in order to preserve the cult of celebrity, Biden is just another rudderless neoliberal Establishment politician making excuses for his indelible inservitude of special interests whose only interest is profit. https://theintercept.com/2022/07/06/biden-oil-gas-drilling-royalty-rates/
Glad you agree
Baloney. Supply side economics are total BS. Oil is a commodity like wheat. Oil companies can no more force us to buy more oil than wheat growers can force us to eat more wheat.
Commodities are demand driven.
Read "The Color of Oil" by Michael Economides, it's thin. Economides points out that standard of living and cost of energy have a 98% negative correlation.
The main result of oil burning is increased standard of living. Yes, it's damaging the atmosphere but look at London or Manchester or LA or NYC before oil - all were hazy and respiratory diseases were the main killer.
Therefore oil is a clean and wonderful energy source - compared to chopping down and burning forests.
Agriculture can ONLY support 100 times as many humans as can survive because of oil. If we end oil, we end food. I'll say it differently - OVER 90% OF OUR FOOD WOULD VANISH IF WE END RATHER THAN REPLACE OIL
We need to end burning oil, not using energy. The best means is replacing oil with the vast array of cheaper alternatives.
If we just shut off the oil rather than replace the energy, we will destroy civilization and plunge the world into starvation.
The world burns FOUR BILLION gallons of oil every day. The USA burns ONE BILLION. Shut that off and 25% of the planet is out of work until the oil runs out, then 98% will be starving.
So, quit complaining about high gasoline prices with one breath and oil drilling with the next.
Do what I did. I have bought the car that burns the least oil since my very first car. I bicycle or walk when I can. I'm getting an electric car as soon as my oil burners wear out. It's horribly polluting to replace them sooner. My house is powered by solar and I've taken the steps that even when I lived in Naples, FL, my electric bill was never more than $50.
Most important, I resisted the incredibly strong drive to make babies. All of my kids are adopted from less responsible humans.
Act, don't complain, and don't tell me what to do, I'm doing it, have been for decades, and I'm not alone, in fact it's crowded here, but we have room for everyone.
Went back and read myself. I didn't think I'd told you what to do, but if I had, it would have looked a lot like what you're doing! Kudos! I'll keep an eye out for the Economides book, even though I generally eschew tomes less than 400 pages. Is anybody talking about "just shutting off" oil? I haven't heard that one. I thought my point about high gas prices was clear, that I subscribe to the observation (refs. Thom Hartmann, Robert Reich, etc.) that they are being manipulated, and represent greed, neither supply nor demand.
I understand you are part of the Biden fan club, which presents a bias towards defending him rather than clearly seeing his weakness and lack of a moral compass. You likely ascribe to "incremental change" and believe that progressives present a "purity test." That being said, your response is extremely lenient as to what the president can and cannot do, but suffice it to say that Chuck Schumer has the power to strip members of committee assignments etc. Here is the letter from the staffers and all Biden has to do is declare a climate emergency and he immediately has considerable power to initiate action: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmn48/165-government-staffers-beg-biden-to-do-something-anything-on-climate
Playing politics like chess is what got us here. While you might not be a Biden fan, so excuse my assumption, you have been affected by corporate media. Obama and Clinton claimed they were "pragmatic progressives," yet by its nature of truthtelling and eschewing corporate rule it not pragmatic at all. So pragmatism, doing only what the lobbyists and donors will allow, have given us the half-measures and neoliberal public policy that have put over 20% of Americans in collections for medical debt and shuttered 70% of American manufacturing which has helped to usher in the era of Trump. Politics is not a game, although Democrats play the line with their donors while handing us rhetoric, promises and excuses. It is not like chess, but we are indeed the pawns who Democrats and Republicans alike keep divided for their own vested interests. And being afraid of "pissing people off" is the crux of the Democratic Party conundrum. Biden and his VP Harris are truly nightmarish in their zombie-like repitition of meaningless rhetoric and their slaps in the face to the constituencies that got them into office. I phonebanked for pro-abortion, pro-labor, anti-gun Jessica Cisneros only to have AIPAC and Pelosi fund anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-labor Henry Cuellar who won by a couple hundred votes. Rand Paul blocked Biden's lifetime appointment of an anti-abortion federal judge in Kentucky. Democrats are funneling money in Michigan to promote Trump-aligned madman John Gibbs, a strategy they used to promote Trump in the 2016 Republican primary with disastrous results. If that's their idea of chess, it is no wonder it is checkmate for us.