NATION BUILDERS ONCE AGAIN

The President was talking directly to you and me in his annual State of the Union speech on Jan. 20^th.  What this speech turned out to be was a People’s Speech, not simply a traditional SOTU speech to Congress with a long list of suggestions for legislation.  I say that for several reasons:

1.       It wasn’t by accident that the speech was crafted around a letter from an ordinary family in Minnesota.

2.       It wasn’t by accident that he chose the topics on which he expounded.  In addition to others, he had asked  members of his original grass roots organization, Organizing for America (now Organizing for Action), to submit topics that were of great concern.

3.       It wasn’t by accident that he talked about choices for the future, because numerous polls of late show what people are most concerned about: jobs and the economy, the middle class being squeezed, especially on wages; foreign terrorism, healthcare, education, and immigration (see www.PollingReport.com for an idea of how they are ranked).

In his SOTU speech President Obama said it’s up to us to choose who we want to be in the next 15 years, and then said that we must focus on values, like: 

§  "restoring the link between work and opportunity," which means, I think, that middle-class economics should not mean that we are penalized with austerity measures and vindictive cuts in rights and jobs and benefits, but that rewards for hard work must include things like tax credits for day care and pension protection and expansion of benefits like health care and free community college tuition. 

§  “thinking higher than one pipeline” is a notable retort to how Republicans think we can save the economy, but grasping at temporary jobs could result in great harm and no gains, as would inevitable oil spills, dependence on oil that is all going overseas, and damage to the aquifer and farm land of residents in states like Nebraska.  

§  staying “ahead of the curve” in that, for instance, by the end of the decade two out of every three jobs will require a college degree. 

§  it matters how we see the world and how the world views us.  We cannot lead with bluster and military might alone, but must combine military strength with diplomacy and broad-based coalitions of nations.  We must return to using war as “a last resort,” he declared.  

And then, the President raised perhaps the most important question that we must address in the next 15 years of this century:  “how can we better reflect America’s values?”

1.       We must realize that we are being led astray by the Tea Party crowd and their passive henchmen in the leadership and rank and file of the Republican Party.  Where are the voices of supposedly more moderate Republicans, like Congressman Richard Hanna?  Unfortunately, their silence and their capitulation to the empty but dangerous rhetoric and ranting of their Right-wing radical colleagues is appalling.  Our milquetoast of a representative doesn’t even have a voice it appears when it comes to speaking out in a forceful manner on the issues of the day!  The most we hear from him is probably written by someone else in a brochure or letter or e-mail, or in a speech before a friendly audience of like-minded businessmen, with emphasis on both “business” and “men”. 

We deserve better, and we have better potential representatives right here in our own city and county.  It’s time to get behind one of them and to support a replacement for Richard Hanna in 2016 because Mr. Hanna is not ever going to represent the broad spectrum of people and challenges in this district.  It’s doubtful that he can even articulate the five most important issues that people across our nation cite when polled by professional pollsters.  He’s out-of-touch, out of ideas, out-of-town, and out-to-lunch when it comes to planning for the future, or even for the present. 

For instance, where does he stand on middle-class economics?  He’s against it!  He voted about 50 times against healthcare reform and wants to repeal the coverage of millions of people.  He votes “Yea” on every Paul Ryan budget that lowers taxes on the rich, takes opportunities and programs away from the poor and middle class, and ignores the imminent danger of climate change while always supporting out-moded weapons and disastrous private contracts for the military. Moreover, Hanna supports lowering taxes on corporations and on capital gains, and he supports the NRA at every turn, winning their support in the last election. 

He has voted against, or ignored, a minimum wage raise, equal pay for equal work, a comprehensive immigration policy, the Obama jobs bill, and infrastructure repair, although he did vote last year for the Jobs for America Act which did everything imaginable except create jobs.  For one, it attacked health care coverage again, changing mandatory employer plan coverage for those who work 30 hours per week by raising it to 40 hours per week!  

 To his credit, he does support a woman’s right to choose, and is the only Republican to vote against his Party on anti-abortion bills for the last two years!  He has also voted against a provision supporting companies that want to refuse to offer contraception as part of their employee health plan. 

He does support farmers.  Unfortunately by voting for last year’s Farm Bill, he also supported a huge reduction in food stamps that many middle class families and veterans needed to get them through the Great Recession.  His "YES" vote thereby supported subsidies to huge farming and food manufacturing conglomerates who put dangerous additives in our food and who want to replace small farmers.  That bill also gave large subsidies to other congressmen and women who own ranches or cattle, but do not actually operate farms. 

Mr. Hanna, it seems, has great trouble sorting out these complicated issues; instead he says one thing and often does another when he votes for Ryan budgets or Farm bills or other legislation that contain conflicting provisions.  He seems unable to simply stand on principle and vote against bills that contain provisions that are harmful to many of his constituents.  In fact, Mr. Hanna does not seem to speak-out on real issues of the day in any concerted manner.  Perhaps Mr. Hanna has already retired from this job; let us be sure to make that retirement permanent in 2016.

(Just so you know: in the 2014 general election, running unopposed, Mr. Hanna still could not get a quarter of the total actual voters to cast a vote for him.  In fact, counting write-ins of other names and blank ballots for his office, Hanna had slightly over 26% of voters in his district who chose not to vote for him!  That is a substantial total from which to launch an opposing campaign!)

2.       We must become activists. We must get behind the President and truly progressive Democrats and support their agenda over the next two years and communicate about our values, our principles and the facts of the great accomplishments of this administration.

           ·         Act upon our convictions and principles and support our President in his fourth-quarter                     surge to put into place a foundation for change that can influence the next 15 years. 

·        This means actually making phone calls to Congress, joining an activist organization, writing letters-to-the-editor, posting on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram; it actually means joining a demonstration or an advocacy group. 

·         It means taking an active interest in issues that affect our lives and making sure that  other people also become aware of what's at stake.  It means volunteering our time and money to aid in making a difference in the direction this country takes.  Everyone can join in such an effort because it’s a matter of making choices.  Do what you can, but above all, don’t opt for doing nothing.  This time is critical.  Your future is at stake, and so is the future of our democracy and of our progressive and populous values. 

 

·         This is not just about politics; this is about everyday life: how much you pay for food and transportation; what gets covered in your health insurance; what your son or daughter is taught in school, and whether or not either of them can afford to go to college.  This is about what amount of interest you have to pay on credit cards or student loans or on a mortgage.  This is about how your elderly parent is treated in a nursing home.  It’s more about your quality of life than about the machinations of “politics” (although if those machinations are not reformed, it will affect your life).  The one thing that you can’t afford to do is to ignore the fact that the political and economic machinery – the institutions and operations of government, of business and even of non-profit enterprises – affect your life every day.  If you forfeit your right to protest their shortcomings and the right to organize to change those systems, you are giving up your ability to influence your success, your fulfillment, your happiness and your decision-making.  You will have turned over the power of decision-making and governance to the politicians and the capitalists and the non-profits and have opted to allow them to control you while possibly feathering their own existence with perks that you will never see or experience.  You are a citizen, not a pawn, and as such must stand up and be counted as the foundation of all of our values and all of our institutions.  “Activism” is not a dirty word; it is the life-blood of our democracy.

3.       Look to the future and not to the past.  Support investment in the future like research into cures for diseases, the improvements needed in our schools, the free tuition at community colleges, the rejuvenation of our infrastructure, the change to alternative fuels, the challenge of global warming, the use of war as a last resort, universal health care, universal child care, and universal access to a free internet.

4.       “It’s up to us to choose who we want to be in the next 15 years of this century.”   We must choose progressive change over regressive retreat.  We must choose inclusiveness over elitism.  We must choose investment over austerity.  We must choose the welfare of people over the comforting of the richest 1% and the promotion of the powerful.  We must choose and support leaders from the people rather than from the political machinery.  We must choose sensible regulation of our institutions for the good of most of our people and not de-regulation for the aggrandizement of corporations and wealthy industrialists or inheritors of wealth. 

We must choose the strengthening of opportunities for the poor to be lifted up to where they can see a future worth their while; we cannot support any further put-downs, push-downs, take-downs or injustices perpetrated by our own system of justice; we must tend to the wrongs of racism, sexism, ageism, xenophobia, and jingoism and eschew the violence of our culture that puts war above negotiation and gun toting above the protection of countless innocent victims. 

We must set an example for the world not alone by words, but by our deeds.  Let us choose service and sacrifice for the world’s welfare above exceptionalism or primacy or military strength and presence.  Let us be known by our willingness to strengthen people, not by our willingness to fight every battle or threat that rears its head. 

And finally, let us choose fact over fiction and untruth; let us choose balance over extremism, and let us choose the right over the expedient or the facile or the wrong.  Let us choose real reform over the insanity of doing something that has failed time and time again, like the “trickle-down theory!”  Let us make wise choices in anticipation of a bright future.

5.       “We must cherish our civil rights.”  That means we must work to protect and expand the voting franchise in this country.  We cannot allow anti-democracy zealots to take the sacred vote away from anybody.  We need election reform, wider registration and voting.  We have to expand the rights of minorities to be heard, to be present, to be elected, to be honored and to be part of the governing structure, in spite of the fact that the racial divide has been made wider by the policies, the legislation, and the bigoted language of Republicans toward this President and his Attorney General. 

We must work to reform our justice system, beginning with the thorny problem of the fact that the police in this country have no supervision and no checks upon their behavior.  That is contrary to the principles that underlie many of our Western police agencies, and it is indicative of a secretive force that is literally out-of-control.  We cannot tolerate a police force that separates itself from the community – it is an act of sheer intolerance.  Equal justice for all must be a rallying cry as we seek to lower our incarceration rate for minorities, especially young black men.  We must find cadres of indigenous leaders in the Black community especially and support them as candidates for all kinds of local, county, state and federal offices.  In every city, there must be minority coalitions who demand to be heard on community issues. 

6.       Work on ways to help middle-class families get ahead and to be secure.  The President laid out some options in his speech: a minimum wage that does not equal poverty level; tax credits to support universal day care availability; free tuition for community colleges; precision research into cures for major diseases.  But, he has previously laid out other programs that have been blocked by rabid Right-wing Republicans (and some blue-dog Democrats).  The Caregiver Initiative that would provide temporary respite care, counseling and referrals for hard-pressed families trying to care for elderly relatives, is one example.  Another is his proposal to require employers who don’t offer retirement plans to enroll workers in automatic, direct-deposit Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).

We must also get behind the call to strengthen the middle class by promoting and supporting laws that give back to Labor the Right to collective action: bargaining, striking, and protest.  The Right-wing attacks upon Labor hurt middle class families as much as anything, since the Labor movement has been one of the major contributors to the inclusion and success enjoyed by working families in the last century.  It is now time to promote the welfare of working families in this 21^st century.

There’s more, of course, but the important point is that we are being called to be “nation builders” once again.  Building our nation did not stop in the 1700’s.  It is an on-going process.  Every generation of Americans gets to make decisions and choices that affect our Republic.  It is most effective when more than one generation joins the cause to work together in close collaboration to bring about responsible and progressive change.  That is possible right now with Millenials, some Boomers and Post-War activists who are still around.  Remember, it’s up to us to choose who and what we want to be!  Let’s Get Busy…

Comfort or Discomfort -- that is the question

“Comfort” is one of those words that has lost its basic meaning; in fact, one could make a case that it is a word that has been reversed in terms of its meaning.  How do you think of comfort?  Are you looking for a comfortable life, a comfortable home, a comfortable and unperturbed existence?  That question is a clue to the definition that has come to be common usage of the word “comfort.”  Let’s look at what the (New World) dictionary offers:

The overarching definition is that of the “soothing of distress, the easing of misery or grief; consolation; a state of ease and quiet enjoyment, free from worry and pain; anything that makes life easy or comfortable.”  I daresay that this captures what most people think comfort means.  In fact, it is sought by most of us at one time or another.  No one is immune to desiring a bit of consolation, ease or freedom from worry.  It’s a part of life.

Unfortunately, the seeking of comfort for oneself can cross a line sometimes.  It happens when some individual or group attempts to foment the concept that comfort is not meant for the many but for just a few.

I submit to you that too many conservative Republicans seem to have little or no trouble with crossing this line.  Or should I say, they take pleasure in denying comfort to others who, in their eyes, apparently do not deserve it.  Somehow, the Republican Party and the rich sponsors who support that Party, have a basic misconception that there is some sort of standard that people must meet in order to be eligible for a bit of consolation or ease.  And so, under their wrong-headed conceptions and perceptions, there are certain people in this nation who deserve to partake of comfort whenever they can, and others who do not.  This Party keeps fighting to keep it that way, as is evident from several of their policies:

• They believe that the rich deserve the comfort of low, low taxes and they accomplish the same not only by cutting the taxes of the 1%, but by constructing a number of tax breaks and loopholes in the tax code so that they can acquire their comfort by avoiding the payment of their full tax through subsidies, incentives and loopholes that target certain groups, corporations or individuals.  They assure the comfort of their sponsors and resource givers by making sure that corporations are given special privileges not given to the rest of us, like helping to write laws and regulations that affect them or their businesses directly or indirectly. 
• But, that’s not all. They have acted legislatively and judicially to make sure that the rest of us do not enjoy such privileges.  Example: their misguided opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and all attempts to repeal that Act, which would negatively impact over 8 million of underinsured and uninsured folks who have finally gotten coverage of their health care through the improved insurance plans available to them. 
• And then there is that opposition to anything that smacks of gaining of civil rights for people they regard as “unworthy”:  all those minorities; all those illegal immigrants, all those  people that are homosexual or transgender; all those “below” them in education, resources and influence, to say nothing of power.
• One of their most burdensome actions is the withholding of support for, and the actual destruction of, anything that has to do with providing free help to those just mentioned.  They want to destroy all vestiges of the Great Society and the New Deal for a very good reason in their minds – this is a handout, a program of welfare that smells like socialism to them because it re-distributes their riches to the poorest, and their resources to those who are not able to stand on their own (which they abhor) supposedly because of some kind of “lower class inferiority.”   
• And thus, they are involved every day, it seems, in ways to cut unearned benefits (entitlements, they are called) to the lower classes.  But wait a minute.  At the same time that they object to “welfare for the poor” (or breaks for the middle class), they themselves are taking advantage of “welfare for the rich” through all those loopholes and provisions that I have mentioned in the Tax Code.   The billions they receive in this ingenious unfettered way are far beyond what the poor receive in special programs like Food Stamps or WIC or TANF.  

 It is important to make the point at this juncture that this situation is growing more and more uncomfortable, as the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.  What’s more, with the removal of opportunities to enjoy a little comfort and ease, the likelihood of moving “up the ladder” to a more comfortable existence is becoming a dream of the past for the poor and even those of the middle class.  The agency Oxfam reports that the gap between rich and poor is widening throughout the world and that the richest 1% in the world will soon own more than 60% of the wealth that exists. 

Again, it is imperative that we recognize that comfort and ease is not necessarily bad, but those who step over a line to prevent others from an equal opportunity toward that goal are dangerous people because they believe that only they, and a few of their peers, are entitled to the perks of living in comfort.  When they move from that perception to prevent others from realizing their highest potential, they have crossed over into attacking and belittling and destroying the hopes and dreams of others.  Their policies and actions become unacceptable and unconscionable.

I know Republicans and their sponsors defend their world view and their policies by saying that it is not fair to have to turn over part of their hard-earned wealth to the government which then passes it on to people who do not necessarily deserve to receive their help.  Besides,  as perceived by them, government and its bureaucracy wastes much of this tax money going into these programs through inefficiency and ineptitude.  Once again, they ignore the equal inefficiency of their own private corporations and businesses, demonstrated by Enron, BP, Blackwater, too-big-to-fail banks and a myriad of corporations that seem unable to provide adequate products or services.  And, in case you have forgotten, there are many inefficient private businesses taking contract money from our government who neither fulfill their contracts, nor do an adequate job if they do finish it.  Take for instance the private company contracted to oversee the production and operation of the federal healthcare internet site.  They blew it big time and then had the gall to blame it on the national government and on President Obama.  Pure bamboozle! 

What these legislators and their rich sponsors have forgotten, and thrown aside, is the contract theory of government which says that we are all responsible for the welfare of others, and that this societal contract includes the responsible distribution of wealth to all because otherwise the body politic cannot function as it should as a source of strength for all its citizens.  Part of this is the sense that no one has the right to claim all profit for himself alone; the sweat and labor and consumerism of all is involved, as all contribute to the wealth of successful businesses and their owners.  Few owners reach a level of comfort and ease by themselves; they have depended upon, and received support from, the public.  Giving back to that public is the price of success, comfort and ease.  No it’s not socialism; it’s a social contract, going back to philosopher John Locke.

And that brings us to another definition for comfort; a definition that goes back to its Latin roots.  It has to do with strengthening, and in fact, translates something like “strengthen much” or “strengthen with.”  Part of it is to help or aid, not to exploit or make dependent, but in order to give encouragement; to inspire hope.  One is forced to ask: I wonder how many people even know that is a definition?  It changes the whole concept and thrust of this word “comfort,” just as it can change the concept of who deserves comfort and why wealth must be distributed. 

As a society, as a united states, as a commonwealth, we are embarked on the comforting, that is – the strengthening – the encouraging – the inspiring – of all of our people.  That is what government social programs should aim to do.  They are not simply programs of consolation and easing; this is a project of giving people aid as encouragement and an inspiration of hope through opportunities in order that they too can enjoy the rewards and the responsibilities of citizenship.  The rich are not just giving money away, they are investing in the future and the success of our common endeavor, in order to know that no one has been left behind.  Because we have failed to understand the real purpose of government programs for those who are at risk we have failed to nurture leadership, intelligence, investment, innovation and success among certain societal groups.  Because we believe mainly in the wrong kind of comfort, we have failed to achieve the kind of representative democracy that we thought we had produced. 

The Right Wing has put us on the wrong track over and over again throughout our history, only to find that we have not gained from the losses and the regressions, but have fallen backward into a position that requires a sea change in order to progress.

That is what Martin Luther King, Jr. brought to bear on our country – a fundamental change: a strengthening of our people and our democracy.  Those who want us to return to the days before civil rights and voting rights legislation are leading us down a path that is destructive of government, of people, of capitalism, of our influence in a world where many still see us as hypocritical and judgmental, and even as the “Great Satan.”   MLK preached and acted out a paradigm of comfort that was and is not acceptable to many.  He wanted to bring hope to the hopeless, strength to the weak-hearted, inspiration to the down-trodden.  But he did it in a way that demonstrated for equal rights: in education, jobs, and voting; for the opportunity to be judged by one’s character and not by the color of one’s skin.  In fact, he was looking for opportunities for all people, but was fighting specifically for the rights and opportunities for those people of color who had been denied for so long.

We are now engaged in a regression in voting rights and equal opportunity that threatens to destroy all that MLK fought for, and all for which LBJ stood his ground. We are being led to believe that we are coddling the poor and weakening our democracy.  We are being led to believe that there are some who don’t deserve comfort in terms of opportunity and inspiration.  There are some who believe that an Elite of successful, educated, wealthy people should lead this country and make all of our decisions for us.  They pass legislation to protect the wealthy and the banks and the oil companies and the financiers of Wall Street, but they rail and rant against anyone who suggests that everyone should be covered by a healthcare plan, or have opportunity to attend a progressive and well-funded school, to not have to mortgage one’s future in order to pay for college.  They rail against a higher minimum wage, or equal pay for women, or against anything that would strengthen our middle class or poorer folks.  They deny us legislation to create jobs, rejuvenate our infrastructure, or build high speed rail.  They also deny the science that says the earth is getting warmer, and that gases and deposits from our human endeavors are polluting our air and water.  They deny global warming and the need for us to move to alternative energy sources and away from fossil fuels. 

Their kind of comfort – that of ease and convenience and consumption – is not our kind of comfort.  In fact, at this time, it is apparent that what is needed is what Dr. King used to promote:  non-violent demonstrations against those who intend to do us harm, in order to arouse them from their comfortable, somnambulant lives and to forge forces against their control, their power, their status quo.  We face the reality of oligarchy and the trickle-down economy.  Most likely, we will face a steady erosion of all of the things I have mentioned that tend to strengthen and inspire hope. 

In order to be a viable democracy, we cannot take comfort (either “consolation” or “strength”) in:

§  constant harassment of young Black males by police, or anyone else for that matter

§  incarceration of young Black and Hispanic men (mostly) who are receiving sentences for non-violent crimes that far outweigh their offenses, and then

§  continuing to burden ex-felons who have served their time with their offense throughout the rest of their lives, instead of giving them some “comfort” in knowing that they have paid their debt and that they are free to vote and hold a good job and apply for credit, and do all that is necessary to begin a new life

§  ignoring the voices and concerns of particular groups of citizens, and forcing them to find other ways (sometimes unlawful ways) to earn a living or to demonstrate their frustration with the system that oppresses their needs and desires

§  overlooking the special needs of those in poverty or those with disabilities or those with wounds that were acquired in service to their country

§  promoting unequal justice, as when white collar crime on Wall Street goes unpunished, but selling contraband cigarettes on the street in Staten Island is considered a major offense punishable by being choked to death, or stealing some cigars in Ferguson, MO is punishable by being shot to death

Moreover, in a more general context, we cannot expect our system of democracy to function in a credible or inspirational (“comforting?”) manner when we allow:

§  voting rights to be curtailed and restrictions imposed on voting

§  full employment to be a dream and not a reality because we want only the private sector to “create jobs” not government

§  when we cannot bring ourselves to offer universal health care coverage for every citizen as a right rather than a privilege controlled by the private sector

§  when we abuse and neglect the needs of all children for quality pre-natal care, good day care, universal pre-K for a Head Start in life, a quality secondary education in a good school with excellent teachers, and a free college education or at least two years free beyond high school; but we also neglect them when we do not pass legislation that controls gun violence or that which controls violence in schools and universities, such as sexual harassment and rape of girls and women

§  the deterioration of the care of the elderly in facilities that are meant to turn a profit rather than to provide dignity and strength to individuals

§  the deterioration of care and nurturing of our veterans of the armed forces who serve and then come home to neglect of their needs for mental health, physical rehabilitation and re-entry/job training

§  and so much more……

Comforting as it may be to the Plutocracy that now controls this nation, there is little comfort in the fact that the needs and rights of so many of our citizens are being subsumed under the rubric of “conservative values”, when what is clear is that the general welfare of too many people is being ignored, neglected and even undermined by Representatives who do not focus on The People, but on wealthy sponsors who help to assure incumbent re-election.  “Comfort” as strength and inspiration and aid is being overwhelmed by a comfort for the few who are rich and powerful.  This is not what we were meant to be.  This is not what we should be.  This is not what we should allow. 

The time has come to measure our success in terms of the strength, inspiration and hope that we can provide all our people, not in the austerity, restrictions and abusive neglect that clearly are the measures being used by radical Republicans.  The discomfort being forced upon us must be used as the catalyst for the weakening and ultimate rejection of the protectors of the elitist few who want to maintain the non-representative system they have been building over the past three decades. 

Election Reform Strategies -- Workable?

My last Post on this Blog talked about some of the ideas and concepts of Lawrence Lessig’s book, ‘Republic, Lost’.   He sets forth the thesis that what we are faced with (and have been increasingly for at least thirty years) is something he calls “dependence corruption” in which money (and moneyed persons) play a role in the bending of the true purpose of the government (and in particular, the Congress) away from serving the broad spectrum of The People, to protecting outside resources of rich and powerful interests represented by billionaires and wealthy corporations and banks. The Lobbyists who work for those entities are essentially the brokers, the go-betweens, the suppliers of subsidies, not only in the form of campaign cash, but in the form of legislative services: advice, research, support, guidance on issues and legislation.  The result is a relationship, a loyalty, an obligation, and a dependence on the part of the office-holder toward the employer of the lobbyist.  The most important asset put in play thereby is that of access to that congressman or senator. 

According to Lessig, those who think this is mere quid pro quo are misled because first of all, there are now laws against such forms of bribery, and, in the main, these laws are respected because of the consequences imposed, and because the current system is very effective.   In fact, Lessig states: “it is the core argument of this book – that the most significant and powerful forms of corruption today are precisely those that thrive without depending upon quid pro quos for their effectiveness.”  In fact, it is the relationships that are built by this insider gift or ‘subsidy’ economy that are of prime importance to the special interests.  Lessig contends that such a system is more dangerous than the old quid pro quo bribery precisely because of the on-going relationships and access that result.

And so, with this summary in mind, it is time to look at Professor Lessig’s proposed solutions for this systemic problem.  He first admonishes the reader to remember that our democracy does not have just one problem that a single reform would fix.  Indeed, he addresses two reforms already being touted as enough.  He says they fall short.  The first is Transparency; the second, Anonymity. 

As to “transparency”, Lessig maintains that it should not be abandoned – there must be a disclosure listing of contributors to avoid the more “grotesque forms of corruption.”  However, the problem with transparency is that it assumes the influence in the system comes with the gift, but influence can actually be independent of the amount spent on the candidate.  He makes the point that “there are many ways in which corporate wealth can be translated into significant political influence that would never be revealed by any system of disclosure alone.”  For instance, while listings of contributors and contributions are helpful, they do not record threats to support an opposing candidate should the initial recipient be recalcitrant in any way.  He concludes that transparency is being asked to carry too much weight in the reform fight.  Likewise, with anonymity, which he dismisses by asserting that recipients would surely know something about the sources of their campaign contributions; keeping sources completely anonymous would be almost impossible.  In support of that claim, he cites the lengths to which we would have to go to protect anonymity, as well as the lingering suspicions the public would have about any contribution being “anonymous.” 

To begin the discussion of reforms that would work to some degree, he cites the fact that three states have already been experimenting with campaign finance reform: Arizona, Maine and Connecticut. Each has adopted a system of small dollar contributions as the basis for state office campaigns.  Candidates qualify by raising a certain number of small contributions, and then they can also receive state funding for their campaigns.  While they have succeeded in increasing competiveness, Lessig doesn’t like the idea of bureaucrats setting campaign spending limits or the amounts available to candidates. 

He then moves on to explain and support the Grant and Franklin Project, based on the assumption that 90% of the People pay some amount to the federal Treasury in taxes – at least $50 a person in income, gas or cigarette tax.  Given this assumption, he expounds on this system:

1.       We convert the first fifty dollars that each person contributes to the federal treasury into something called a “democracy voucher.”  Each voter then decides how to allocate his/her voucher to a candidate or candidates.  Candidates receiving vouchers must opt into the system.

2.       If the voucher is not allocated to a candidate, it then goes to the political party in which the voter is registered.  If the voter isn’t registered in a party, it then goes to support the administration of the system, to voter education or to the G&F Project.

3.       Voters under this system are free to make additional contributions to candidates – up to $100 per candidate.

4.       Any viable candidate for Congress could receive such contributions if he/she agreed to fund his or her campaign exclusively with democracy vouchers and contributions up to $100 from individual citizens.  No PAC money and no contributions from political parties.

Lessig says this system has a number of appealing special features: 1) it’s voluntary; 2) does not allow “your money” to be used for speech you don’t believe in; 3) permits personal contributions in addition to the public funds (although he doesn’t think SCOTUS would agree with the low limit of $100!); 4) unlike most systems, this one would inject enormous amounts of money into the system (about $3 billion a year), thus having the potential to produce much competition; and, 5) this is not a solution that says, ‘speak less’ but ‘speak more’.”

The author makes it clear that this particular reform is the key to everything else that follows.  He makes a valid point that if we are, as a nation, willing to spend upwards of $750 billion on war in Iraq, presumably to make democracy work there, then we should be willing to spend one-twenty-fifth of that to make democracy work at home.  But will it work?  In so many cases, reforms have been defeated by some new clever technique designed to ensure that money has more influence than votes.  Nonetheless, he believes that this particular solution has more credibility than any other solution presented in the past forty years, but he does admit that in order to resolve this problem completely may require a constitutional amendment.  In the meantime, this particular first step toward a solution requires some strategies to bring it forward for serious consideration by congress. 

His first strategy holds some interest even though he rates it as having only a 5% chance to work.  He makes the difficult-to-argue-with point that the most terrifying idea for an incumbent is a primary challenge.  Thus, he proposes that across this country, we find “super-candidates” (citizen activists; not politicians) to run in multiple districts at the same time on a single clear platform: that they will remain in the race only as long as it takes for the incumbent to publicly commit to supporting citizen-owned, citizen-supported and controlled elections.  So how many of these super-candidates would it take to enter every primary where the incumbent was not committed to election reform?  He figures about three hundred!  No wonder he also figures just a 5% chance to work.

First, I’m not sure 300 such people with very special qualifications can be found to commit to the travel, the pressure and the activity required to perform this “super-candidacy.”  Second, I’m not at all certain that the public would see this as reform; they might view it as more of a gimmick on the part of “liberals”.  Finally, how do these super-candidates – these non-politicians – manage to finance a campaign of this sort when the only available adequate funding would have to come from the very sources being opposed and excoriated?   In other words, there will not be enough support for this from small contributors, nor from either Party, to make it work.  A 5% success rate may be overblown.

The second strategy presented is that of using the presidential election cycle to leverage fundamental change.  The candidate would have to be credible and demonstrate a singular focus on removing fundamental corruption from the government.  The candidate would make a two-part pledge: if elected, he/she would hold the government hostage until Congress enacts legislation to remove the fundamental corruption at the heart of our government.  Second, once the reform program is enacted, the person elected would resign.  No wonder again that he gives this strategy a 2% chance of happening.  It won’t because the voting public will never accept the hostage-taking nor voting for a temporary President.  Although Lessig modifies this strategy to say that even a “modest showing would spark an enormous amount of energy”, it is extremely doubtful that the voting public, already tired of “foolishness” in government, would get excited about this regency presidency.  This surge in energy sounds hollow and contradictory when Lessig noted in his introduction that systemic corruption has taken its toll on participation by the “sensible middle” of the voting public mainly because of loss of trust in the system. This strategy does not seem designed to restore that trust or that needed participation.

And so, we are left with Lessig’s final strategy: a constitutional convention; needed because “sometimes an institution becomes too sick to fix itself.”  While he argues convincingly for this strategy, he misses the whole point about the Framers motivation in their presentation of two quite difficult ways to modify our Constitution (by the way, the second path to amendment of the Constitution – the convention route—has never been used).  In any case, the Founders were not trying to involve the people in the amendment process, they were attempting to protect the ruling class and their own instrument of government when they proposed the two-fold amendment process.  I have spoken of this before and refer you to my Blog of 03/16/2014 for further elucidation of this concept.

Of far greater importance is to understand something that Lessig does not approach.  The most important amendment needed is one that makes it truly probable and possible for the People to control the process.  I have also spoken of that in another Blog published on 05/26/2014.  It is imperative that the people take back their rightful place as a branch of this government and that we have a dedicated process for amending the constitution which can work to involve a broad spectrum of the electorate. 

So, while thanking Lawrence Lessig for his assertion that election process reform is a necessary first step toward diminishing our “dependence corruption”, our strategy must be to bring about a People’s amendment for amending the Constitution.  Then, and only then, can we enshrine electoral reform, including at least: public financing, limited citizen contributions, no gifts from outside sources, no equating of corporations with individuals, and the goal of direct elections without an intervening Electoral College originally designed to place the elite in a position to elect the President. 

Let us remind ourselves that what the Framers wrought is still capitalized upon by the elitists of our day.  The latter tinker with voting rights; they distort the Electoral College; they use big money to corrupt the legislative and regulatory processes, and they establish a dependency upon their money and power that threatens the very existence of our representative democracy.  They have deviated from THE TRUE PURPOSE of our Republic: to serve the People, not the richest few who can hire lobbyists to deliver their message and their demands along with their largesse.  Income inequality is bad enough; voting inequality and the unequal immediate access by powerful special interests to legislators and regulators is intolerable.  We The People must re-assert our rightful place as a functioning branch of this government.     

 

Losing Our Republic by 'Dependence Corruption'

“Think about it like this:  Imagine a compass, its earnest arrow pointing to the magnetic north.  When we turn with the compass in our hands, the needle turns back…to track the magnetic north, regardless of the spin we give it.  Magnetic north was the intended dependence.  Tracking magnetic north is the purpose of the device.  Now imagine we’ve rubbed a lodestone on the metal casing of the compass, near the mark for “west.”  The arrow shifts. Slightly.  That shift is called the ‘magnetic deviation.’  It represents the error induced by the added magnetic field.  The lodestone creates a competing dependence.  That competing dependence produces an error.  A corruption.  However subtle, however close, however ambiguous the effect might be, the deviation corrupts.  Depending on the context, depending on the time, depending on the people, that corruption will matter.”

Thus, the author of “Republic, Lost,” Lawrence Lessig, illustrates the nugget of truth at the core of his book.  He calls it “dependence corruption” which is a pattern that is weakening our government.  Lessig also describes this in other words as a “bending” of one’s purpose or work to protect gifts from outside resources.  In other words, a deviancy away from one’s primary purpose in order to protect one’s gifts or resources. It is a pattern that explains the corruption at the heart of our system without the need to assume the existence of evil or criminal personages at the helm.  He describes a dependency on a flow of money that draws our institutions and our representatives away from the purpose they were intended to serve: the welfare of the People.  The compass serves as an explanatory metaphor for the corruption in our system that he describes as “dependence corruption.”  Another point he makes emphasizes that it is not just money but money in the wrong place; a place where we all recognize that it will, it can, it could cause even the most earnest representative or institution to deviate from their true purpose. 

In essence we have a Congress that has become dependent on outside resources; a flaw that tends to bend policy away from serving the People to serving special interests.  We also have a public that prefers to look for Evil Villains rather than for deviance corruption, and they end up condemning those Villains rather than attempting to fix the system and our processes or procedures.  “The two flaws combined tend to condemn the republic toward impotency and ruin, unless we can find a way to exclude the corrupting dependency on money” used in the wrong places for the wrong reasons. 

Let us explore a few examples of the money in the wrong place, bending toward other interests than those of The People, resulting in “dependence corruption.”

Money In the Wrong Place:

1)      Elections – this is Lessig’s main theme in his book: the deviances from our purpose of serving The People to a dependence on money bending representatives from serving the will of the people to aggrandizing one particular segment of society and a particular set of ideas or policies.  We are on a road to losing our Republic – our representative democracy – because of these distractions from our true purpose.

Hopefully, it is not really necessary to go on at great lengths about the flaws in our electoral system.  Perhaps a mere listing will serve to remind us what we are up against:

a)      Citizens United decision that makes corporations into the equivalent of individual citizens with the right to free speech which cannot be denied.  The act of supporting candidates with money is seen as equivalent to freedom of speech and any limit to that is seen as a restriction of the right to free speech.  The SCOTUS opened the flood gates for corporate contributions to soar to unrestricted heights, and for wealthy individuals to be able to give of their wealth to third party organizations mostly called PACs to support chosen candidates without having to reveal oneself, the amounts given or the causes supported.  The McCutcheon decision threw this bone further than before removing restrictions on combined contributions to many PACs or candidates. 

b)      The dependence upon this money source is what distracts office holders from serving their real constituencies, for it influences the bending of their true purposes when they must always be soliciting money and then asking themselves how each action will affect their donors. That constitutes a double distraction from their duty to serve the People of their districts, and the nation as a whole. 

c)       Once in office, these representatives of “The People” are even more distracted by the gifts and monetary support of lobbyists who work for corporations and labor and organizations like the Chamber of Commerce or the NRA, and who call upon them for loyalty to causes that they espouse, sometimes so vigorously that the staff of the members take part in writing laws and regulations that favor them, and that forget the people at home.

2)      Lobbying- there is nothing quite like the lobbying machine for illustrating the existence of money in the wrong place.  It isn’t that lobbyists are carrying wads of cash into the chambers of Congress and openly bribing members as they speak or as they deliberate.  That time is past.  But let us not think that the resources represented by lobbyists are not a distraction from and a corruption of the true north: the focus on the general welfare and the rights of the People rather than the welfare of the funders of the lobbyists. 

Lessig points out that lobbyists of today are not rogues.  They are men and women who are well-educated, and most are very ethical in their conduct.  They work hard to stay within the law and most are just well-paid policy wonks, expert in a particular field and able to advise and guide congress in the important tasks of writing regulations and legislation. Much of a lobbyist’s work today is in the form of legislative subsidy – providing advice, research, support, guidance for issues the legislators mostly believe in.  But, at least one, and probably more, of those subsidies has potential for corrupting the legislative process.  The demand for campaign cash has turned the lobbyist into a supplier in at least the last thirty years.  It is not money the lobbyists provide directly; it is money from their employers – the special interests – who hire them and who pay their salaries. 

The lobbyists are at the center of an economy that feeds the frantic dependency on campaign cash that has grown among members of Congress.  That need for cash gets fed only if the members can provide something of value to the donors.  And there is the danger once again – money in the wrong place.  The special interests need special favors from government to enhance their enterprises.  The members need ever greater sources of cash to finance their campaigns.  The two meet in the legislative arena and change the way Washington works.  The manipulators of our government are the special interests represented by the lobbyists who provide a suite of essential services, including the infusion of campaign cash.  And, don’t forget, most of this is done within existing law.  It is not criminal, but it corrupts the process by deviating from the true north – the purpose – of the legislative body to serve The People, not the wealthy or their special interests.

 If lobbyists are essentially providing benign services to congressional office-holders, mainly in areas already of interest to the congressmen, what is the harm?  Lessig cites an important paper entitled “Lobbying as Legislative Subsidy” by Richard Hall and Alan Deardorff, in which they set forth three reasons why this is harmful.

 First, “representation [can be] compromised without individual representatives being compromised, but not every issue the representative supports will have the same ‘subsidy’ behind it.  Second, such a system of subsidy may in the end block effective access to representatives in government.  Virtually everyone accepts the fact that money buys access to members, and access is power.  But, the larger the subsidy, the greater the access, so smaller subsidies will not buy the same degree of access or power.  As Lessig comments: “a system that makes lobbyists the ticket to influence is a system that wildly skews the issues that will get attention.  This, in time, will distort results.” 

Lessig moves on to ask some questions that center on this deviation, this bending, this corruption of the process.  First he asks:  “Why Don’t We Have Free Markets?”  He begins his answer by discussing Type 2 diabetes, showing that over the past two decades children in some communities account for over half of the new cases of type 2 diabetes.  Interestingly, that rise is tied to an “epidemic” rise in obesity or extreme obesity.  But that’s not all: between 1960 and 2006, the percentage of obese adults has nearly tripled, and obesity-related disease costs the medical system $147 billion annually – a greater burden than the health costs of alcohol and cigarettes.  So again he asks: how did we go from being a relatively healthy country to one spending the highest proportion of our GDP on the health consequences of not eating healthy food? 

Why we make these bad food choices is a complicated question.  One reason is that we have given others control of what goes into our food and they have realized the enormous demand for food that is sweet, salty and full of fat.  The ideal food for many mixes all three in ever-increasing amounts!   Lessig says it is “astonishing to recognize just how unfree the market in foodstuff is,” and to realize the huge gap between our pro-free market rhetoric and the actual market of regulation of food production we have produced here at home.  He uses the conglomerate of companies housed within ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) with revenues exceeding $69 billion in 2009, as one example of what is happening.  According to one estimate, “at least 43% of ADM’s annual profits are from ‘products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government’.” 
We subsidize corn products, and thus high fructose corn syrup (and even the corn-derived ethanol additive in our gasoline).  Our government also protects milk, with at least ten federal orders that regulate how milk is priced; almost 60% of milk production is under federal regulation.  It is estimated by the OEDC that the subsidy increases the price of milk by about 26 cents.  Cheese costs 37 cents more in the US than in other countries, and butter 100% more than in other places.  Of course, there are similar interventions that subsidize and protect US companies and products:  shrimp producers, cotton producers, banana producers, peanut farmers, domestic lumber, and steel, just to name a few products.

In spite of the rhetoric proclaiming that these subsidies and protections help small farmers and small businesses, the reality is that they are aimed at the world’s richest and most powerful corporations and corporate farmers. The same story can be told about steel. As Lessig indicates, this protectionism hurts American business, it hurts American jobs, developing nations, as well as any American attempts to sell the ideology of free trade on the international market.  Protecting enormously profitable corporations from more normal competition through higher tariffs, subsidies and helpful regulations or lack thereof,  helps to produce higher prices for consumers and higher profits for these large profitable companies, but it harms small businesses, small farms, and even the cows on those farms (because the cows don’t digest corn well, they become sick and have to be fed a lot of antibiotics, resulting in an explosion of resistant super-bugs that then have to be dealt with by the Department of Agriculture that favors the use of antibiotics!). 

“So the government protects sugar, and the government subsidizes corn.  As a result, more foods get made with high fructose corn syrup. Meaning more cattle get fed antibiotics.  The quantity of high fructose corn syrup thus goes up in our diet, and it is at least plausible that the cruel consequence of these interventions in the market is that our kids get fat and sick.  Or, more sharply, the government distorts the market, which distorts what we eat, which distorts our kids’ bodies and health.”

“And there is one fact to keep clear.  The beneficiaries of these policies spend an enormous amount to keep them.  The campaign spending of the sugar industry over the past two decades is high and growing. The lobbying and campaign spending of the corn industry is even higher.”

We could repeat a similar question and answer as concerns our schools, gun violence prevention and our financial system, but hopefully this exploration will suffice to expand the point about the nugget of truth found at the beginning of this piece:  the problem with money in our election system, our legislative process, our tax system is that it serves to bend the purpose and mission of our representatives away from the true “north” of our political system.

When money is put into wrong places, like the legislative or regulatory processes, the tendency is not only to bend the attention of a representative, but for that member to become dependent upon

those resources for re-election (or even for the promise of a career after politics).  The story of subsidies, tariffs and favoritism above is the story of the corruption of political and governing processes: a deviance from our true purpose. 

It is perhaps worthwhile at this juncture to present a series of quotes from the author that further illustrate his main point and some of the elements that enter into consideration on this topic of deviation and corruption.  They also provide a fitting conclusion to this exposition.

 “As the Federalist Papers put it – oddly…because in practically every other instance, the Papers use dependence in (its usual) negative sense – “dependence” means a Congress “dependent on the People alone.”   Dependence – meaning answerable to, relying on, controlled by.  Alone – meaning dependent upon nothing or no one else.  So, in a single line, in a way that frames the core of my claim that ours is a corrupt Congress, the Framers gave us a “Republic”; to them, a republic was to be a “representative democracy” …” dependent upon the People alone.” A representative democracy that developed a competing dependency, conflicting with the dependency upon the people, would be ‘corrupt’.”

“…there are three undeniable effects of this economy of influence, each of them a reason for concern, and all three together a demonstration of the urgency there should be in solving it.

 First, and most obviously: the Fund-raising Congress is distracted. 

If members spend up to 30 to 70 percent of their time raising money that means they have less time to do the sort of things …Congress traditionally did.  For instance: deliberate…as a body.  Instead, the job of members is increasingly that of raising campaign funds.

 Second, relative to the constitutional baseline, the work of the Fund-raising Congress is distorted. 

At the end of a powerful and creative analysis of the effect of lobbying on policy outcomes, Frank Baumgartner and his colleagues present data that contrast the public’s view of the most important problem facing the country today with data ‘reflecting the concerns of the Washington lobbying community. This is a picture of ‘disconnect’…a consequence of who is (really) represented in Washington.”  Several instances stand out:  Law, Crime and Family Policy are high on the Public’s list of important problems, the lobbying sector is about 75% less interested; the Public also puts Economics and Tax high on its list, but Lobbyists are about 80% less likely to be interested.  Same with Education.  The Lobbyists are most interested in Health questions, Environment and Transportation (could it be because some of the largest corporations make their profits in those areas and are hiring the lobbyists?).

 Third, Trust (or perhaps a loss of). 

“Even if you assume that everything I’ve described is completely benign…there is still an undeniable whopper of a fact that makes it impossible simply to ignore this competing dependency upon funders… The vast majority of Americans believe that it is money that is buying results.  That belief has a…series of effects.  It undermines trust in the system.  It leads any rational soul to spend less time exercising democratic participation. Of all the reasons Americans give for their lack of election interest, the most troubling is their belief that candidates are not very worthy of respect because they are beholden to their financiers.  The belief that money is buying results (and that government is run for the special interests) produces the result that fewer and fewer of us engage.”

 Next time: a critical look at Lessig’s solutions to our problem of dependence corruption.