* Forty-Two Republican Senators Commemorated September 11 by Voting to Keep Corporate Money Flowing (by Way of Citizens United) to Washington Politicians.
* Election Day Arrives in Fifty-Two Days.
Just in case there's any doubt as to whom our elected representatives are beholden (you and I, or Corporate Contributors), here are the names of those who voted NAY on Thursday's Senate vote to overturn Citizens United:
On the Motion to Invoke Cloture on S.J.Res. 19: NAYs ---42
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
Enzi (R-WY)
Fischer (R-NE)
Flake (R-AZ)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kirk (R-IL)
Lee (R-UT)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Moran (R-KS)
Paul (R-KY)
Portman (R-OH)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rubio (R-FL)
Scott (R-SC)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Toomey (R-PA)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)
Do you notice any common denominator? Let it stand: The Republican Party presents a grave and present danger to what we once thought of as the United States of America, and they all must go now. Post the names on Facebook, Tweet about this, bring it up at family functions, yes, if necessary, be rude in the same way truth is rude: its nature is unyielding.
I'm not saying that the Democratic Party is much better, but I am saying that Republicans--and only Republicans--have twisted the cloture motion to overturn Citizens United into knots of irrationality. Some of them have tried to make the motion mean an end to the First Amendment and Free Speech (government overreach denying those poor corporations free speech). Others wove the narrative that the motion represented a blow to Second Amendment rights (I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion). It is difficult to understand the logic, if any exists, behind such allegations with regard to S.J.Res. 19 which reads in full:
That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:
`Article--
`Section 1. To advance democratic self-government and political equality, and to protect the integrity of government and the electoral process, Congress and the States may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections.
`Section 2. Congress and the States shall have power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation, and may distinguish between natural persons and corporations or other artificial entities created by law, including by prohibiting such entities from spending money to influence elections.
`Section 3. Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress or the States the power to abridge the freedom of the press.'.
Calendar No. 471
The GOP has mastered the art of fear-mongering and our resultant fear-based culture has rendered a great many of us little more than sheep.
The cliché is apt. Only within the last couple of days, an NBC/WSJ poll reported that:
47% of Americans believe the country is less safe now than before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. . . . The level of fear across America also is up substantially from last year when 28% felt the same way.
Fear accomplishes little, but one thing fear does do is command our attention. So why would we worry about money in politics when we've got the racially fueled violence in Ferguson to contend with, when men can and do hang white flags off the Brooklyn Bridge with impunity, when armed border-vigilantes hold a group of researchers counting bat populations at gunpoint until authorities arrive, when a nine-year old girl shoots a range instructor with an Uzi and when first grade children in Newtown are slaughtered and their memory is next sacrificed by the NRA to our 2nd Amendment rights, when Islamic militants continue the tradition of beheading infidels and when the West responds with drone attacks that target cell phone numbers reported digitally via satellite, when Russia and Ukraine blow commercial airplanes out of the sky and rampage through towns in an Eastern European power struggle while Western Europe and the U.S. form strategies, both armed and economic, in order to counter Putin and his Russe-Putins.
The barbarians are, indeed, at the gate. So why bother about the age-old endgame known as money in politics? This line of reasoning remains stubbornly intact, even as people continue to lose their homes to unscrupulous mortgage lenders, even as the effort to keep high interest rates on student loans continues, even as politicians refuse to extend unemployment benefits to those who had their jobs stolen during the 2008 Global Economic Crisis, even as we continue to outsource jobs and manufacturing, yes, even as former Midwest boomtowns and Atlantic City casinos file bankruptcy, and as we build aquariums and amusement attractions in cities whose infrastructures crumble and whose residents live in drug-fueled squalor and hopelessness, as we create fast food and retail jobs that keep people in poverty, and as we tell those people that they can get out of poverty if they work really hard the same way that we did, even as we install spikes on park benches to keep the homeless from sleeping there at night, and as we curse Union Labor and as Burger King moves to Canada. Oy! The NSA knows I could go on.
Those in power have us exactly where they want us--too afraid and too confused and too exhausted to do anything but complain, watch television, and go about our daily lives as we try to pay the bills and stay reasonably sane. Life is stressful. And while this remains true, we are challenged. The days of non-participation and the delegation of our citizens' responsibilities to some D.C. fatcats are over. Money in our politics is the evil that is killing us and yet we don't believe that a remedy exists. All the King's Horses and all the King's Men couldn't put Humpty together again. The longer we hold on to that belief the truer it becomes.
I recently corresponded with one of my critics about some ways we might respond to the Burger King tax inversion thing, one of those ways being a boycott. I shared that I'd recently watched a movie about Cesar Chavez, the 1960s Immigrant Labor Organizer and how, by boycotting certain brands in an organized effort, Chavez's movement was able to challenge the power of big business. My friend responded in a way that remains to my way of thinking, incredibly defeatist. He replied, That was when people cared. Do you see any problem with that way of thinking?
So let's try to see this all accurately then. This is still the United States and so much of what we want our lives to be about is still ultimately up to us. We do have a certain measure of free choice. We can remain a nation of the sheeple, by the sheeple, for the sheeple, or we can begin to rouse ourselves to action, even if that means only becoming more aware. We can talk with a friend. We can read a book or watch a documentary. We can write a Congressman. And it has never been easier to sign a petition for a good cause. Daily KOS is constantly promoting citizen action through the petitions they prepare for us who are so inclined.
But those kinds of consciousness raising initiatives, while commendable, are only the beginning of what must follow. As Don Hazen, Executive Editor over at Alternet writes today in his editorial on this exact matter:
There will likely have to be some mass demonstrations to show that people really care about this issue, or else it will always be secondary.
Hazen is also correct on another point, specifically, the importance of the political composition of the Supreme Court. With this in mind Hazen point to the obvious when he states:
Who gets elected to the Senate in 2014 and 2016 is hugely critical.
In short, anyone who tells you that your vote does not count is simply wrong. In fact, your vote is crucial to the future of this country.
I have marched with Occupy Wall Street, and I remain proud to have done so. I envision a day in the not-too-distant future, a day when we sustain a full and all-out Occupation of the National Mall, with speeches, and music and dancing, and a refusal to leave until government and justice are restored to everyday people, corporate personhood be damned.
So for my part, when I can, I attend forums and panel discussions and expose myself to ways of thinking that I had been taught previously to fear. In that regard, I'm lucky to reside just outside of New York City where there's lots to take advantage of. I've pursued an education and I have thereby been cracked open. I think that's what it takes--like emerging from an egg where critical consciousness is birthed. It's true, if Humpty-Dumpty doesn't get cracked, there is no story. King's horses, King's men, be damned.
Later this month there will be all kinds of things going in New York, actions slated in response to the fact that the U.N. Climate Summit will be in full swing as of September 23. The days leading up to that event will be chock full of symposiums and marches, all kinds of actions. Action, of course is key. And so the question is, what action will we think about taking; what actions will we take? This is so not only during the time of the Climate Summit, but in a much more far reaching way that will move us to a more politically active consciousness.
I must get going now. I have some planning to do. Chris Hedges and Naomi Klein on the 20th. The People's Climate March on the 21st. No fear. Let's refuse to be a bunch of Bah-ing Sheep. (You can help me spell that if you want to.)
Let's roar like beasts instead.
And when we cannot roar, let's band together, let's Occupy together.