For a very long time, and not for the first time in our history, economic power has become disproportionately focused into an ever smaller group of people. People that now can use that vast economic power to sway legislators and elections at their whim, as well blackmail the country as a whole with their economic clout. This is a precarious position for our country to be in.
However, without workers to work the factories or plow and tend the fields. All that economic power held by the very wealthy is truly worth very little. This lead to the rise of unions during the previous consolidation of economic power. The problem now is those same unions have been bypassed and circumvented by the process of off-shoring jobs to places that have no unions and workers are willing to work in slave labor like conditions for wages little better than slavery. This has sapped much of the power of unions to keep the wealthy investors and owners in check.
There is yet one more leg of this tripod we call an economy, the customers. Without customers neither the workers nor the owners have any power either. What's more, often the customers are in fact workers themselves. Collectively we also outnumber the wealthy business owners and high level investors, on the order of 10 to 1. If we're ever to wrest control back of our economy, because yes it belongs to all of us, then we must use this last leverage left to us.
This is a result of my thinking on the Citizens United case. If we want to retain our democracy, we need to do something to stop the tide.
The corporations and those that control them have decided to step into the political arena openly, and in my mind that makes them an open target to all that entails. If they wish to be political entities then they need to be treated as such.
We need to stop solely focusing on the candidates that receive the donations, or are campaigned for on the behalf of the corporations.
We need to start targeting the corporations themselves, painting them as political targets.
We need to make the revelation of corporate campaigning as toxic to the public as we can. To make it a political liability instead of an advantage.
The legislative solution to this problem is likely closed to us now, what we have left is the court of public opinion. We need to stage protests and boycotts focused squarely on corporations caught campaigning for candidates. Picket signs and sit-ins in front of their offices and headquarters. The media will likely ignore us, because they themselves have become in large part the enemy too. However, local people will still see, and word of mouth, in this internet age, is just as powerful as ever.