The phrase "Slow Motion Coup d'Etat" is often used to describe the thirty year long war on democracy by corporate power. I think the phrase the "persistence hunting of democracy" is more accurate and evocative. Its also harder to decry the accusation as CT when all you are doing is pointing out obvious, relentless thuggery.
I don't believe the corporate elite has a specific plan, that is deliberately being executed slowly. I think their plan is no more complicated than to wear democracy down by constantly hectoring it, tying it up in malevolent lawsuits, funding insurgencies that operate at the boundaries of the law or beyond it, stuffing the judiciary with ideologues and the bureacuracy with moles. They will cause one human/one vote democracy to collapse the same way human persistence hunters run an antelope into exhaustion.
The right is a pack of short-term opportunists. They have general desires, not concrete plans. And what they desire is "more". The problem is that now corporations, thanks to Citizens United, have "evolved" into an immortal, international beast, with unlimited financial resources that can run any single national democracy right into the ground.
If you think they will stop the hunt just because they lose this election, you are dreaming. This bunch of pirates is the very definition of persistence. These are the people who never stopped hating FDR, who continue the embargo on Cuba while trading with Communist China. These are obsessive greedheads like Pete Peterson, a billionaire whose major activity for the last thirty years has been working to destroy Social Security.
So, the sabotage, the sedition, the voter suppression, the racism/sexism/homophobia, the wrecking of the educational system - all will continue. I expect no slackening of political warfare after the election. I expect stolen ballots, legal fights, a shove over the fiscal cliff, stochastic terrorism, veiled sedition. That is, I expect the crazies to just dig in their heals and try to force the government into collapse even more openly than during the last two years.
Can the intended victims of this persistence hunt, namely you and me, "evolve" a counter-strategy before its too late? Come below the twisted orange DNA and see.
Just to clarify the analogy here, "democracy" is not a tangible thing in itself. So, the corporations and billionaires have gone after the individual "animals" in the herd of democracy. They have culled out a few critical mechanisms of middle class democracy from the herd - education, health care, pensions, the Separation of Church and State, and women's rights, to cite a few of the most prominent. These targets have been run to exhaustion for decades, and they are dying in front of our eyes. Education has already fallen to the ground, and is being ripped to pieces by hedge-fund privatizers who have arranged government funding for its dismemberment.
Women's rights seem to be the next target, based on the huge legislative assault since the 2010 Tea Party takeover. The GOP have moved the debate from abortion to birth control - which just shows that the endurance of the corporate beast is overtaking the women's movement. As a two-fer, they have used reproductive issues to increase the assault on the Separation of Church and State.
The only thing new about this persistence hunt is the specific targets. Corporatism has been trying to destroy democracy for over a century - almost since their was such a beast as corporatism.
What is remarkable about corporatism is its inherent strength. What we are witnessing today is its third or fourth run at power in little over a century. Each time it is beaten back - as it was during World War Two - then a few years later, it reappears, redesigned and stronger...the great unspoken issue is why no Western population has been asked to choose corporatism, let alone has demanded it. It simply creeps up on us, a bit more every day.
- John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization (1995)
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The bottom line of this diary is:
We are not going to win on the defensive. We will be run to death fighting one obscene power grab or resource theft after another. We need to go on the offensive.
We need to go after the funding that makes corporate politicos run like Energizer bunnies. To borrow from Grover Norquist:
we need to starve the corporate beast.
If the GOP in the USHR can introduce 75 bills on abortion, we should be able to introduce 75 on campaign finance, bank regulation, and taxation. Yes, the GOP will fight - but they are already fighting. At least make them repeatedly demonstrate whom they speak for. Yes, the SCOTUS will block anything that passes. But, maybe not, after another term of BHO appointments.
Here are two ideas for getting money out of politics and getting the financial pirates hands out of everyone else's pockets.
1. The Political Contribution Tax Parity Act
No person or corporate entity shall be allowed to make political donations that exceed 50% of the taxes it paid to the government.
So, instantly, GE is out of the campaign finance business. So are many tax-dodging billionaires. You may choose to set the limit to some other percentage. But, I see no way to block this from being introduced and passed. The idea being that if you don't want to pay taxes, then you simply don't get to game the political system to dodge taxes. As the old Earl Butz joke goes: "they no playa the game; they no make a da rules."
2. The Usury Ceiling Act
No one shall pay more than 200% of the value of any item via credit card interest and fees.
Credit cards are intended for consumable items. Any merchant who cannot stay in business with a 100% profit margin should give up. This act will dry up a lot of cash for the FIRE sector. It does not get into the regulatory arena, fixing interest rates. It simply says that no one deserves to get ripped off three or four-to-one for buying a coat at WalMart.
If I think of more ideas, I will add them to the comments.