If you sometimes wonder whether democracy has been destroyed by the 1% in the USA, Thom Hartman has an article in AlterNet this week that explains exactly how the Republican Party, the US Chamber of Commerce, and various right-wing groups such as the American Legislative Council (ALEC), the Heritage Foundation, the CATO Institute with funding from the Koch Brothers, the Waltons, the Adelsons and others accomplished what they have.
As the school shooting in Parkland, Florida has shown, what was considered insanely corrupt political behavior 40 years ago is now normal. And you can thank right-wingers on the Supreme Court.
In 1982 this sort of thing was a major, career-ending scandal for both the politician and the businessman. A wealthy man owning a politician, who, in turn, changed the tax code and altered regulations to increase the businessman’s profits, was considered a symptom of intolerable corruption.
But what Parker and most Americans didn’t realize was that, in 1982, the die had already been cast and the oligarchs had already begun seizing the levers of power in America; a seizure that would lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.
Hartman’s article is a very insightful study of exactly what has happened to our nation in the past 50 years. www.alternet.org/...
Hartman explains the role of Lewis Powell, the Supreme Court justice appointed by Richard Nixon, who wrote the Powell Memo.
But to Lewis Powell, a lawyer by training and the author of the infamous blueprint for billionaires to take over America (now known as The Powell Memo), nothing was more important than targeting the courts.
In his memo, Powell wrote, “Under our constitutional system, especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change.”
He noted, “This is a vast area of opportunity for the Chamber, if it is willing to undertake the role of spokesman for American business and if, in turn, business is willing to provide the funds.”
When President Obama tried to raise the issue that lobbyists for corporations had taken over the capital, right-wing justice Samuel Alito memorably mouthed the words, “Not true!”
“It’s time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or with Congress. It’s time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office.
“With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that, I believe, will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.
"I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people.”
In 1971, only 175 corporations had lobbyists in Washington, DC. Today, there are over 12,000 corporate lobbyists and the corporations’ representatives spend more time raising re-election funds than they do in legislative work. The House of Representatives has not increased the number of representatives since 1910 when there were only 46 states, 92 million people, and women and most minorities could not vote. The United States House of Representatives is the least representative legislative body in the entire world.
I encourage you to read Hartman’s entire article. A few cuts and snips does not provide the full context of the article.