Everyone Wants to “Fight the System.” We Might Best Define It First.
There are bunches of ‘systems,’ just as there are grapevines in a winery. The most interesting thing to me is that we (you and I) have a personal interest in a vintage. What’s your choice, among the ‘systems’ to fight?
Political power, that includes the Presidency, Congress, federal agencies, courts, state governments (can’t forget the 50 states), and the two major parties.
Money and corporate power that takes us to Wall Street, the banks, major corporations, private equity (somewhat of a newbie), billionaires, and institutional investors.
The military-industrial-congressional complex. Eisenhower’s warning against the cancer-like growth of the Pentagon, intelligence agencies, defense contractors, congressional defense committees, and American military bases in over 80 countries.
The influence industry, a whole new industry that grew out of lobbyists, PACs and Super PACs, political consultants, trade associations, think tanks, and (shudder) lawyers.
Media power, made up of newspapers and online broadcasters, social platforms, advertising, public relations, publishers, and increasingly including AI and its owners
Hang on, I know that’s already a lot, but we’re not done yet.
The administrative system that we usually call the ‘bureaucracy’ and includes the Civil service, regulators, tax authorities, entitlement programs, procurement, all of which include thousands of rules and procedures.
The economic system underneath everything, made up of workers, consumers, small businesses, corporations, housing, healthcare (there’s a beauty), education, energy, and transportation.
The billionaire class that runs all of the above.
And finally, what’s left over. Us, the voters, taxpayers, consumers, shareholders, pensioners, homeowners, employees, and what’s left of the American middle class, since we sent our industrial wealth to China.
So, the next time you hear someone complaining about ‘the system,’ you might want to keep a copy of all the above, haul it out and ask them, ‘which one?’
Us, of course, is everyone. So, when Walt Kelly’s cartoon character POGO said, fifty-five years ago, “we have met the enemy, and he is us,” Kelly was making an incredibly prescient look into the future, rather than a mere comment on the plastic trash covering the swamp in which POGO lived.
But we, the we who get all huffy and puffy about our environment (both natural and political), aren’t simply standing outside the ‘System’ shaking our fists at it. We all had a hand in building it.
The Teacher’s Pension Fund that contributes to your retirement may own shares in Lockheed Martin without you knowing it. You and I, as voters, may denounce corporate influence while buying everything we purchase from the corporations creating it. Your 401-K and/or company retirement benefit likely owns shares in both Oil Companies and Private Equity.
That’s a cold, hard, fact that might never have occurred to those of us who are the most vocal complainers.
Your congressman (or woman) may deplore Pentagon waste in his or her campaign interview, while voting to keep open the weapons factory employing 4,000 people in your district. So, if you’re going to pick a target, there are a hell of a lot of choices.
I have a suggestion, as you knew I would. No sense writing down 500 words of lead-in, and then bailing out on my thoughts.
The connective tissue of the ailments that afflict us is the political misuse of money.
That’s always been with us, since America’s founding. It’s the blood that flows through the veins of Republican Democracy, and it’s undeniable that we are both a Republic and a Democracy. Which means we do not vote directly on issues, but vote for representatives who do that nasty bit of business in our name.
It was our slave-owning founders who claimed that ‘all men are created equal.’ That was not a fact at the time. It was a promise for the future, and we fulfilled that promise with a Civil War.
We still have not undone the crimes of inequity, but we work steadily in that direction.
So, my hope is that our current move in the perfection of national equity will concentrate itself on getting money the hell out of direct political control.
The Supreme Court has not been helpful in that regard. But it has been dishonest, in that the Court must count itself among those institutions infected with the disease of legal bribery, which is yet another discussion for yet another time.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on January 21, 2010, by a 5–4 vote, opened the floodgates of corporate money in politics. Interestingly, it cozied its way around the sharper edges of that decision by deceptive language.
Citizens United did not legalize unlimited corporate contributions directly to political candidates. Those remain prohibited under federal law. What it did instead was to find that corporations and unions have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts of their own money on independent political expenditures—advertising and other advocacy supporting or opposing candidates, provided it is not legally coordinated with the candidates.
A wag at the time declared that he would believe a corporation had the same rights as a citizen, when the state of Texas executed one. As Shakespeare wrote, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”
That was the setup. The result was yet to come.
In 2010, Citizens United v. FEC, followed almost immediately by SpeechNow.org v. FEC, opened the door through which virtually unlimited corporate and individual money could pour into independent American election spending. We gave the right of free speech to both citizens and corporations, but reserved the size of the megaphone for delivering that speech for corporate use only.
Thus, over that past sixteen years, the United States of America has been known internationally as ‘the best government money can buy.’
So, that’s where we need to go first. Detach money from politics.
That’s first.
All else comes from that.
Aren’t you glad it’s that simple?
No need to thank me, I was glad to do it…