Adopt the super-rich – a new reality show?

God warned Israel that they would regret their longing for a king once they had one (1 Samuel: 8:9). Americans had a king imposed on them, and once they won independence, chose representative democracy and the laws derived from that to rule over them in the belief that ‘all men are created equal’.

Not only are all people created equal, but all people are flawed, and so our democratic system has checks and balances on power. No matter the checks and balances and the ideal of equal representation, though, the power of money has always threatened the influence of the votes of the regular people. And this is why the US, and other representative democracies, have laws that attempt to limit the amount of money that any one person may contribute to a party or individual, in an attempt to uphold equality.

Recent decisions of the US Supreme Court have, however, created ‘super citizens’.   The decisions in Buckley v. Valeo, Citizens United v. FEC, and McCutcheon v. FEC, gave corporations the same rights as ordinary voters to contribute to campaigns, and allowed the creation of Super Pacs which may spend unlimited sums to advocate for or against political candidates.

The super-citizens are people just like us. The thing is, they don’t know us. The 1% have quite different priorities than the 99%. For example, lower-income Americans believe that creating jobs is the clear priority for government, whereas the wealthy believe holding down the deficit is much more important. 

Whether we like it or not, we every-day people meet all sorts, including people with different life circumstances and different beliefs, and often we get talking to them. This rubbing of shoulders and shaking of hands gives us firsthand information about lives that are not the same as ours. The super-citizens, however, are cocooned.

I can barely imagine the world of the super-rich – can you? We never see them. They travel in chauffeured limousines and helicopters, private jets, yachts, even submarines. Far from shopping at the local market and joining local organizations, the super-rich are hardly local anymore – they move between residences in New York, London, Ibiza, and Provence. The ‘ordinary’ people they meet are PAs, solicitors, financial advisers, accountants, and servants.

It’s the people we don’t shake hands with that we ignore, and whose problems we discount. Because of this, the super-rich cannot speak for the 99%, and yet their voices can hush all of ours.

Is there anything we can do to have our voices heard above the clink of cash? How about we open our homes to the super-rich to come live with us for a week or a month? What about a reality show? We could  use Louis Armstrong’s ‘Wonderful World’ – “I see friends shaking hands, sayin ‘how do you do?’ / They’re really sayin’, ‘I love you” as our theme song. I wonder how many would take the opportunity?

Or we can support organizations like Mayday.us which are using various means to overcome the effects of the Supreme Court decisions.

(Image from Elir Deviant Art)

Can crowd sourcing save American democracy?

http://www.christopherdombres.fr/serigraphies/

America’s Founding Fathers knew that arbitrary power can cause the pillars of democracy to crumble. They knew the ways in which a governor, a king, a tax collector, a soldier, a trading company, a colony, a prison official, could deprive the ordinary citizen of the essentials of liberty. The foundations of the liberal democracy they built were to protect citizens from this.

I wonder what they would say about the arbitrary powers of the Super PACs?
Money has always been able to capture the ear of politicians, and the more money the more influence. Hence, in the US, in Australia- a total of forty countries in all –there are laws meant to ensure that the sources of campaign financing are open to scrutiny.

But in America in 2010, something changed. Legislation to enable the creation of Super PACs (officially known as ‘independent-expenditure only committees’ was enacted. Super PACs may not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties, but may engage in unlimited political spending independently of the campaigns. They can raise funds from individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups without any legal limit on donation size. . Corporations that fund political causes have stockholders to answer to. Individuals (who now donate even larger amounts) do not.

In the 2012 presidential election campaign, most of the money given to super PACs came from wealthy individuals. The top 100 individuals who donated to super PACs in 2011–2012 accounted for more than 80% of the total money raised (close to $99 million), even though they numbered less than 3.7% of all contributors. Center for Responsive Politics
Super-rich individuals are taking over the political process. Timothy Noah calls these guys (yes, they are all men), the ‘crankocrats’. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/trb/magazine/102114/crankocracy-friess-simmons-oligarchs-election-america

Their wealth is going into repealing health care reform, making abortion illegal, restricting access to contraception, blocking climate change legislation, and cutting taxes for – (guess who?) the super-rich.

Everyone here except the handful of the extremely wealthy is frustrated with the mess. But just as many believe that there is nothing to be done against this power. It is truly arbitrary. But a new idea came on to the scene a few months ago.

The idea? Fighting money with money. Citizen-funded big money to fight the big money of special interests on both the left and the right. Money to fight to reform the system so that the arbitrary power of the super-rich is overcome. Not for any other issue, and not for the right or the left wing.

Mayday.org has raised $12 million in less than two months using crowd funding! This citizen money will press for fundamental reforms in the way elections are funded. https://mayday.us/the-plan/

America, the beautiful indeed!!