The Decline of our Democracy?

The Supreme Court removed any restraints on Corporate political funding a couple years ago.   The Republican appointed Supreme Court majority that wrote the opinion were certainly aware that business tends to lean Republican, but I doubt that even they anticipated what a bad decision it was going to turn out to be, and how quickly things would turn bad.


That decision immediately gave nameless, faceless Corporations enormous political power.  A political consultant can now create a lobbying organization with some bland name, go out and solicit donations from people and corporations with lots of money and the desire to influence public policy, then use the money to fund propaganda campaigns to achieve their goals.


The immediate effect has been the unprecedented barrage of negative ads that flood the airwaves in support of some candidate or proposition.  The ads can be outright lies, but if they use the principles of propaganda Hitler relied on, they will probably be successful.  (see postscript at the end of this blog).


Consider what became possible after this decision.  Suppose China wants to undermine our resolve to defend Taiwan.  Or North Korea or Iran want more accommodating US policies.  Or what if Iran, or other oil producing states, want to protect their business by influencing our energy policy by undermining green energy?  They find some political consultant who can form a PAC, identify candidates they believe will be more to their liking, and start funneling money into the PAC.  There is no way to trace the source of the money.


We all know about the flood of earmarks and tax breaks for business that bloated the Federal budget in the last decade.  A recent study found one of the most profitable investments a business can make is to make political contributions.  The companies that made the most political contributions saw an average 250% return on on their investment in the form of profits directly linked to laws favorable to their business.  Now we won't even know what Corporations are buying a particular politican's support for their pet projects.


Around the developing world Democracy's are struggling to get beyond being democracies in name only, where elections are encouraged but manipulated to produce the right result for the powerful.  We seem to be moving the other directions, unwittingly ceding power to the financially powerful.


Only people should be allowed to participate in politics.  The people involved in corporations have a basic right to participate as individuals, they should not be able to multiply their influence through smoke-screen corporations.


Postscript - What Adolph Hitler taught modern political campaigns-


Adolph Hitler was not a guy who seized power, he was elected by a the German people in 1933 because he was a master of political propaganda.  Here are some statements attributed to him about propaganda:


What luck for the rulers that men do not think.


Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.


Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.


It also gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them.


"Education is dangerous, every educated person is a future enemy".