The Fairness Doctrine Show Notes-Tuesday, Oct. 26

The Fairness Doctrine Blog ^ | 10/26/10 | Chuck Morse-Patrick O'Heffernan

[Chuckmorse]

10/26) Our guest, Josh Holland, Senior Writer for Alternet, wrote "The 15 Biggest lies about the Economy and The Supreme Court Sold Out Democracy."

Josh:

The Citizen United decision by the Supreme Court is responsible for the unprecidented amount of corporate money pouring into the mid-term election campaign both in the form of direct donations to Republican candidates but also in the form of these "superPAC's" which are running ads for Republican candidates without disclosing their financial backing.

Patrick:

Many of these ads are filled with lies.

Chuck:

I don't see how Citizens United in any way changed the way politics is financed as these secretive PAC's were running unaccountable ads long before the decision. As an example, I would point to the 200 Million spent by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on campaign donations and lobbyists from 2000-2008. They went into recievership at the end of 2008 and since then their records have been unavailable.

I think that the upsurge in campaign money is because conservatives, and corporations, believe that there is a lot at stake this election in terms of the future of the country and they are responding by opening up their checkbooks. Also, AFSCME and the Public Unions are outspending the conservatives and corporations this election cycle because they also have a stake in the election. Fear that taxes won't be raised or maintained at current levels which means less money for them.

Josh Holland continued to make references during the interview to world opinion and other countries in the context that they conduct politics and other public policies better than us. He pointed out that other countries ban private donations to campaigns, hold shorter campaign seasons, have higher taxes than we do, and have Parlementary systems which he stateed were better systems than our American system. I rejected this arguement.

Patrick:

Actually, he didn’t say they were better systems than our system, he said that in some ways in some countries they work better for their citizens than ours works for our citizens. I agree. Many countries in Europe have a smaller gap between the wealthy and the poor than we do, they have better school outcomes than we do, they have better support for the arts than we do, their health care costs less and has better outcomes. The fact that their systems are parliamentary is not what makes them better. I think what allows these countries (Iceland, Denmark, Norway, etc) is that they keep money out of politics.

Citizens United – the product of Federalist Society-supported candidates (the Federalist Society is supported by the same billionaires in the SuperPacs) – tore down the last separation between money and state. And the Republican filibuster of the Transparency bill insured that the billionaires and corporations can hide who they are – they can lie with impunity and they are.

Chuck argued that corporations should not have their donations revealed because their customers may retaliate. Damn right! I want to know what kind of a company I do business with. As a consumer, it is my right to know that a corporation uses my money to pass bills that hurt me. That is free enterprise – Adam Smith’s fully informed consumer making an informed decision.

Our democracy has become an auction and the wealthy elites of all parties are submitting the winning bids. The Tea party was right - Washington has lost touch with the citizens. (That was before they before it got corrupted by the Koch Brothers and Pharma and the insurance industry). The reason it is out of touch is not because they have been bought by corporations and billionaires. They are buying them now, today – with an unprecedented $2 billion in campaign contributions thanks to Citizens United.

Chuck:

Josh Holland's statements were laced with praise for unnamed foreign countries comparing them favorably to ours, including is explicit statement that the parlementary system was superior to ours and I reject the arguement. American culture, traditions, and way of life would not be commensorate with the systems or mores of any foreign country I can think of. Regarding other countries having a smaller gap between the wealthy and the poor that is certainly not true in socialist countries such as Cuba, Vietnam, or North Korea, where the governing elite lives an opulent lifestyle that would make most American rich people blush while the population subsists in a state of near starvation. This is also the true in most Islamic and third world countries as well.

I, for one, celebrate the fact that America has more rich people than any other country. This is a sign of our sucess. More importnatly, we also have vastly more people who could be described as upper middle class and we have a greater occurance of upward mobility than most other societies. Europe is groaning under the weight of a calcified over taxed system and the results are starting to show in Britain, Greece, and in other European countries. We should, indeed, learn from other countries. We should learn what not to do.

Citizens United constituted a recognition of free speech, and money is a form of speech and expression. In a free society, citizens, and orgainized groups of citizens, should be able to support any candidate of cause they choose to support. This has been going on for centuries on the part of both corporations and unions. While I believe that donors should have the right to a certain level of anonimiity, if a person or organization engages in an outright lie this is called slander or libel and the perputrators should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

If Members of Congress are passing laws that support a particular corporation, or a particular social cause that might be connected to an organization or union that helped them to get elected, as was the case with the United Auto Workers and the medusa like group that used to be called ACORN, than this is the type of corruption that should be exposed. The solution, in my opinion, is to establish a congressional committee that screens legislation to insure that it is constitutionally compatable and is not offering special favors to special interests. Then. perhaps, our elected officials might turn their attention to questions such as the budget, taxes, or the influence of socialists, UN spies, tree huggers, or secret Muslims.