Out of Control

plu·toc·ra·cy

 noun \plü-ˈtä-krə-sē\

: government by the richest people

: a country that is ruled by the richest people

: a group of very rich people who have a lot of power

As Citizens United seems to have confirmed, we have shifted from even the hypocritical (read: gerrymandered and voter ID’d) “one person, one vote” to a more fundamental “one or more dollars, who cares about the vote” system of governance. As members of the House of Representatives face re-election every two years, to stay in office requires a massive commitment to fund-raising, some spending 90% of more of their working time seeking and (what’s much, much worse) and pleasing campaign and SuperPac contributors. With Congress in session less than one third of the year, you can guess what is going on, not only when they are in session, but when they are back home shaking trees, bushes and lobbyists for money.

Votes for sale! Votes for sale! Special interests and well-funded donors-with-an-agenda, this is your time to buy the tax and regulatory structure of your dreams, to create a parallel legal system that exempts those at the very top of the economic food chain from those nasty, humdrum laws and taxes that plague the rest of us!! Votes for sale! Votes for sale! Oh, you cannot legally accept a campaign contribution with an expressed pledge to vote on a particular piece of legislation, but everyone knows the rules. If you don’t vote in that obvious direction, you won’t be getting funding… when you run again in two years.

How can we remotely claim to be a democracy when the way this country actually operates is as a classic plutocracy (the definition above is from Merriam Webster). I used the House of Representatives because this bi-annual election format invited this “legalized” form of corruption. But buying votes, decisions, official discretion, etc. are just normal at every nook and cranny of the political spectrum, from federal, state and local representatives. It happens every time there is an appointment to a regulatory body of a person who comes from the industry to be regulated.

That our laws permit this form of special-treatment-for-campaign-contributors/lobbyists does not make the results any less corrupting of our values or our system of governance. It may exempt us from the international opprobrium that attaches to countries where out-and-out bribes are simply “business as usual,” but the corrupting results are precisely the same.

This rather disturbing application of untoward influence, which permeates both sides of the aisle, is absolutely everywhere. Take this little analysis from a recent NY Times piece (October 28^th): “Attorneys general are now the object of aggressive pursuit by lobbyists and lawyers who use campaign contributions, personal appeals at lavish corporate-sponsored conferences and other means to push them to drop investigations, change policies, negotiate favorable settlements or pressure federal regulators, an investigation by The New York Times has found…

“When the executives who distribute 5-Hour Energy, the popular caffeinated drinks, learned that attorneys general in more than 30 states were investigating allegations of deceptive advertising — a serious financial threat to the company — they moved quickly to shut the investigations down, one state at a time… But success did not come in court or at a negotiating table.

“Instead, it came at the opulent Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in California, with its panoramic ocean views, where more than a dozen state attorneys general had gathered last year for cocktails, dinners and fund-raisers organized by the Democratic Attorneys General Association. A lawyer for 5-Hour Energy roamed the event, setting her sights on Attorney General Chris Koster of Missouri, whose office was one of those investigating the company… ‘My client just received notification that Missouri is on this,’ the lawyer, Lori Kalani, told him.

“Ms. Kalani’s firm, Dickstein Shapiro, had courted the attorney general at dinners and conferences and with thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. Mr. Koster told Ms. Kalani that he was unaware of the investigation, and he reached for his phone and called his office. By the end of the weekend, he had ordered his staff to pull out of the inquiry, a clear victory for 5-Hour Energy.” We seem to have become a deeply corrupted nation, pretending legitimacy because our legal system has tons of winks and nods for the well-connected with dollar bills emanating from their every pore.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if the vast pool of lethargic Americans don’t stand up and scream for a restoration of representative democracy in this once-great nation, we might as well put every public office up for bids… and at least use that money to pay off our deficit!