Joseph Stiglitz on "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%" (Vanity Fair) & An...

Money, Politics, and the Constitution: Beyond Citizens United

Authors: Edited by Monica Youn
Publisher(s): The Century Foundation

Download PDF

Type: Book
Pages: 266
ISBN: 978-0-87078-521-4

Published by The Century Foundation Press & Brennan Center for Justice

For more information on Money, Politics and the Constitution, please visit www.brennancenter.org, or call Jeanine Plant-Chirlin at 646-292-8322.

Top Constitutional scholars launch a new jurisprudence to curb the rise of unfettered money in politics post-Citizens United. What is next for the First Amendment? And how can we advance a vision of the Constitution as a charter for a vibrant, participatory democracy?
In the U.S. Supreme Court case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, five justices ruled that corporations and unions had a constitutional right to spend unlimited sums in elections, and in so doing overturned decades of precedent and dozens of laws. The ruling earned banner headlines, a sharp State of the Union rebuke, and public disapproval hovering near 80 percent in the polls. In the 2010 election that followed, independent spend­ing spiked, much of it done secretly. The decision ranks among the Court’s most controversial and consequential.

This volume of essays, which is cosponsored with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, is an attempt to map out the complex labyrinth that led to Citizens United, and to explore where this decision may lead. The chapters in it arose from a symposium sponsored by the Brennan Centers just nine weeks after the Citizens United decision was announced.

View the Table of Contents, Foreword by Century Foundation President Richard Leone, and the Preface by Brennan Center's Michael Waldman.
Download the  Introduction by Monica Youn.

About the book: Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of UC Irvine School of Law and author of The Conservative Assault on the Constitution:

“A brilliant collection of essays on one of the most important contemporary constitutional issues: when can and should the government be able to regulate campaign spending? … If there is to be a new jurisprudence in this area, this book is likely its foundation.”

About the conference that sparked the book: Stanley Fish, The New York Times:

“A-list First Amendment scholars … As a result of what had been said and proposed, something in the world might actually change.”

Topics: Economics and Inequality, Media and Politics, Election Reform

The Corporate State Wins Again by Chris Hedges

Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, in their book “Winner-Take-All Politics,” point out that the share of national income of the top 0.1 percent of Americans since 1974 has grown from 2.7 to 12.3 percent.

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
April 25, 2011

Image by Agent_Rouge via Flickr

When did our democracy die? When did it irrevocably transform itself into a lifeless farce and absurd political theater? When did the press, labor, universities and the Democratic Party—which once made piecemeal and incremental reform possible—wither and atrophy? When did reform through electoral politics become a form of magical thinking? When did the dead hand of the corporate state become unassailable?

The body politic was mortally wounded during the long, slow strangulation of ideas and priorities during the Red Scare and the Cold War. Its bastard child, the war on terror, inherited the iconography and language of permanent war and fear. The battle against internal and external enemies became the excuse to funnel trillions in taxpayer funds and government resources to the war industry, curtail civil liberties and abandon social welfare. Skeptics, critics and dissenters were ridiculed and ignored. The FBI, Homeland Security and the CIA enforced ideological conformity. Debate over the expansion of empire became taboo. Secrecy, the anointing of specialized elites to run our affairs and the steady intrusion of the state into the private lives of citizens conditioned us to totalitarian practices. Sheldon Wolin points out in “Democracy Incorporated” that this configuration of corporate power, which he calls “inverted totalitarianism,” is not like “Mein Kampf” or “The Communist Manifesto,” the result of a premeditated plot. It grew, Wolin writes, from “a set of effects produced by actions or practices undertaken in ignorance of their lasting consequences.”

Corporate capitalism—because it was trumpeted throughout the Cold War as a bulwark against communism—expanded with fewer and fewer government regulations and legal impediments. Capitalism was seen as an unalloyed good. It was not required to be socially responsible. Any impediment to its growth, whether in the form of trust-busting, union activity or regulation, was condemned as a step toward socialism and capitulation. Every corporation is a despotic fiefdom, a mini-dictatorship. And by the end Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil and Goldman Sachs had grafted their totalitarian structures onto the state.

The Cold War also bequeathed to us the species of the neoliberal. The neoliberal enthusiastically embraces “national security” as the highest good.  The neoliberal—composed of the gullible and cynical careerists—parrots back the mantra of endless war and corporate capitalism as an inevitable form of human progress. Globalization, the neoliberal assures us, is the route to a worldwide utopia. Empire and war are vehicles for lofty human values. Greg Mortenson, the disgraced author of “Three Cups of Tea,” tapped into this formula. The deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq or Afghanistan are ignored or dismissed as the cost of progress. We are bringing democracy to Iraq, liberating and educating the women of Afghanistan, defying the evil clerics in Iran, ridding the world of terrorists and protecting Israel. Those who oppose us do not have legitimate grievances. They need to be educated. It is a fantasy. But to name our own evil is to be banished.

We continue to talk about personalities—Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama—although the heads of state or elected officials in Congress have become largely irrelevant. Lobbyists write the bills. Lobbyists get them passed. Lobbyists make sure you get the money to be elected. And lobbyists employ you when you get out of office. Those who hold actual power are the tiny elite who manage the corporations. Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, in their book “Winner-Take-All Politics,” point out that the share of national income of the top 0.1 percent of Americans since 1974 has grown from 2.7 to 12.3 percent. One in six American workers may be without a job. Some 40 million Americans may live in poverty, with tens of millions more living in a category called “near poverty.” Six million people may be forced from their homes because of foreclosures and bank repossessions. But while the masses suffer, Goldman Sachs, one of the financial firms most responsible for the evaporation of $17 trillion in wages, savings and wealth of small investors and shareholders, is giddily handing out $17.5 billion in compensation to its managers, including $12.6 million to its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein.

The massive redistribution of wealth, as Hacker and Pierson write, happened because lawmakers and public officials were, in essence, hired to permit it to happen. It was not a conspiracy. The process was transparent. It did not require the formation of a new political party or movement. It was the result of inertia by our political and intellectual class, which in the face of expanding corporate power found it personally profitable to facilitate it or look the other way. The armies of lobbyists, who write the legislation, bankroll political campaigns and disseminate propaganda, have been able to short-circuit the electorate. Hacker and Pierson pinpoint the administration of Jimmy Carter as the start of our descent, but I think it began long before with Woodrow Wilson, the ideology of permanent war and the capacity by public relations to manufacture consent. Empires die over such long stretches of time that the exact moment when terminal decline becomes irreversible is probably impossible to document. That we are at the end, however, is beyond dispute.

The rhetoric of the Democratic Party and the neoliberals sustains the illusion of participatory democracy. The Democrats and their liberal apologists offer minor palliatives and a feel-your-pain language to mask the cruelty and goals of the corporate state. The reconfiguration of American society into a form of neofeudalism will be cemented into place whether it is delivered by Democrats, who are pushing us there at 60 miles an hour, or Republicans, who are barreling toward it at 100 miles an hour. Wolin writes, “By fostering an illusion among the powerless classes” that it can make their interests a priority, the Democratic Party “pacifies and thereby defines the style of an opposition party in an inverted totalitarian system.” The Democrats are always able to offer up a least-worst alternative while, in fact, doing little or nothing to thwart the march toward corporate collectivism.

The systems of information, owned or dominated by corporations, keep the public entranced with celebrity meltdowns, gossip, trivia and entertainment. There are no national news or intellectual forums for genuine political discussion and debate. The talking heads on Fox or MSNBC or CNN spin and riff on the same inane statements by Sarah Palin or Donald Trump. They give us lavish updates on the foibles of a Mel Gibson or Charlie Sheen. And they provide venues for the powerful to speak directly to the masses. It is burlesque.

It is not that the public does not want a good health care system, programs that provide employment, quality public education or an end to Wall Street’s looting of the U.S. Treasury. Most polls suggest Americans do. But it has become impossible for most citizens to find out what is happening in the centers of power. Television news celebrities dutifully present two opposing sides to every issue, although each side is usually lying. The viewer can believe whatever he or she wants to believe. Nothing is actually elucidated or explained. The sound bites by Republicans or Democrats are accepted at face value. And once the television lights are turned off, the politicians go back to the business of serving business.

We live in a fragmented society. We are ignorant of what is being done to us. We are diverted by the absurd and political theater. We are afraid of terrorism, of losing our job and of carrying out acts of dissent. We are politically demobilized and paralyzed. We do not question the state religion of patriotic virtue, the war on terror or the military and security state. We are herded like sheep through airports by Homeland Security and, once we get through the metal detectors and body scanners, spontaneously applaud our men and women in uniform. As we become more insecure and afraid, we become more anxious. We are driven by fiercer and fiercer competition. We yearn for stability and protection. This is the genius of all systems of totalitarianism. The citizen’s highest hope finally becomes to be secure and left alone.

Human history, rather than a chronicle of freedom and democracy, is characterized by ruthless domination. Our elites have done what all elites do. They have found sophisticated mechanisms to thwart popular aspirations, disenfranchise the working and increasingly the middle class, keep us passive and make us serve their interests. The brief democratic opening in our society in the early 20th century, made possible by radical movements, unions and a vigorous press, has again been shut tight. We were mesmerized by political charades, cheap consumerism and virtual hallucinations as we were ruthlessly stripped of power.

The game is over. We lost. The corporate state will continue its inexorable advance until two-thirds of the nation is locked into a desperate, permanent underclass. Most Americans will struggle to make a living while the Blankfeins and our political elites wallow in the decadence and greed of the Forbidden City and Versailles. These elites do not have a vision. They know only one word—more.  They will continue to exploit the nation, the global economy and the ecosystem. And they will use their money to hide in gated compounds when it all implodes. Do not expect them to take care of us when it starts to unravel. We will have to take care of ourselves. We will have to create small, monastic communities where we can sustain and feed ourselves. It will be up to us to keep alive the intellectual, moral and culture values the corporate state has attempted to snuff out. It is either that or become drones and serfs in a global, corporate dystopia. It is not much of a choice. But at least we still have one.

Copyright © 2011 Truthdig

Chris Hedges spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. His latest books are Death of the Liberal Class, and The World as It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress.

see
What You Need To Know To Save Your Ass – Part 2 by Mark A. Goldman
What You Need to Know to Save Your Ass by Mark A. Goldman
Who Really Benefits from the “American Dream”? by Marie Owens
Stripmining America-Unpatriotically by Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader: Growing Up Corporate
The Looming Collapse of the American Empire by Chris Hedges
The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2
http://vodpod.com/dandelionsalad/tag/economy

Related Articles

• Throw Out the Money Changers by Chris Hedges (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)
• Chris Hedges: That’s how imperial powers always die (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)
• Chris Hedges: It’s what the god of the market demands (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)
• The Collapse of Globalization by Chris Hedges (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)

Record Americans live on food stamps amid record number of millionaires

Last year basically, but take a look, maybe someone could update these stats .. 

by George Bao

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- The United States has seen a record number of citizens living on food stamps while the number of millionaires has also reached a record high.

The two records have shown that the United States is further polarized in the possession of wealth.

Government statistics show that the month of May posted a new food stamp record as over 40.8 million Americans rely on the government for their food. That means one out of eight Americans rely on government-provided food stamps for a living. The figure is projected to rise to 43.3 million in 2011.

Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program subsidies for food purchases jumped 19 percent from a year earlier and increased 0.9 percent from April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a statement on its website. Participation has set records for 18 straight months.

Meanwhile, unemployment in July stood at 9.5 percent in both June and July, near levels last seen in 1983.

In California, between March 2007 and March 2010, the number of Californians receiving food stamps grew from 2.1 million to 3.27 million.

About 25,900 people received food stamps in Sonoma County, California in June, a 77-percent increase in two years, according to county officials.

The trend mirrors record national enrollment figures for the federal food program, with more than 40 million Americans getting the benefit.

But even as the number of food stamps recipients swells in the county, anti-poverty advocates warn that the impact of the recession can be magnified in areas like Sonoma County that have historically low levels of food-stamp enrollment.

Sonoma ranks 52nd in the percentage of eligible people who are signed up for the program among 58 counties in California. The eligibility analysis is based on the number of residents whose income is at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty level as determined by state enrollment and census data from 2008, the latest figures available.

"The level of hardship is so severe that we may find we are failing to reach many more people who need these benefits during these tough times," George Manalo-LeClair, senior director of legislation for California Food Policy Advocates, was quoted as saying by local media.

While the number of Americans relying on food stamps has reached a record high, the number of millionaires has also risen to a peak level, according to the new Metro Wealth Index released recently by Capgemini, a French consulting firm. It calculated the number of individuals with a net worth of over one million dollars, excluding real estate, in the 10 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

The results provide further indication that the wealthy in the United States have recovered more swiftly than the nation's less- well-off. In the 10 cities in the study, the number of millionaires grew by 17.5 percent in 2009, a year when the national unemployment rate increased from 5.8 percent to 9.3 percent. Most of the gains for the rich are attributed to the climb in the stock markets.

According to Capgemini, the New York Metropolitan area had 650, 000 high-net worth individuals, or people with one million dollars or more in investible assets in 2009. That is 18.7 percent higher than in 2008.

The New York area topped the list of metro-area wealth centers. Its total was greater than the combined total of the next three runners-up -- Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington.

The Los Angeles metro area had 235,800 millionaires in 2009, the second most of any city in the country after New York.

According to the Metro Wealth Index, the Los Angeles numbers for 2009 were up 13.3 percent from 2008, but that was not enough to make up for the 17.8-percent drop in millionaires in the previous year during the heart of the financial crisis.

In New York City, the rise in the number of millionaires in 2009 was enough to make up for the losses the year before.

New York was one of four cities to see its millionaire ranks bounce back to where they were in 2007, along with Washington, Houston and San Jose.

San Jose had the highest percentage of millionaires of any city, which is 5.9 percent, while Houston had the lowest, at 1.9 percent. A total of 2.9 percent of the 10.2 million people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area were counted as millionaires by Capgemini.

Analysts said that the U.S. taxpayers' bank bailouts certainly helped those on Wall Street. That explains why New York has more millionaires than other cities.

Also, finance, technology and oil remain the main sources of wealth in the United States.

While New York, Washington D.C., Houston and San Jose are now above 2007 levels, the rest are still below the 2007 heights.

English.news.cn   2010-08-08 04:50:37

I N C O M E S , TA X E S , A N D T H E W E A LT H Y : K E Y FAC T S

http://fiscalsecurity.squarespace.com/storage/infographic_wed.pdf

Real-redistribution-wealth-forbes-400-triple-wealth-5-years: Squattable

The Real Redistribution of Wealth: Forbes 400 Triple Wealth in 5 years

Submitted by birdflip on Wed, 03/09/2011 - 03:13

If you've ever listened to Rush Limbaugh, you've probably heard him talk about the "liberals" and their 'communist/socialist plot" to redistribute the wealth.

But that's in the make believe Limbaugh-land. In reality, the redistribution of the wealth has already happened, but it was in the opposite of direction of Rush's claim.

From 1995 to 2000, the Forbes 400 tripled their wealth!

http://wealthforcommongood.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/inequality-by-...

Wow, aren't they 'good investors'. But looking at the graph got me wondering about the years prior to 1995. So I looked up the source stats, which came from a Fed paper, which I'm not sure can be completely trusted- they cook the numbers everywhere else, so why not here too?

Regardless, the fed paper does have the stats from 1989 and up:

The 400 richest Americans wealth grew:
$49 billion over the 6 year period from '89-'95

$955 billion over the 5 year period from '95-'00

During the initial period, the Forbes 400 average income was $20 million per year. Then during the next 5 years their average income increased to $478 million per year. Sounds fair, doesn't it?

Isn't this the wealth redistribution Rush is always talking about, but in reverse? As usual, the truth is the exact opposite of Limbaugh's claims.

Then I started questioning why the Fed Paper started in 1989- was that the first year of the Forbes 400? As it turns out, 1982 was the first year- here's a chart with the Forbes 400 first 20 years, from 1982 to 2002.

As you can see, the wealth of the uber-rich was growing steadily until the mid 90s, then it shot through the roof. That great sucking sound was caused by NAFTA, which opened the floodgates to outsourcing. Corporations fired workers by the thousands and hired replacements in the third world, often for less than a dollar per day. But that was only the beginning of the great heist.

The top 400 did lose some wealth during the stock market crashes of 1987 and 2000, but it is clear that post-crash, they were still way above their previous levels of wealth. Everyone else that invested in the tech boom didn't fare so well.

Some of you may recall how MCI Worldcom was poised to own the internet with it's fiber optic dominance. So millions of Americans invested in what they thought was a secure investment, the future of the internet. But then MCI overstated it's earnings by $11 billion, causing the stock to plunge to zero. Millions were devastated, $150 billion in stock was wiped out, goodbye retirement suckers!. But Worldcom only had to wait a year, pay a measly $500 million fine, and they were back in business, as the very same day the fine was announced, they received a $45 million gov't contract to help rebuild Iraq, in addition to the annual $750 million in federal contracts. Two guys went to jail, the rest took the money laughing all the way to the bank.

This redistribution has worked our really well for the elite, well connected and already super wealthy, but what of the rest of us?

As we have grown accustomed to the two income families still unable to to make ends meet, now having three jobs to get by has become 'uniquely American'. The loss of jobs due to outsourcing, combined with illegal schemes to steal American's homes through foreclosures, has put millions of Americans on the streets homeless. Millions of America's children are homeless, struggling to get through school every day underfed and with no stability whatsoever. Millions of Americans freezing on the streets every night even as millions more homes sit empty, because of bankers with no soul.

Meanwhile the federal government not only enables but encourages this financial redistribution of wealth. Even as their policies tank every day Americans, an Administration favorite JP Morgan found a way to make money by taking over the food stamp program and _outsourcing_ it, taking who knows what percentage for themselves. With the HAMP program which was supposed to help stop foreclosures, the same banks that caused the crisis were paid more money to do the HAMP paperwork. The bankers were given their payment whether or not the new loan went through, and in 50% of the cases HAMP failed the homeowner. Often the banks do not even own the loans, but are just the 'servicers', because they sold the mortgages in the MBS scam. So now looking at a foreclosure, the MBS investors (ie pension funds) would be better off giving the family a loan modification, but the bank makes more money if they foreclose... see a problem here? And it's set up so the banks decide when to foreclose, with no oversight! Who set this up? Obama. Why? Because he's a friggin' bankster puppet. Just ask his new Chief of Staff, JP Morgan executive Bill Daley (of the Chicago mafia/mayoral monarchy).

The overt and unacceptable greed of the last 30 years has led to the situation that the elite now fear. The people have nothing, and therefore nothing to lose. The Super greedy could not stop at having 95%, they want it all. The Moron governor of Wisconsin finally pushed people too far and provoked a new movement of We the People across the country.

The Cheddar Rebellion in Wisconsin has sparked protest across the country, 600 people march on Fox News, 1,000s gather to protest Bank of America, new protest groups forming in every community with the common underlying theme that "we have had enough!"

The federal government at this time, apparently having no idea just how angry we have become, plans to gut all social programs just to save $60 billion, which is a pittance compared what is spent on the military industrial complex. $60 billion is one 'emergency supplemental' for the war machine, but means everything to the Veterans that will no longer get housing vouchers, the Seniors that will freeze to death, and the families that can no longer put their kids in head start while they go to their second or third job.

See this chart for a good breakdown of the 'need' for 'austerity' measures, so 'we' can all feel the pain in our 'shared sacrifice'.

http://www.squattable.com/news/030811/infographic-tax-breaks-vs-budget-cuts

This is all because of a suddenly pressing need to cut the deficit that has grown due to tax cuts, wars, homeland security, bailouts and all of the other things that have made the rich richer.

Thanks to insatiable greed, the truth of this financial redistribution is now evident to even those barely paying attention or willfully ignorant. Finally, the American people have had enough and the government is just dumb enough to completely expose themselves. The idea that teachers make too much money but wall street deserves the bonuses they paid themselves off of the taxpayer bailouts...sorry ruling elite, but people are just not that stupid. But we appreciate that you are because now the whole system is coming down.