DEMOCRATIC MIDTERM LOSSES ROOTED IN CORRUPTION

                                               

Explaining Democratic midterm losses by pointing to President Obama’s performance confuses cause and effect.   While many voters are tired of Obama and voted Republican to register their protest, what really matters is that people are also disgusted with members of Congress from both parties. There is a historical tendency for voters to blame the President and his party and to vote accordingly, hoping that a change in party leadership will fix the problem. There was a time when politicians responded to the will of voters. In the post-Citizens United era, campaign contributions by special interests carry more weight than the wishes of the electorate. That is why voters support Democratic policies yet vote Republican.

America has divided along ideological lines, yet neither party is really guided by the basic principles they espouse. Republicans are arguably more honest, since they claim corporate profit is the source of America’s prosperity despite all evidence this has not led to economic benefit for workers.  Democrats acknowledge the economic disparities resulting from unchecked corporate power, but fail to challenge the chief source of their campaign contributions. Both parties kowtow to a Wall Street oligarchy focused on short-term profits. This rewards corporate executives who put immediate gain over the long-term interests of their companies and the national economy. Since CEOs have a responsibility to produce maximum profits, only regulations designed to protect the public interest can reverse the disastrous economic trends of recent years.

The root problem of corruption of campaign finance is obscured not only by partisan rhetoric but by a corporate-controlled media earning billions selling commercials marketing candidates like toothpaste. Given this incentive, broadcasters and newspapers largely owned by the same corporations are unlikely to highlight the problem. The result is voters who want to go with a winner choose between the well-funded candidates of the two major parties. Third party candidates are assumed to be incapable of winning. As long as this remains accepted wisdom, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

With an electorate evenly divided between red and blue, elections are decided by the small minority of truly independent voters. Their votes swing control of Congress back and forth between the major parties in a vain attempt to change the outcome without addressing the real problem.  Presidents beholden to powerful individuals cannot stop Congress from putting business interests over those of the rest of us.  Only when a Presidential agenda aligns with that of the interests of powerful corporations does it succeed. There is rarely gridlock when corporate interests collide with those of the People.

Faced with a choice between candidates whose important policy positions are getting more difficult to tell apart in congressional races funded by the same business interests, more voters walk away in each election. Those who remain tend to be the hard core partisans who feel they have no choice but to go along with their corporate candidates, lest the country fall into ruin even faster. Despite the obvious truth that it’s the corrupt system that is responsible for our dysfunctional Congress, they continue to assign blame solely to politicians of the other party. This tendency is reinforced by a corporate media that does not question the false framing of major issues by candidates to justify their corporate-friendly positions. Treating election coverage like horse racing leads to confusion among voters about who might be willing to put their interests over those who control the strings of puppet politicians in Washington.

The only solution is to be found in making willingness to deal with corruption the litmus test for voters in 2016. Move to Amend’s Pledge to Amend campaign is an essential step in that direction, calling on candidates to take a position on a constitutional amendment to declare that money is not speech and corporations are not people. Over the next two years, statewide coalitions such as Oregon Democracy Coalition, WAmend in Washington State and Money Out-Voters In (MOVI) in California will be organizing locally around the country to raise the prominence of the issue among the electorate with a goal of making support for a strong amendment the deciding factor in determining who they send to Congress. When we educate enough people about why they need to make this the most important issue to consider when casting their votes, we will elect a Congress that will pass the amendment. The time it will take to succeed will depend on how many are willing to get involved in the campaign. With global climate change setting an upper limit on how long we have to accomplish the goal, we have to start building those coalitions now. 
For more information, contact the author at staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com or (541) 217-8044

PATTERN RECOGNITION IS THE KEY TO PRECOGNITION

With the Arab Spring and the Revolution that has become visible in the Occupy movement in the US and around the world, many people are beginning to have hope for the first time in their lives that the imposition of a permanent fascist New World Order that would enslave us all can be stopped and reversed.

The question is, is this starry eyed optimism or are the pessimists who dismiss the Revolution as a temporary phenomenon right? The answer may depend on how you view the situation. In any event,the pessimists are guilty of accepting a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they do not believe that democracy or the end of war are possible, they will not see how they may be wrong. Therefore, they will not know how to help the Revolution succeed and even if they try, their efforts could lead to the opposite effect of what they want if they promote division rather than the union of the international front against fascism and war that has the collective power to crush the corporatocracy if enough people believe that it can.

Whether the pessimist or the optimist proves to be the realist depends on whose vision prevails. That is why we must encourage doubters to suspend their disbelief in the possibility that we can save human civilization and join us in convincing others that war can and will end when enough people reject the self-fulfilling prophecy that it is inevitable.

If you wish to know the objective truth of something you must seek to understand it from every point of view and find that which is true from all of them. To understand the world as it is enables one to understand the world as it should and can be, if we apply our collective will to creating that world.

Planning for the future in what seems like a chaotic world situation requires a unified world view that sees the future as one of many possibilities. To develop such a way of looking at the world, you must have a clear grasp of what is important to attend to based on a good understanding of what has led us to the present moment.  

In today’s world of information overload that may seem impossible, but it is not. The key to overcoming America’s Attention Deficit Disorder is to help our neighbors understand what issues are fundamental to the process of taking America back for the people. In selectively focusing attention on information that answers the most pressing questions of how to create a united front against fascism in America and war in the world, patterns begin to emerge that make the importance of new information easier to recognize.

Once enough people understand the pattern of recent history, the collective consciousness will shift in the direction of positive change that is possible only through collective action. It is not true that history repeats itself. History is made by those who refuse to accept this futile proposition.  Those who make history are those who study the mistakes of the past to find new paths that we can take together to a more promising future.

Some look at world history as one of endless warfare and an individualistic struggle for supremacy in a hostile universe. These people implicitly reject the idea of democracy in the belief that selfishness is an indelible part of human nature. Thus, the falsely believe that history repeats itself regardless of the efforts of individuals and societies to change.This worldview is distorted by the failure to recognize the abundant evidence to the contrary.

Those of us with the faith that men and women are capable of governing themselves know that they are wrong. It is those who reject the idea that we cannot individually and collectively change history who will be the agents of the change for which the world is clamoring. The stubborn refusal of pessimists to challenge the self-fulfilling prophecy that their own neighbors cannot be trusted to make sound judgments about what form our society should take is a danger to democracy itself and ultimately, to the survival of human civilization.

There are examples to be found throughout history of social cooperation creating critical positive change. Here are a few:

-There have been many centuries in which Jew, Christian lived in harmony throughout much of the world.
-In the American Revolution, men put aside fundamental differences on the issue of slavery in order to ensure that they did not all become enslaved by the fascist Old World Order of the British Empire.
-Americans came together in crisis of the Great Depression to try social experiments that would have been unthinkable ten years earlier, at the height of the Red Scare.                                                                       
-There was shared sacrifice during WWII and a sharing of the benefits of the economic prosperity that followed, including with the vanquished nations of Germany and Japan.
-Throughout the history of the US there has been an evolution toward democracy punctuated with stunning successes by both the forces of democracy and those of the fascist mindset that currently controls the US government and its military.

When trying to develop a strategy to create the fundamental social and political changes that must be made to save human civilization from the depredations of the selfish elite class, we must keep in mind the lessons that history provides. If we apply to our current situation the lessons of both our successes and failures in the past, we can together create a road map to peace based on mutual respect, empathy and a deep appreciation of our interdependence. Any such map must lead to a world in which all enjoy the benefits of liberty and justice. Only in such a world is democracy possible. Without democracy, there can be neither true freedom nor peace for anyone.

If we begin with the assumption that democracy is possible, then we must assume that we are capable of achieving the consensus necessary to create a government and a society that will function according to the wishes of We the People. One of the fundamental contradictions in the American collective consciousness is that we can somehow force the other side to accept our vision of America through waging a Civil War for the hearts and minds of our neighbors using weapons of ridicule and invective.  This has led to a social psychological disorder I call America’s Borderline Split.

US society has the characteristics to merit the diagnosis: Idealization and devaluation of our leaders, self-destructive anger, generally unstable emotions, and a disturbing tendency to be preoccupied with death while doing little to help ourselves overcome our self-destructive behaviors. Like the individual with borderline personality disorder, we feel profoundly empty and as a society struggle to maintain a coherent image of ourselves and others as basically worthy of love despite the imperfections all humans share.

We are so busy fighting each other that we cannot come together to fight the real enemy: fascism. Our common enemy is not those who vote for leaders whose policies we despise, or even the corporate Puppets in Congress. The real enemy is the small group of counter-Revolutionaries that was never happy that the US government was designed with a view toward creating a society in which each citizen had an equal voice in the operation of the government. From the Hamiltonian Federalists to the modern Republican Party, there has been a never-ending battle between those who believe that democracy is necessary and possible and those who have no faith in We the People to decide our collective or even individual destinies.

Those who reject the notion that we can achieve the consensus necessary to assure the continuity of progress toward democracy are the COINTELPRO agents among us. Wittingly or unwittingly, they serve as agents of the State in helping to divide us, just as the survival of human civilization depends on our coming together. Some might assume that these are those who would consider themselves “conservative,” but they would be wrong. Many self-identified liberals are so used to despairing at the corporate media and politicians manipulating the public discourse that they have given up hope of reasoning with those with whom they disagree. The truth is that both sides are entrenched in a pit of despair and loathing. Only we can free ourselves from this trap. The time for recriminations is over. Politics does not have to be a battlefield if we learn to think of each other as fellow Americans and citizens of the world.

A world in which everyone has the right to the benefits of freedom, justice and peace starts with the idea that such a world is possible. If you do not believe that it is then you cannot conceive of how to help create it. If you do not consider what it would take than you will miss the obvious signs that such a world is right in front of us in the near future, if we work to get there from here. If you believe as I do that the pattern of history is coming to a dramatic punctuation point, the signs are all around you.

The pattern of change is unmistakable if you know what to look for. The Occupy movement is the most obvious sign of a Tectonic Paradigm Shift that is taking place in human consciousness. At the same time, international activist communities are learning better how to unify their efforts, a world ecumenical movement is building and vast networks are forming that are connecting the dots that represent our individual interests. Projects like John Perkins' Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream are painting a picture of a world in which it is generally recognized that the interest of each of us is intimately connected to the best interests of all.

All humans are much more alike than they are different. The commonalities that we share make us human. Our differences give rise to the variation in thought that can help us adapt to a world that is changing in dangerous ways. As long as we continue to think of ourselves as members of this or that group first rather than fellow travelers on Earth, we constrain our individual and collective power. Only by uniting can we realize our potential to change the world into one fit to leave our children.

TAKING THE OFFENSIVE

The only way to win a war is to take the offensive. It is clear that the political leaders of the Right are waging war on the middle class and that the Democratic Party will not take the offensive as long as they are dependent on the same sources of campaign cash as the Republicans. The international corporate terrorists who have seized control of the US government, military and media have been playing offense for decades. It is time that We the People got out of the trenches and attack the corporatocracy where they are most vulnerable: their weak and corrupt Puppets in Congress.

The only way to challenge the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United is through amending the constitution. Since we cannot muster support for a constitutional convention given the fears on both the Left and the Right that the “other side” will prevail, we must get such an amendment introduced and passed in Congress. Those who think that we can restore the democratic Republic by electoral and campaign finance reform legislation are not paying attention. The Supreme Court has made it clear that public financing is off the table for now the Democratic leaders are too deluded to even whimper about the theft of votes on a massive scale.

The seeming paradox of how to get an amendment passed in Congress has baffled even such luminaries as Thom Hartmann, Jim Hightower and Amy Goodman, all of whom seemed to ignore the fact that dozens of candidates in 2010 were willing to run for Congress on a pledge to amend. Where were they when we were trying to point out that by making this a campaign issue, with their assistance we could have challenged both Republicans and corporate Democrats? Hartmann alone has three million listeners and viewers every weekday. He and Hightower sit on the boards of the largest and most influential progressive organizations in the nation. Goodman has thousands of loyal followers. The idea that they fail to realize their collective power is incomprehensible.

Hartmann declined to have me on the show when I was running for the US Senate. He repeatedly dismissed the idea that passing an amendment was possible when I called in to the show to talk about why I think corporate personhood can be abolished. Hightower stopped answering my emails and ignored my phone calls. Goodman covered the 2010 Netroots Nation, where we met for the second time.   I watched her interview a candidate who appeared to be 25 years old, only to ignore my speech the night before about the critical importance of electing candidates who had taken the pledge. 

One might ask why this topic is treated as unimportant by these pundits of the Left, who are often referred to as “gatekeepers.” Many have speculated that only Democrats can walk through that gate. Worse, closet Blue Dogs like my opponent Ron Wyden are treated as though voters have no choice but to re-elect them. This is what I refer to as the politics of fear on the Left. These gatekeepers are so frightened of Republican rule that they will not even give exposure to candidates like me who had no serious chance of defeating a 30 year incumbent in Congress.

Rather than question the motives of these great spokespersons of the Left, I would prefer to think that the problem is a failure of imagination. Hope for change is great, but real change will only happen when partisan Democrats and Republicans are willing to challenge our elected representatives of both parties. President Obama told us throughout his presidential campaign that we needed to create the change that would compel him to do what must be done to save American economically, socially and morally. We cannot expect him to do much better than he has if we do not demand that Congress challenge corporate interests and stand up for We the People.

Thousands of us worked for real health care reform but the single payer, Medicare-for-all solution was all but ignored by Congress. Instead, we were treated to the spectacle of watching 13 doctors, nurses and lawyers arrested at the Senate Finance Committee hearings for asking questions about why single payer was off the table when representatives of the medical-industrial complex were all at that same   table. It was predictable that the Democratic leadership would sell out the American people in the end from the outset. When the public option plan was unveiled as the starting point to negotiate with a party that never met a corporate robber baron it didn’t like, it was obvious that any real reforms would be traded away in the end.

The same can be said for promises of real financial regulation, winding down the wars, protecting citizens facing foreclosure and essentially anything else that Americans need or want. If the gatekeepers of the Left continue to see their only function as getting Democrats elected, we have already lost the battle for democracy in America. Further capitulation to corporate Puppet masters will lead us inevitably the rest of the way down the slippery slope of fascism. If on the other hand progressive pundits wake up to the fact that we have very little time to act then we may still have reason to hope.

The abolition of corporate personhood is not just another issue. It is THE issue that must be addressed in order to get a Congress willing to put the interests of Americans over those of transnational corporations. The beauty of the concept is not just that it strikes at the heart of corporate power over government but that it is the only issue that is likely to bring together people who consider themselves conservatives with those who think of themselves as liberals. With 80% of both self-described conservatives and liberals opposed to Citizens United, the time has never been better to come together as Americans to fight for justice.

With the enormous unpopularity of Citizens United making this issue one of the few on which most Americans agree, the failure of pundits on the Left to aggressively promote Move to Amend is stunning. The easiest way to build a progressive movement is to build it around one central issue on which all progressives and in this case most conservatives agree. Those who have been fighting for single payer health care, an end to the war and economic and environmental justice must realize that the only way to assure victory is to force candidates seeking federal office to take a firm position on whether they are running to serve We the People or the corporations that currently have a stranglehold on the US government.

It would take little political courage to champion the cause of the abolition of corporate personhood. The popularity of such a position would virtually guarantee victory for anyone running for either of the two major parties who would support it. The enthusiasm gap between the Left and the Right would become a thing of the past. The only downside for candidates who take this position is that it will likely cost the jobs of corporatists in their own party. Until we have candidates who will put their country over their party, nothing will change. That is why it is critically important that everyone who hopes for change will become active in the Move to Amend campaign to abolish corporate personhood.