Corporate Sedition Is More Damaging To America Than The Capitol Attack, Robert Reich

[appalachiablue]

- The Guardian, Jan. 16, 2022. Ed. - Kyrsten Sinema receives millions from business and opposes progressive priorities. Republicans who voted to overturn an election still bag big bucks. Whose side are CEOs on? -

Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. (The US Supreme Court to Americans: tough luck if you get Covid at work). That’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the 147 lawmakers who voted to overturn election results. Well, those days are over. Turns out they were over the moment the public stopped paying attention.

A report published last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows that over the past year, 717 companies and industry groups have donated more than $18m to 143 of those seditious lawmakers. Businesses that pledged to stop or pause their donations have given nearly $2.4m directly to their campaigns or political action committees (Pacs). But there’s a deeper issue here. The whole question of whether corporations do or don’t bankroll the seditionist caucus is a distraction from a much larger problem.

The tsunami of money now flowing from corporations into the swamp of American politics is larger than ever.

And this money – bankrolling almost all politicians & financing attacks on their opponents – is undermining American democracy as much as did the 147 seditionist members of Congress. Maybe more. The Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema- whose vocal opposition to any change in the filibuster is on the verge of dooming voting rights- received almost $2m in campaign donations in 2021 even though she is not up for re-election until 2024. Most of it came from corporate donors outside AZ, some of which have a history of donating largely to Republicans. Has the money influenced Sinema? You decide.

Besides sandbagging voting rights, she voted down the $15 min. wage increase, opposed tax increases on corporations & the wealthy, and stalled on drug price reform- policies supported by a majority of Democratic senators as well as a majority of Arizonans. Over the last 4 decades, corporate Pac spending on congressional elections has more than quadrupled, even adjusting for inflation. Labor unions no longer provide a counterweight. 40 years ago, union Pacs contributed about as much as corporate Pacs. Now, corporations are outspending labor by more than 3 to 1. A landmark 2014 study by Princeton professor Martin Gilens & Northwestern professor Benjamin Page found that the preferences of the typical American have no influence at all on legislation emerging from Congress...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/16/corporate-sedition-capitol-attack-democracy-political-financing-donations-sinema-voting-rights

[DanieRains]

1. We Can't Get The Money Out

The money goes to the media. The media destroys anyone who wants to get the money out.

Catch 22, 23, and 25.

[OMGWTF]

12. THIS! THIS! THIS!

[cayugafalls]

20. So much this. The M$M is a corporate entity. The Kingly Crier from eons past.

It does not reflect any news that WE THE PEOPLE need to hear, it only CREATES an atmosphere of discontent that divides the populace and prevents WE THE PEOPLE from ever working together.

The Tower of Babylon will never be built because the corporate and global gods will keep the languages separate.

[cstanleytech]

28. It's not the media and its not the corporations its the people that own and

operate them (mostly conservative Republicans) that are the problem.
The solution though on how to fix it is going to be a tough nut to crack though especially with a conservative Republican super majority SCOTUS who are more than likely to side with their fellow conservative Republicans.

[Dustlawyer]

30. The media's big advertisers are also the big donors. This is why we have 2 root causes

of most of our problems. The money in our politics and the propaganda spewed by corporate media to influence our opinions their way.

We can fight for climate change, immigration, guns… all day long but will never get any meaningful change unless and until we force publicly funded elections and a beefed up Fairness Doctrine. This would require singular focus by a very large percentage of our population. Marches on Washington and a clear message to incumbents that they cannot get elected unless they support this!

I have been preaching this here for years without much comment from DU’ers. If this doesn’t gain much interest here then there is not much hope it will ever happen.

[live love laugh]

33. Many advertisers are conglomerates who own 100s of brands.

They're all one and the same really.

So one brand may stop advertising while 99 others continue to.

People literally need to go on buying strikes for democracy -- buying nothing or as little as they can -- from any corporation until things change.

[LakeArenal]

2. I think a packed Judicial System is just as bad.

[monkeyman1]

15. Supreme Court joke !!!

[Escurumbele]

22. Correct, that is why Biden needs to increase the number of judges and elect Democratic leaning

judges to get rid of:

1. The Electoral College
2. Citizens United
3. The filibuster
4. Force the John Lewis voting rights
5. and much more than can be done in the remaining three years to also assure a 2nd term for Biden.

[wnylib]

29. Except that he has two corporate lackeys

in his own party that will prevent him from doing any of those things.

Uncontrolled capitalism is destroying democracy in the US.

[Turbineguy]

3. The MBA class

has been screwing over the country for decades.

[Lonestarblue]

13. It wasn't always like this.

When I got my MBA back in the 1970s, we were taught that corporations have responsibilities to three constituencies: customers, employees, and shareholders. I’m not sure when that changed, but today’s MBAs and the consulting firms they populate preach that the only responsibility is to maximize profits for shareholders—and thus we have rapacious capitalism where every safety regulation is resisted, workers’ hours are limited to avoid paying for any benefits (including health insurance), and many employees are forced to work 60- to 70-hour weeks without additional pay to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of them because staffs were trimmednto save operating costs—and thus preserve the multi-million-dollar bonuses of the CEO and top executives.

Corporations bought Congress long ago, and I doubt it will be possible to rein in their influence now.

[BComplex]

18. Boom!

That's part of the start:
Reagan
MBA's
Deregulation
Trashing the government

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread appalachiablue.

[appalachiablue]

5. Check the flag just added, wow

[Uncle Joe]

6. That's they way they see it alright.

[YP_Yooper]

10. Agree with the message

but that's an image from 2013 protesting the Citizens United and wealthy campaign finance crap SCOTUS enabled, not the Trump-ites. I happened to be there at the time

[appalachiablue]

11. Yes, it's from an ABC article and video, 10 years

after Citizens United. Good for you being there.

[onecaliberal]

7. We sat patiently waiting for someone to save us while republicans

Cheated and ripped off all levers of power. We’re fucked.

[DENVERPOPS]

17. YES

The perfect title for a book about the last 40+ years would be:

WHILE THE NATION SLEPT

I am sure that many of the people on DU, like myself, have been shouting from the rooftops, for the last 40 years, and found it fell
on deaf ears........

I got upset when Regan got "installed" as president, using treasonous methods, and haven't stopped since.......

When you see the brakes being disabled on each of the cars on a freight train, one by one, you don't need to think twice about what will happen in the future with that train.......

[calimary]

8. $upreme Court.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. There need to be activist shareholders with deep pockets for ballot initiatives at annual meetings

That is one way of gaining awareness. But rarely is anything approved: most shares are owned by ETFs and mutual funds and they just approve anything the company tells them.

By the way, there are now more ETF's than there are stocks.

[jaxexpat]

21. What? 2 profound concepts in one OP thread? This must be THE Democratic Underground.

1. "Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat." This "plain as the nose of your face" concept is so factual it's like, left foot follows right foot follows left foot follows.......etc. and that's just the walking part. Capitalism is a total failure at dancing.

2. "There are now more ETF's than there are stocks". It's the definition of a cultivated mediocrity and so our economy, along with all the guardrails for it, can only degenerate into a pointless repetition of yesterdays. To be clear, our beloved system of industra-capitalism functions when businesses such as big box stores, various manufactories or technologies are given financial support by personal investments from the public at large. The greater the support, the greater the value. On the other hand, the value of ETF's is, apparently, proven by projected odds of value derived from historical performance of any configuration of a single or group of stocks. It's like winning a horse race by having the best odds, why even run the race? The outcome is preordained, decided before the animals line up at the gate. The jockeys and trainers are superfluous. Hell, just let the horses run around in the pasture and give them all a high score for grazing. Wouldn't want to play favorites or hurt any feelings. BTW, there's no need to fuss about actually watching your investments. It's actually cheaper if you let the people who are essentially the odds makers, the data interpreters, read the tea leaves and configure your investment for you. You can be absolutely assured these mega giant investment houses, who have many names and speak with many voices, care only for your welfare and would NEVER squander (what could have been) your dividends on contributions to paper-trained candidates for elected office, who will, with Pavlovian enthusiasm, rubber stamp legislation written by the investment houses themselves, further eroding your personal economic autonomy and diminishing your children's opportunities to earn and live the "Great American Dream" or even learn about the concept in a public school.............

Then I could be wrong...........

[JudyM]

23. This right here. And transparency info from groups like CREW posted on these companies' social media

and other social media to keep the attention on both their bad deeds and their good. Studies show corporations care quite a bit about social media reactions.

[wnylib]

31. You've got a great idea there.

There are enough people on the left who can purchase shares in corporations to act as activists and change things from within. They would have to be more dedicated to their principles than to high profits.

Nothing wrong with profiting from investments. But not at the expense of society and our system of government. We need to infiltrate the corporations.

[ancianita]

32. It was a popular idea in the 80's but got nowhere. Many boards ignore shareholders and buy back

enough shares that they can't be out-voted. So since then, shareholders rarely unite to fight rogue corporate boards. The little guy knows little about his pension's quantity investment buys. It took the NYSE literally kicking EXXON, Pfizer and Raytheon out for those companies to get the point that they weren't priced high enough to merit being there.

Like Buffet says, read the company reports and only invest in companies that behave well, but don't expect to change them one you've bought in.

[ancianita]

14. Yes, it is. The one true thing kept secret from Americans since corporate projects put people here.

[PatrickforB]

16. The corruption is like mildew - you bleach a portion of it, and another crops up.

The shareholder primacy brand of brutal capitalism we 'enjoy' now SUCKS. It does.

Reich is, I think, my favorite economist.

[dlk]

19. Ad Exchanges are funding domestic extremism and defunding local news, and businesses

These tech platforms are using inefficient and inaccurate algorithms to perform tasks that need to be done by humans. The technology doesn’t currently exist for what they’re doing and, in the process, they are directing ad revenue to extremist groups and defunding local news, as well as the mom and pop business down the street—all to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.

This process is largely invisible.

I recently learned of a group, Sleeping Giants, that is working to bring attention to this issue and defund the extremist groups working to divide, and conquer our country.

Our democracy is being hijacked by corporations, with their donations to politicians and funding extremist groups with ad revenue.

[JudyM]

24. Such an important post.

Thanks, appalachiablue.

Reich and CREW https://www.citizensforethics.org/ deserve bigger bullhorns for their work.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

25. It's not that Manchin and Sinema are against voting rights --

they are both against voting, period. In this they are joined by 100% of the Republican Party, which views voting as a nuisance on its way to total domination of the U.S. government.

Putin is winning. The corporations are winning. The anti-choice yahoos are winning. T**** and the seditionists are winning. Hell, even COVID is winning.

I'm 72 and the last five years have been the worst of my life. It seems the Constitution I took an oath the protect and defend -- both as a military officer and later as an attorney -- is under unrelenting attack by what can only be described as the Forces of Evil.

I truly believe that Good will ultimately prevail -- I have to -- but it saddens me to know that I'll be dead and gone by the time the progress we as a nation had worked so hard to achieve will be restored.

Right now it's time to feed the dogs.

[GB_RN]

26. I Remember Seeing A Suggestion That...

Politicians should have to wear jackets that sported the names of their corporate sponsors, kinda like Nascar drivers. That way, you'd at least know who they were whoring themselves out to.

[Tommymac]

27. Post of the year. Bookmarked.

Thanks for this.

The flag photo is awesome - a picture does speak a thousand words.