At the risk of being called a conspiracy theorist, let's connect a few dots and ask a few questions about the political climate in the last couple of weeks and the last couple of years. Bear with me, I will do everything I can to support what I see and leave the rest to you.
Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment. (taken from Wikipedia)
Now every American knows that the basic building blocks of democracy are votes that are worth the same no matter who casts them. That's why every American also knows that the battle of politics is to convince as many people as possible to cast their votes in a desired direction. The number one weapon to convince a large population of anything, as anyone who watches TV knows, is advertisement. So suddenly large organizations are freed from previous restrictions on using capitol for media pressure on political campaigns and … connect the dots: the influence of large organization money on voter opinion shoots though the roof.
The primary criticism of this holding is a common sense one. Large organizations gather dues and profits from a diverse cross-section of the political spectrum and with this ruling gain the ability to convert those funds directly into a singular political message to their benefit with far more power than the voice of any individual or most non-profit organizations. This undermines the political process by creating a huge imbalance in the quality and frequency of the information people receive about candidates strongly favoring those who appear the most often: Voters vote about what they know or think they know. Pollute or saturate that knowledge, and they may well vote against their interest.
The 2010 midterm elections saw a sweeping upturn in organizational contributions and opposition to campaigns, unsurprisingly mostly by Republican backers. Spending isn't entirely a magic bullet, but we saw spending create viability for candidates that otherwise would never have survived a primary much less the general election. The ability for Sharon Angle to spend 97 dollars PER VOTE due to outside contributions was unprecedented in US politics, though the sheer audacity and bizarre nature of her behavior and ideas did her in regardless.
What was proven in the midterms was that the massive influx of organizational funding was having a distorting impact on who could be elected, who could be electable, and where voter focus and interest waxed and waned. The flood gates were open to organizational manipulation of the voting process.
Then in mid February of 2011, a bill appears on the Wisconsin house floor out of nowhere. There was no discussion of it's formation in advance or mention of it prior to it's aggressive push through the legislature. On it's face, the so called 'budget repair bill' seems to be an effort to roll back government spending by asking public employees to take a pay cut. But the timing of this bill is odd. Wisconsin HAS a budget process and such things would normally be included in the broader effort to arrange the State's affairs and examine it's needs over the next few months into summer allowing investigation and testimony about elements that might be controversial. However included in this bill is a permanent elimination of public union bargaining rights for benefits and working conditions, and the bill is set on a fast track with only one hearing before passage within five days.
Wisconsin explodes.
Despite 300+ testimonials, a legislative voicemail system packed full by requests to end the bill and the pleading of 30,000+ people on the capital steps for days, there is no change to the committee vote. A separate motion rises to strike just the portion of the bill that removes worker bargaining rights, and every single Republican on the committee votes against, maintaining the one provision that is the source of the biggest employee revolt in decades.
What's going on?
Well first look back to Citizens United. The two types of organizations that are in the best position to leverage this new found floodgate of political influence are corporations...
...and Unions.
With only 7% of the private work force still unionized, this makes public unions the #1 source for organizations of a power and caliber to fight against corporate political interest using the same tool just granted to them by the Citizens United decision. As if on queue, suddenly all across the nation the newly elected Republican governors begin pushing these measures forward. Ohio. New Jersey. State by state they quietly prepare to eviscerate the primary power around which Unions exist – collective bargaining.
Connect the dots...
With the power of Citizens United proven in the 2010 midterms, the strategy to beat Obama in 2012 and secure control of the federal government has become quite clear: Destroy the remaining Union strongholds to remove the only significant source of potential financial competition for political advertisement before exerting pressure on public employees to suppress economic recovery for another year or two. (A study released on Wisconsin's budget repair bill lists over 120 million dollars in lost economic activity and 9000 lost jobs as a result) Finally, saturate the airwaves, cable TV and any other media to ensure the current president cannot generate the grass roots support he had before.
Is it a wild conspiracy theory? A conspiracy theory is normally a conclusion that is reverse justified through the selective use of facts. This is the opposite. It's a pattern of facts that doesn't make sense without the conclusion. The budget repair bill doesn't repair the budget at all. In fact it hurts Wisconsin's economy. The financial emergency Walker raises wasn't there before he gave huge tax cuts in his first two months. If this bill arose from impasse over how to pay for things, how could he not know it less than a few weeks before while passing tax cuts and suddenly appear with this book of a bill to 'fix' it. If the bill was financial, why wasn't it part of the State's normal financial process? Instead it was a shot out of left field on a 5 day deadline that rivals the speed of an Amazon.com purchase delivery much less the formation of a law.
Without the conclusion of another agenda that relates to election control, it's also hard to understand the adamant insistence on killing bargaining rights despite the nationally stunning protests in Wisconsin including work stoppages that could have been completely circumvented without changing any of the financial concessions. It's also hard to ignore this kind of coordination taking place in other States to follow suit with a timing that seems premeditated.
I'm calling on Wisconsin, and in fact, the whole country to dig in and pay attention. While my full analysis is still speculative in many regards, there is a bigger agenda at work here and whether you're conservative or liberal, the dangers of that agenda should be plain. The Democracy that we value so much is being shifted to something far less democratic.
Connect the dots.
Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment. (taken from Wikipedia)
Now every American knows that the basic building blocks of democracy are votes that are worth the same no matter who casts them. That's why every American also knows that the battle of politics is to convince as many people as possible to cast their votes in a desired direction. The number one weapon to convince a large population of anything, as anyone who watches TV knows, is advertisement. So suddenly large organizations are freed from previous restrictions on using capitol for media pressure on political campaigns and … connect the dots: the influence of large organization money on voter opinion shoots though the roof.
The primary criticism of this holding is a common sense one. Large organizations gather dues and profits from a diverse cross-section of the political spectrum and with this ruling gain the ability to convert those funds directly into a singular political message to their benefit with far more power than the voice of any individual or most non-profit organizations. This undermines the political process by creating a huge imbalance in the quality and frequency of the information people receive about candidates strongly favoring those who appear the most often: Voters vote about what they know or think they know. Pollute or saturate that knowledge, and they may well vote against their interest.
The 2010 midterm elections saw a sweeping upturn in organizational contributions and opposition to campaigns, unsurprisingly mostly by Republican backers. Spending isn't entirely a magic bullet, but we saw spending create viability for candidates that otherwise would never have survived a primary much less the general election. The ability for Sharon Angle to spend 97 dollars PER VOTE due to outside contributions was unprecedented in US politics, though the sheer audacity and bizarre nature of her behavior and ideas did her in regardless.
What was proven in the midterms was that the massive influx of organizational funding was having a distorting impact on who could be elected, who could be electable, and where voter focus and interest waxed and waned. The flood gates were open to organizational manipulation of the voting process.
Then in mid February of 2011, a bill appears on the Wisconsin house floor out of nowhere. There was no discussion of it's formation in advance or mention of it prior to it's aggressive push through the legislature. On it's face, the so called 'budget repair bill' seems to be an effort to roll back government spending by asking public employees to take a pay cut. But the timing of this bill is odd. Wisconsin HAS a budget process and such things would normally be included in the broader effort to arrange the State's affairs and examine it's needs over the next few months into summer allowing investigation and testimony about elements that might be controversial. However included in this bill is a permanent elimination of public union bargaining rights for benefits and working conditions, and the bill is set on a fast track with only one hearing before passage within five days.
Wisconsin explodes.
Despite 300+ testimonials, a legislative voicemail system packed full by requests to end the bill and the pleading of 30,000+ people on the capital steps for days, there is no change to the committee vote. A separate motion rises to strike just the portion of the bill that removes worker bargaining rights, and every single Republican on the committee votes against, maintaining the one provision that is the source of the biggest employee revolt in decades.
What's going on?
Well first look back to Citizens United. The two types of organizations that are in the best position to leverage this new found floodgate of political influence are corporations...
...and Unions.
With only 7% of the private work force still unionized, this makes public unions the #1 source for organizations of a power and caliber to fight against corporate political interest using the same tool just granted to them by the Citizens United decision. As if on queue, suddenly all across the nation the newly elected Republican governors begin pushing these measures forward. Ohio. New Jersey. State by state they quietly prepare to eviscerate the primary power around which Unions exist – collective bargaining.
Connect the dots...
With the power of Citizens United proven in the 2010 midterms, the strategy to beat Obama in 2012 and secure control of the federal government has become quite clear: Destroy the remaining Union strongholds to remove the only significant source of potential financial competition for political advertisement before exerting pressure on public employees to suppress economic recovery for another year or two. (A study released on Wisconsin's budget repair bill lists over 120 million dollars in lost economic activity and 9000 lost jobs as a result) Finally, saturate the airwaves, cable TV and any other media to ensure the current president cannot generate the grass roots support he had before.
Is it a wild conspiracy theory? A conspiracy theory is normally a conclusion that is reverse justified through the selective use of facts. This is the opposite. It's a pattern of facts that doesn't make sense without the conclusion. The budget repair bill doesn't repair the budget at all. In fact it hurts Wisconsin's economy. The financial emergency Walker raises wasn't there before he gave huge tax cuts in his first two months. If this bill arose from impasse over how to pay for things, how could he not know it less than a few weeks before while passing tax cuts and suddenly appear with this book of a bill to 'fix' it. If the bill was financial, why wasn't it part of the State's normal financial process? Instead it was a shot out of left field on a 5 day deadline that rivals the speed of an Amazon.com purchase delivery much less the formation of a law.
Without the conclusion of another agenda that relates to election control, it's also hard to understand the adamant insistence on killing bargaining rights despite the nationally stunning protests in Wisconsin including work stoppages that could have been completely circumvented without changing any of the financial concessions. It's also hard to ignore this kind of coordination taking place in other States to follow suit with a timing that seems premeditated.
I'm calling on Wisconsin, and in fact, the whole country to dig in and pay attention. While my full analysis is still speculative in many regards, there is a bigger agenda at work here and whether you're conservative or liberal, the dangers of that agenda should be plain. The Democracy that we value so much is being shifted to something far less democratic.
Connect the dots.
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