View from London: Corruption in Washington is Smothering America's Future

[depakid]

This week, a disaster hit the United States, and the after-tremors will be shaking and breaking global politics for years. It did not grab the same press attention as the fall of liberal Kennedy-licking Massachusetts to a pick-up truck Republican, or President Obama's first State of the Union address, or the possible break-up of Brangelina and their United Nations of adopted infants. But it took the single biggest problem dragging American politics towards brutality and dysfunction - and made it much, much worse. Yet it also showed the only path that Obama can now take to salvage his Presidency.

For over a century, the US has slowly put some limits - too few, too feeble - on how much corporations can bribe, bully or intimidate politicians. On Tuesday, they were burned away in one whoosh. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations can suddenly run political adverts during an election campaign - and there is absolutely no limit on how many, or how much they can spend. So if you anger Goldman Sachs by supporting legislation to break up the too-big-to-fail banks, you will smack into a wall of 24/7 ads exposing your every flaw. If you displease Exxon-Mobil by supporting legislation to deal with global warming, you will now be hit by a tsunami of advertising saying you are opposed to jobs and The American Way. If you rile the defence contractors by opposing the gargantuan war budget, you will face a smear-campaign calling you Soft on Terror.

Representative Alan Grayson says: "It basically institutionalizes and legalizes bribery on the largest scale imaginable. Corporations will now be able to reward the politicians that play ball with them - and beat to death the politicians that don't... You won't even hear any more about the Senator from Kansas. It'll be the Senator from General Electric or the Senator from Microsoft." In 2008, Exxon Mobil made profits of $85bn. So if they dedicated just 10 percent to backing a President who would serve their interests, they would have $8.5bn to spend - more than every candidate for President and every candidate for Senate spent at the last election. And that's just one corporation.

To understand the impact this will have, you need to grasp how smaller sums of corporate money have already hijacked American democracy. Let's look at a case that is simple and immediate and every American can see in front of them: healthcare. The United States is the only major industrialized democracy that doesn't guarantee healthcare for all its citizens. The result is that, according to a detailed study by Harvard University, some 45,000 Americans die needlessly every year. That's equivalent to 15 9/11s every year, or two Haitian earthquakes every decade.

This isn't because the American people like it this way. Gallup has found in polls for a decade now that two-thirds believe the government should guarantee care for every American: they are as good and decent and concerned for each other as any European. No: it is because private insurance companies make a fortune today out of a system that doesn't cover the profit-less poor, and can turn away the sickest people as "uninsurable". So they pay for politicians to keep the system broken.

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/this-corruption-in-washin_b_441308.html

[Bitwit1234]

1. Do you think articles bother the Roberts and Alito's and Scalias.

Hell no. They have to be so busy lining their pockets with corporate cash they are deaf to everything. Even the world is noticing the corruption in this country. Since the days of the robber barons back in the 1920's when they ruled the country this is the path this country has taken.

We were a shining example to the world of how a country ought to be, this crooked, corrupt republican controlled Supreme Court, whose out and out scum were appointed by George W. Bush are showing one more way he has ruined us. The eight years he stole office have done more to cause our downfall than the combination of all past republican presidents and all the future ones to come.

[whyverne]

2. We've become one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

But we won't admit it. It's more fun to wave the flag and say that we're the greatest country in the world.

[RainDog]

3. banana republican coup of 2000 did the deal

and the thing is, people are too unwilling to accept the total destruction that 30 years of republican ideology has had on this nation.

...along with the democrats who have enabled them - or been full participants.

[katty]

4. the U.S. body politic is a hollow dead shell-if there was no media

to glamourize American 'values' and gin up the masses - the real horror behind the veil would be the final demoralization heaped upon American citizens. As in any epoch there are a few voices from the government begging, pleading, screaming to implement transformational change NOW before all is completely lost.

[Vidar]

5. K&R.