Mother Jones: Democrats Cozy Up to Wall Street

[AtomicKitten]

OK. I've been reading a lot about this lately. But, IMO, it seems that Wall Street is simply reading the writing on the wall and knows the Republicans are eating shit in the polls and have overstayed their welcome. Can grassroots fund-raising compete with corporate funding? Is this as abysmal as it may appear on the surface? I would really like to hear the myriad points of view here at DU on this subject. Discuss.


Democrats Cozy Up to Wall Street

Here's a headline worth noting: "Democrats beat Republicans in 2005 Fund-Raising on Wall Street." My suspicion has always been that the Democratic Party has snuggled ever closer to the financial industry over the past decade partly because it's one of the few corporate sectors that doesn't conflict in an obvious way with any other major liberal interest group.

Democrats have to get corporate donations from somewhere, the thinking goes, and the financial sector doesn't usually clash overtly with labor unions. It's not part of the military-industrial complex. It doesn't pillage the environment. It screws over ordinary voters in opaque and non-obvious ways. What's not to like? Indeed, it's a pretty natural ally for a "liberal" party in dire need of campaign cash.

The downside is that a party that jumps in bed with the financial sector is going to end up backing the sorts of anti-progressive measures—from the recent bankruptcy bill, to financial deregulation, to inflation targeting by the Fed—that all strike me as just as malignant, if not more so, than, say, an energy company donating to Tom DeLay in exchange for the right to pollute or pour MTBE into our drinking water or whatever. And increasingly, the Democrats are doing just that. In some ways, it would almost be preferable if, say, Hillary Clinton was getting her money from ExxonMobil and Halliburton, rather than Citigroup and MetLife. (Okay, probably not, but you get my point…)


http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2006/04/democrats_cozy.html

[mmonk]

1. That's why we need public financing of campaigns.

We're in dire straits in needing reform.

[Selatius]

2. This is why the Democratic Party alienates so many leftists.

You'll never have a true party of the people if you're also including the elitists who seek to crush the people. This has been a problem with the Democratic Party for decades now.

It doesn't matter if you're taking money from credit card companies or defense contractors. You're still a whore for corporatism.

[AtomicKitten]

3. My question is can we fund them WITHOUT corporate donations?

[Selatius]

5. In the long-run, probably not

You need high levels of discipline by many ordinary people to overcome the buying power of a small number of very powerful people. That's not, given the current state of the US population, a sustainable proposition in my mind; they're too easily distracted and think too much on the short-term. mmonk's post provides an answer though.

[madfloridian]

12. But we could affect some change for sure.

If we tried hard enough.

[rman]

16. corporate donations is not OUR funding...

If corporations fund them, then they are beholden to corporate interests, which do not entirely coincide with our interests.

[shance]

21. Absolutely we could. If some Washington Dems (other than Gov. Dean)

would stop intentionally trying to ciphon the Democratic party's power, which is locally.

The Democrat's power is the power of numbers. No matter how much the establishment Dems and our national party and our Congressional/Senatorial seats have been infiltrated by non-Dems, the Democratic party is only successful when it is the power of the people.

No one wins, either party, if they are enslaved to corporations.

The best way for all Americans to take our power back is to send much less of our money to Washington and keep it where you are locally with local/state races and local businesses.

[madfloridian]

4. Yet so many refuse to contribute in small amounts monthly.

That would give the DNC the power to declare itself pretty independent from that money...but folks won't give it. One million giving 20 a month and we could operate without the big money and maybe begin to stop all the big money wars.

[AtomicKitten]

6. you have a valid point

It's true that many claim moral superiority by withholding funding to the Dems and then complain that they take corporate money.

That's the Catch-22 of the consumption of politics.

I invest in Dean's Democracy Bonds: http://www.dnc.org/democracybonds.html
Seems like a good investment to me.

[leftstreet]

10. "Refuse?" That's a bit negative

When a Democratic politician stands in front of the nightly news cameras and calls for a national health plan, I think you'll hear the sound of several checkbooks opening.

Why blame voters for not $upporting candidates who don't speak to their interests?

[madfloridian]

11. Ok, Dean does that often. He is trying to cause change.

When we are not supporting him, the others have the power to set agendas we don't like. In fact, most are on board with health care...but we have to support with hard cash sometimes to get the change we want.

[leftstreet]

13. Actually, most Dem reps are NOT on board with national health care

Too many are using the same Repub/Corporate talking point of "affordable" health care. Ted Kennedy himself was recently on Larry King and failed to mention his own Medicare For All plan; a national single-payer plan that MOST Americans want.

If you wanna raise money from the voters, you have to talk about what those voters want.

[Selatius]

14. True, but many politicians are afraid of being red-baited as socialists

Single-payer national health care, something championed by the likes of Dennis Kucinich (who appears very much like a European Social Democrat) and Bernie Sanders (an avowed democratic socialist), is something born on the left. If you want to call it "far left," be my guest. Such a notion being heavily influenced by socialistic if not bona fide socialist thought cannot be denied. In 2004, nobody in the Democratic primary bothered to mention "universal health care" with as much vigor and strength as Dennis Kucinich, but he is considered "too far" to the left to win. Nevermind being thought of a "not looking" like a leader as if Kucinich should apologize for not looking like John F. Kennedy.

[leftstreet]

18. True enough. But the "far left" IS mainstream America

Good jobs.
Good wages.
National health care. (OMG!)

Time for our elected representatives to get a clue and start speaking to non voters and no-longer-voters.

[kansasblue]

7. This is what Ralph Nader has been saying for a long time...

flame away.

[AtomicKitten]

17. Ralph had many good ideas.

He just went about implementing them wrong, alienating many people in the process.

[FrannyD]

8. To me it's worse

It's the root of all evil. Their free market bullshit that is anything but. Yeah, they're free to fuck us up the ass, and leave us with no recourse whatsoever. Not to mention using dirty tactics to push out any little guys, so they can just fuck us some more. And it's their whole short term mentality that permeated our whole society and is crippling it.

[madfloridian]

9. We could change it by putting our money where our mouths are.

It could be easily changed to where the DNC could afford to say to those agendas of the corporations.

One million giving 20 a month would hurt their power in the party, and it would give Dean the backing he needs to stand up to them.

[Selatius]

15. Yes, but it's difficult to cut through the propaganda pushed by...

the corporate news media.

A little-mentioned side-effect of covering things such as corporate corruption is the re-enforcing of the notion that "my vote doesn't count." It's this cynicism on the body-politic that helps those whose only aim is power at the expense of everyone else. It's good for them because the notion is self-sustaining. Why vote if it doesn't count? When people don't vote, it makes it easier for the corporatists to win as there are fewer people to fool or brow-beat into submission.

Propaganda by omission, in my mind, dictates that if you are going to cover government corruption and corporate greed, then DO NOT bother to cover POSSIBLE solutions to the problem. By not covering "what we can do," we re-enforce the notion that nothing can be done, and that leads to alienation and thus lower voter turnout and civic participation. This, of course, leads to decay of the nation. If all you do is cover bad news and do not offer solutions, you are creating in the minds of the people the notion that it cannot be changed and that "this is the way things are."

It's a good example of social engineering. One of the best, I'd say, outside of making people believe they are living free when they are living under a government that is rapidly developing and is exhibiting authoritarian tendencies.

[fightingdem]

19. If you're the DLC, that's a good thing.

Since the emergence of Reagan and the Republican Congress, the major power push has been to the corporate and wealthy class friendly politician. Too many Dems went with the flow because there was little to no pushback from the liberal and progressive side of the equation. That has GOT to end. The Populist agenda is now the major power on the block and corporate friendly Dems are going start feeling the pain. 'Bout time, I say.

[eridani]

20. Well, let's counter that with more people

Volunteers, canvassers, phonebankers, etc.