An excellent article! We Americans need to refuse to take the relentless baiting to bite the hook of poisonous propaganda and be sucked in again and again and again into acting against our own best interests and those of our children and grandchildren and the planet.
As Noam Chomsky has accurately stated, we Americans are a massively propagandized people. We wouldn’t in such national and global peril — with the Trump presidency, two major political parties overtaken by deadly special interests over the past 40 years, endless wars and 22 veterans committing suicide every day, 43% of Americans living at or below the poverty line, be in the midst of a sixth major extinction, or be facing extinction ourselves and an unlivable planet within 100 years due to the extreme climate and ecological crises — if things hadn’t been going horribly wrong for a very long time.
There is an insurgency occurring now to take back the Democratic Party from the plutocrats led by Bernie Sanders and supported by millions of us who are fiercely fighting for our children and grandchildren and all life everywhere. We’re truly in the fight for our lives.
My deep prayer is that more and more of us will turn to independent rather than corporate owned media, and that we will awaken, recognize the urgency of dismantling the patriarchal neoliberal predatory capitalist system that’s long been destroying our nation and the Earth, and unite as never before to engage in the evolutionary leap of working together to birth this New World that is committed to economic, racial, social, and environmental justice. Everything, absolutely everything, that we love and cherish is at stake. — Molly
Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign isn’t just an obnoxious distraction — it's a case study for the danger that billionaires pose to democracy.
By LUKE SAVAGE
Everywhere you look, American liberalism is awash with big money. From think tanks to congressional campaigns to the culture of big philanthropy, the outsize influence of plutocrats is so ubiquitous that many seem to regard it as a normal, even indispensable, part of political and cultural life — as quintessentially American as watching baseball or being forced to pay a monthly tithe to some bloodsucking corporate insurance conglomerate so you don’t die from a treatable illness.
Nonetheless, the Democratic presidential race is breaking new ground as a case study in just how deeply the money of people and institutions with the means has seeped into the fabric of democracy. From candidates openly courting billionaires at black-tie fundraisers to campaigns that boast intimate ties with private equity and high finance, the immense influence of wealth can be seen everywhere. All it took was a few polls favorable to Bernie Sanders and a handful of headlines containing the words “wealth tax” to get Howard Schultz musing about mounting a spoiler campaign. Not one but two billionaires have jumped into the race since the country’s most gilded caffeine baron got cold feet.
Though the extent to which these efforts will translate into actual votes remains to be seen, Michael Bloomberg’s campaign in particular has already become a powerful illustration of the way billionaires convert their wealth into power as a conscious strategy — and the threat it poses to democracy. To state the most obvious: Bloomberg has already poured in a whopping $58.4 million to carpet-bomb several states with TV and radio advertising — outspending anyone else in the race by exponential margins (fellow billionaire Tom Steyer isn’t all that far behind).
More subtle, though no less insidious, is the way Bloomberg’s past contributions to various campaigns and initiatives have enabled him to purchase political contacts and legitimacy the way a regular person buys groceries. In this respect, a recent investigation by the New York Times offers a fascinating and disturbing insight into the less direct ways billionaire wealth corrodes democracy and allows individuals like Bloomberg to behave like landed gentry in a system nominally constructed around the principle of one citizen, one vote.
Titled “‘Mayors for Mike’: How Bloomberg’s Money Built a 2020 Political Network,” the piece’s tone is mostly that of clinical reportage. Nevertheless, its implications are stark and should be hard for anyone to miss: through huge and carefully chosen contributions to various political campaigns, initiatives, and institutions, the former mayor of New York City has built himself a vast network of allies and clients — particularly municipal officials — that is now aiding him in his campaign for the presidency.
Please continue this article here: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/mike-bloomberg-billionaire-presidential-campaign-democracy
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