Dollarocracy Redux

Dear Mr. Kettle,

I preface my rebuttal to your insightful commentary of November 17^th with the simple observation that free markets and democracies are not entirely compatible systems. The former seeks consensus government with the hope of striking a balance of harmony in the community, while the latter strives to be as profitable as the law allows. Despite his best efforts, President Hoover learned the painful lesson that private enterprise is simply not equipped to deal with social issues. In fact, this is an issue we’ve wrestled with in this country from the beginning of the Republic. To show the perennial nature of the problem, I lift an excerpt from a speech, in 1910, byTheodore Roosevelt.

“At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth. That is nothing new.”

As for your observation regarding labor unions, I won’t argue your point. In fact, labor unions do participate in the egregious doctrine of Dollarocracy, with their contributions of tens of millions going towards the tens of billions spent on the last presidential election. Still, I don’t believe they control any media outlets. However, as the saying goes, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or, perhaps a more apropos phrasing would be to say when in Sodom, do as the Sodomites do. The unions’ participation in the dysfunction outlined by Mr. Nichols and Mr. McChesney is a symptom of the problem. Not the disease. Until such time as we can have an open and sustained discourse on the disease, the symptoms will continue unabated.

The United States Supreme Court has made many decisions in its illustrious history that seemed reasoned, if not unanimous, that upon reflection in own time, give us pause as to the rationality of those who sat and decided. Some of those profound decisions included Dred Scot v. Sanford, in 1857, Plessyv. Ferguson, in 1896, and Korematsu v.United States, in 1944. As to your point regarding the decision on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in 2010, it is true that we recognize the concept of corporate personhood in this country. However, we’ve yet to construct laws and procedures which fully address the personhood of corporations. Point in case, if you or I were convicted of a felony, we’d likely be commanded to pay restitution and be incarcerated, with our liberties and freedoms stripped from us for a prescribed period, leaving those who might rely upon us for support to fend for themselves during our rehabilitation. In our society, a corporation found guilty of a similar criminal offense pays a fine and, perhaps, restitution. Until there is law – enforceable law – which matches the punishment to the crime, regardless of size, influence or structure of said person, corporations will never be people. Perhaps, in the not too distant future, a generation of citizens will look upon Chief Justice John Robert’s court and ask how we got it so wrong. For all we know, they may be doing it right now, but it’s unlikely we’ll ever hear the message.

As for your accusation that Mr. Moyer and his panel feel “that the average Joe is just too stupid to understand negative advertising when he hears it.”, I offer up an excerpt of the foreword to Nichols and McChesney’s book, written by Senator Bernie Sanders.

“The people got it, as they almost always do. Even then, they could see what we saw: a decline in the amount and quality of journalism and a parallel rise in the influence of Big Money in our politics.”

At the heart of Nichols and McChesney’s argument against Dollarocracy is that we are attempting to reconcile the discordant ideologies of free-market enterprise and the democratic process. Regrettably, we’re failing to find a balance which ensures economic prosperity for both business and the populace. What’s more, the tools by which we shore up the democratic process are under attack, as they are at odds with the business of business. Again, not a new phenomenon, but how long can we afford to ignore the trend before it swings too far to one side?

Sincerely,

Mr. Pot

“So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote, I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind – it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I helped enact – I can only submit to the edicts of others.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.