Here’s a fascinating article by Nicholas Confessore in the New York Times. Apparently the Republican Party is no longer being run by the Republican Party. Instead, its direction is being managed by a dozen or so powerful men —
But almost none of them hold office or a job with the Republican Party itself. Instead, they represent conservative groups that channeled tens of millions of dollars into last year’s Congressional campaign. And as 2012 approaches, the groups — among them the Karl Rove-founded American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, the American Action Network and Americans for Prosperity, which is backed by the billionaire Koch brothers — have gathered into a loosely organized political machine poised to rival, and in many ways supplant, the official Republican Party apparatus.
This crew has taken over efforts to defeat Obama and pick off vulnerable Dems in the House and Senate.
Like the party committees they are rapidly coming to eclipse, the independent groups are financed by some of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors and operated by some of its most respected operatives and strategists. But thanks to the Citizens United decision, the independent groups can raise money in unlimited amounts and with negligible overhead. Much of the money will be spent through not-for-profit organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.
Most of the groups answer only to a few dozen deep-pocketed donors, rather than the elected officials who oversee traditional party efforts.
This is the 1 percent of the 1 percent. And they own the Republican Party. Not so much the Dems:
Democrats are also setting up independent groups that are staffed by party veterans. But those efforts appear to be progressing more slowly, in part because there is less of a vacuum to fill. Mr. Obama, the most prodigious fund-raiser in the country, has been able to inject tens of millions of dollars in campaign financing into the Democratic National Committee.
This is truly dangerous stuff.
And keep in mind, while this is what the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has wrought so far, in the next year it’s only going to get bigger, in terms of money and groups, and so, worse and worse.
This is going to be the biggest, ugliest and most divisive election campaign this nation has ever seen.
I didn’t want to read this, especially after having just gotten up. Sigh.
Here’s a campaign slogan to build a campaign around.
“Its the INEQUALITY, stupid!”
Document the Roberts Court’s atrocities:
Money = Free Speech
Corporations = People
Citizens United was the day this country officially was handed over to the Oligarchs.
‘We the Corporations of the United States, in Order to eliminate Unions, pay for Justice, enforce domestic Tranquility, mandate the common defense, promote the general Corporate Welfare, and create a Police State to secure the Blessings of Liberty for ourselves only, and for our Posterity and Profitability, do ordain and establish this rewriting of Constitution for the United States of America:
Section 1
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives – both bought and paid for.
Section 2
And a President – also bought and paid for.
The rest of you are citizen consumers, if you can afford it (aka: sheep, serfs, slaves).’
And Jesus coming soon, to help keep us all in line.
The United Dominionist Christian Corporate States of America.
That’s exactly what we’re seeing here in WI. Scooter Walker gets elected because the Koch brothers outspent the Dem 4-1. In the upcoming recall election there are NO restriction on campaign donations. Democracy has simply been supplanted, completely.
I see that in Syria this past weekend thirty or more Syrians were killed by the Syrian army as the populace protests for more freedom and accountability.
Luckily, here in the US, there have only been mostly misdemeanor arrests (except for Scott in Oakland). The police in the US are not killing fellow citizens.
And I hope we can beat the oligarchs before it come to that.
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Gulag….:)
I think the Dems may actually end up having more party discipline. Who’d a thunka it? The GOP message may become so incoherent it doesn’t work anymore.