Dollarocracy: Paano Sinisira ng Money and Media Election Complex ang America <\/span><\/strong><\/a>is the title of a just-released \"must-read\" by prodigious historian\/scholar Robert McChesney and force-of-nature journalist John Nichols. Their book gets at what's ailing America better than any diagnosis I have encountered. Plus it prescribes some cures. What more could a reader\"or a citizen\" ask? To me, it's the book of the year.<\/p>Ito ang kwento kung paano muling tinukoy ng corporate media at ng mga big-time na sponsor nito ang ating pulitika, bumili ng mga halalan, nakuha ang pampublikong paggawa ng patakaran, ginawang kaaway ng mga tao ang gobyerno, at tinanggihan ang malaya at independiyenteng pamamahayag kung saan nakasalalay ang matalinong mamamayan. Ang pamahalaan ngayon ay hindi sining o agham; ito ay pera, dalisay at simple. Mahirap marinig na kumakanta ang America noong 2012. Dollarocracy<\/span><\/strong> ito rin ang kwento kung bakit, kung walang malawakang reporma sa utos ng Progresivism at New Deal, ang ating demokrasya ay patuloy lamang na lumiliit.<\/p>That democracy has contracted even since last November's elections is beyond reasonable debate. The embers of hope sparked by the President's reelection are struggling for oxygen, fast flickering away under the suffocating weight of money, money, and more money. In the 2012 election cycle, large corporations, Super Pacs and the Super Rich pumped billions into often-anonymous and inevitably-misleading TV political ads. (Irony: candidates ask for our money so they can pay broadcasters to use the airwaves that belong to\"_ us. Are we missing something here?) Anyhow, the bulk of the $10 bilyon<\/em><\/strong> spent in the 2012 election cycle went into media. The stations on the receiving end of this largesse are the same ones telling us they can no longer afford to employ real journalists. Nichols and McChesney tell us that, on a per capita basis, \"less than half as much time and money is devoted to journalism today as was the case twenty-five years ago.\"<\/p>Repairing our broken election machinery to guarantee the right to vote with ease, without intimidation and complexity, and without Neanderthal voting processes that no other democracy would think of tolerating, seems a mountain too high for our present government to climb. Prove me wrong, I pray, but it would take leadership like we seldom see nowadays to redeem the President's election night ad lib: \"By the way, we have to fix that.\" Money is pouring into the next elections even as the special interests collect their last-cycle IOUs from City Hall to state-house to Capitol Hill. Congress and the rest of official Washington seem incapable of biting the corporate and billionaire hands that feed them. Ditto much of government at other levels.<\/p>
So forget all those \"hurrahs\" about big money getting its comeuppance in the last election: it won, we lost. Substantive reform can't even be debated, let alone voted on, in a United States Senate that totally abuses minority (and majority) rights by invoking filibuster rules never intended by the Constitution or by the original rules of Congress. Meanwhile, blunderbuss budget sequesters cripple needed social and public safety programs and, adding insult to injury, rob government workers and their families of one- fifth of their pay-checks for weeks on end. Meanwhile the Espionage Act lives and what remains of the inquiring press (and not much is left) is told to get out of the way or be cited for conspiracy.<\/p>
Pati ang mga korte ay nahawa na. Sa katunayan, kung wala ang basbas ng mga korte, naiwasan sana natin ang pinakamasamang pagkawasak ng tren. Lahat tayo ay humihinga sa tuwing may bagong utos ng Korte Suprema na malapit nang ipahayag. Kabilang sa maraming nakakahimok na kwentong sinasabi nito, Dollarocracy<\/strong> mga dokumento kung paano ang mga precedent ay binaluktot, ang pera ay naging pananalita, at ang mga korporasyon ay naging tao. Mayroong halos tuwid na linya mula sa kasumpa-sumpa na memorandum ni Lewis Powell na nagpatunog ng trumpeta para sa negosyo na magpakilos laban sa hindi nalinis na mga demokratikong masa hanggang sa dollar frenzy na pinakawalan ng Nagkakaisa ang mga mamamayan <\/em>decision. How far we have come! Nichols and McChesney dug up a 1978 Justice Rehnquist (!) quote citing Chief Justice John Marshall: \"A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence.\" I'll bet they didn't find that quote in any of the strict constructionist bibles so popular out on the talk show circuit. (BTW, two other sayings on corporate personhood that I love: first, and I hope the source will step forward because I can't remember where I read it, to the effect that if a corporation is a person, how can anyone own one without being a slave-holder? And, this quote from the late, great Bob Edgar: \"I'll believe corporations are people when one of them has a colonoscopy.\")<\/p>Hindi rin tinutubos ang demokrasya sa antas ng estado, bagama't mayroong panghihikayat sa maraming matagumpay na mga hakbangin sa balota ng estado na nagtuturo sa mga inihalal na kinatawan na bumoto pabor sa isang susog sa Konstitusyon upang ibagsak Nagkakaisa ang mga mamamayan<\/em>. But there is a lot of \"dollarocracy\" between these initiatives and a ratified Constitutional amendment. (That's what makes interim action by the Federal Communications Commission to at least compel disclosure about who is really paying for all those anonymous political ads on TV. The FCC has the authority to do this now. What better time for a real down-payment on campaign reform? See my April 2012 Benton Blog, \"Real Disclosure for Real\" Democracy\" for more about this.) More telling about what is happening in the states is that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is about to throw itself a 40ika<\/sup> birthday party. This is the group that has been wining, dining and otherwise entertaining state legislators and sending them home with model draft legislation to downsize (when they can't eliminate ) and deregulate government, making voting more difficult, and generally representing the special interests instead of the public interest. Large numbers of these bills have been passed. Our shrunken journalistic corps didn't really catch on to the story until after the Center for Media Democracy, Common Cause, and Bill Moyers got on their trail and brought ALEC to public attention. A number of important ALEC members couldn't stand the blinding light of public exposure and turned in their membership cards. But the birthday party is still on, and those departing members are finding other avenues for their influence-peddling.<\/p>I have argued for years that a cancerous monopolization of our media, almost always blessed by a compliant FCC, lies at the root of democracy's distress. Huge media mergers have to be financed and that requires \"economies\" \"which meant closed newsrooms, fired journalists, and near-death for investigative journalism itself. This is not only what happened to radio, TV and cable; McChesney and Nichols show how monopolization and dollarocracy have come to plague the Internet, too\" that wonderful world of democratic potential that so many thought would be somehow exempt from the encroachment of the gatekeepers. The authors assert convincingly that the Internet has not only failed to resolve the crisis of journalism; it has made the crisis worse. But they also know it does not have to be this way\"kung<\/em><\/strong> nakikipagbuno kami sa mga isyu tulad ng Open Internet, mga bagong ideya para sa online na pamamahayag, at ang digital divide ngayon, bago pa maging huli ang lahat. Bawat araw na lumilipas ay ginagawang hindi nalulusaw ang problema.<\/p>Nagtatalo ang mga may-akda para sa malawakang demokratikong reporma. Ang iba ay magiging masaya sa karagdagang pag-unlad. Basahin ang libro at magpasya para sa iyong sarili. Kahit anong desisyon mo, gumawa ng isang bagay<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>
Ang post na ito ay orihinal na lumabas sa Blog ng Benton Foundation<\/a>. 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