Armchair political pundit (and psychologist)
First of all, one of the drawbacks to having my twitter feed auto-published each week as a post is that it’s easy to see at a glance how many weeks its been since I’ve posted any actual content. For instance, there are 4 twitter summary posts since my last real blog entry. That’s 4 weeks of nothing. It’d be fine if my twitter comments actually rose to the level of “interesting.” But they don’t.
As is almost always the case, the reason I’m finally popping over to post another entry is because I’ve been doing some thinking about the current political climate. There are a couple of things that have me concerned. The SCOTUS decision to open the floodgates to corporate spending on political campaigns is frightening in its scope and terrifying in its implications. And I don’t get how a corporate entity can be protected under the free speech clause of the 1st amendment. The campaign part of it is scary enough but let me take just a minute to posit a non-political situation: Say you have two companies producing two competing products, toilet paper for example. And company number 1 is losing the TP sales war big time to company #2. So company #1 decides it’s time to take bold action to get the public to buy more of their product. Toilet paper is made from wood pulp, right? And in order to get the wood pulp, you’ve got to cut down trees. And it goes without saying that if you cut down some trees, you’re impacting bird habitats and there’s a good likelihood that a bird or two is going to die. So they begin running an ad campaign accusing their competitor of killing cute little birds. You can even imagine the commercials with sweet cartoon birds as they drop out of the sky as a result of the horrible bird-killing practices of company #2. And as a conscientious consumer, you just can’t stomach the idea of buying a product from a bird-killer. Now, company #2 probably wouldn’t win a libel suit cause the reality is, birds are going to die in some form or fashion from the clear cutting of forests to make products like toilet paper. So, in effect, while it may be a wild and irresponsible accusation, it carries a nugget of truth. But company #2 could still sue to have their competitor take down the advertising, couldn’t they? Well, thanks to the Supreme Court, company #1 could now claim that they have a 1st amendment right to free speech and that taking down their advertising would violate that right. But, hey…no need to worry because the so-called “Constitutionalists” on the Supreme Court are only upholding what our founding father’s gave us as the unassailable framework for our government. Besides, the free market is self-regulating and if things seem to be getting a little out of control, the consumer will step in and set things right by sending a clear financial message to the company who is obviously in the wrong here. But wait. Who’s in the wrong? Company #2 isn’t really going around murdering birds in cold blood, are they? But company #1 has a right to free speech regardless of the consequences. So maybe you find it a little distasteful but is there really a critical mass of consumers who will think likewise? Even if the prevailing opinion is that the advertising goes a bit far, maybe company #1 can just lower their prices a bit. That will probably mollify the maddening crowd, wouldn’t it? In fact, it probably would. And before I let this drop, let’s not forget that company #2 can do the same thing in retaliation, can’t they. Maybe they launch a campaign of their own saying that company #1 is killing dolphins as a result of the toxic run off from the pulp processing plant thanks to the chlorine bleach used to make that toilet paper a pretty, sanitary, white color. And so on and so forth.
I’m trying to explore just how damaging the recent Supreme Court decision is and I’m trying to do a little armchair analyzing of consumer behavior, at least as it works today. Because I think there are some unintended and unrecognized consequences between the two. Don’t forget, our orgy of consumerism is one of the factors that brought us to the financial collapse we’re struggling to emerge from right now. And while you and I (we can, of course, exclude the many intelligent consumers smart enough to live within their means no matter what the rest of the world was doing around them) have to live with the consequences of over-spending and in some cases desperately seek out new employment while shouldering the burden of soul-crushing debt, the companies that stood above it all, reaping the benefits, got paid to stay afloat. They got paid obscene sums of money, which was then passed on to their senior executives as bonuses, for making the same sorts of bad decisions that many of us lowly consumers are suffering from. And when I say suffering, I don’t mean in a esoteric or metaphorical sense. Real suffering. People are losing their homes, families are being displaced, marriages are ending, lives are ending. And as of this morning, we’re hearing that the kindly senior citizens who used to greet us at Wal-Mart or offer us a sample of lil’smokies cocktail wieners are confused as to why they’re being told not to come in tomorrow. As a society, we understood this fundamental principle: Work hard and you will be rewarded. In fact, it’s part of the fabric of our culture. Of our religion, even. Work hard, do what is right, you will be rewarded.
Back to the Supreme Court. Clearly, I’m more concerned about the effect the ruling has on the perception of “free speech” protection for corporations than I am about the campaign finance issue specifically. One of the reasons why is this thoughtful article by Juan Cole of the Global Americana Institute. He soberly addresses the issue and calmly let’s us know (this is my interpretation only) that it doesn’t really matter cause we’re fucked anyway. OK. I’m overreacting. But he does point out all the areas in which the average American has already long since lost their voice in politics and conversely how some companies are still willing to use their money to serve the common good.
Something I think he misses, however, is the behavior of the consumer…er…voter. Yeah, that’s what I meant, voter. Cause we’re not actually purchasing a President, we’re exercising our right to vote for one based on thoughtful consideration of the issues and not a 3am infomercial. Right? Today, you have to do a little bit of work to dig around and find out which executives of which companies paid top-dollar for a candidate’s campaign. Partly because of contribution limits and the FEC. See, instead of giving $400,000 of their own money directly to a candidate, they have to give it to a PAC which then pools that money with other fat-cat donations and eventually they put out an attack ad or they use it to set-up a robocalling operation. And those PACs have innocuous sounding names like “Doggone Down-home Americans for Freedom!” Who can argue with freedom?!? It must be an awesome group who loves our country cause they’re just down-home kinda folks and heck! So am I! And I love freedom! But maybe it’s a bunch of lobbyists who are planning to gerrymander your district so they can elect someone who’ll acquiesce to the decision to let Halliburton test nuclear weapons in your backyard. Not as pleasant. And here comes the Supreme Court ruling effectively taking the gloves off and letting the companies do whatever they want. And the consumer (whoops…did it again. I mean voter, of course) is the pawn. If you really like AT&T, just to use one example, and you’ll buy their products because you love them so much, what’s to keep them from using that loyalty to convince you that the candidate they support is the one you should vote for? Isn’t that actually a violation of the trust you have in them? And let’s not forget that these companies already spend a fortune analyzing as much marketing data about you as they can so that they even know, down to the neighborhood, who’s most likely to buy certain products, behave in certain ways, and respond positively to certain advertising. If you think the telemarketer problem was bad before, hoo-doggie! You ain’t seen nothing yet. And what’s going to keep companies from using their marketing employees to spend their time and energy researching which of their consumers would vote for candidate 1 over candidate 2? And when your company announces their intention to spend half a million dollars to support a candidate you absolutely disagree with, will you quit your job? Or worse, will you have to demonstrate fealty to a political party to keep your job or hope for a promotion? If you’re a person reading this who doesn’t live in the south, you probably don’t have a real understanding of NASCAR, so let me illuminate you. Down here, we have NASCAR fans who would set fire to their own pickup trucks rather than drink a soda advertised by a driver they hate. And I am not kidding. That’s the kind of loyalty I’m talking about. Do you still think that the “free market” will work this one out? Let’s just slap some corporate logos all over our Presidential candidates and be done with it.
I think the decision stinks. And I don’t think it will “bring greater transparency and honesty” to our political process as is being touted by the right-wing mouthpiece Fox News. See, there’s an example of how scary this is. In the next election, be prepared for an all-republican, all the time, news channel abandoning all pretense and funding an actual political campaign using the incredibly deep pockets of Rupert Murdoch. All this does is legitimize the behavior of people like Murdoch who can now, thanks to their billions, buy the truth. You know who used to do this? The mafia. When Al Capone needed to beat a murder wrap, he just bought the judge.
