While large parts of the country are consumed by wild fires, drought
and excessive heat, timid politicians on both sides of the aisle,
fearful of offending corporate interests and incurring the wrath of
their Super PACS, continue to blithely ignore the unmistakable signs of
global warming. As millions of acres of land in the States of Oklahoma,
New Mexico and Colorado, to cite just three examples, have been
consumed, most of their elected officials have insisted upon further
reductions in state spending, including fire fighting, and decried
federal spending while simultaneously demanding additional federal aide
to help them combat the effects of a phenomenon that they continue to
deny.
Within the past two weeks, the country has
witnessed horrific two incidents involving the use of semi-automatic
guns. After obligatory expressions of condolences from elected
officials, and a moment of silence observed by the Congress in the wake
of the Aurora tragedy, it is still virtually impossible to find any
elected politician, whether Democrat or Republican, who will dare to
suggest publicly - for fear of antagonizing the NRA and the
gun-manufacturers' lobby -that there is something fundamentally deranged
about a culture in which any virtually lunatic or white supremacist can
purchase unlimited numbers of guns and thousands of rounds of
ammunition anonymously at unregulated gun shows or over the internet.
Sadly, the current incumbent at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, from whom we
expect more, as well as the dauphin-in-waiting, from whom we expect
nothing, have equally failed the test of leadership in refusing to
address the need for a vigorous response to this unending mayhem.
This collective insanity has been blessed by the imprimatur of the country's highest court. In District of Columbia v. Heller,
128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008), five linguistically-challenged, right-wing
jurists, who enjoy life-tenure for good behavior, cavalierly disregarded
the principle of stare decisis and set aside what had heretofore been
the settled Second Amendment jurisprudence. In overturning United States v. Miller,
307 U.S. 174 (1939), Justice Scalia claimed to divine some
constitutional right on the part of individuals to bear arms, and
piously intoned, "We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in
this country, but the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily
takes certain policy choices off the table."
A third
ominous example involves the expenditure of hundreds of millions of
dollars in states as varied as Massachusetts, Missouri, Kansas, Ohio,
Pennsylvania and Michigan, among many others, where SuperPACs are
determined, through the use of electronic media and negative ads, to
control the election results and thus gain complete control of the
machinery of government. The phenomenon was again sanctioned by the same
five result-oriented jurists on the Supreme Courts who comprised the
one-vote majority in the Heller case. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,
558 U. S. ____, 30 S. Ct, 876 (2010), these ideologues held that
corporations were people within the meaning of the 14th Amendment and
that, as such, expenditures of money by them to influence the outcomes
of political elections were protected speech under the First
Amendment.
The journalist Eric Schlosser has predicted
that,"The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle
against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no
doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power." In a
similar vein, Harvard political philosopher John Rawls warned that, "In
constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is
simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed."
Their concerns were recently echoed by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (VT)
who in public comments observed that, "So far this year, 26
billionaires have donated more than $61 million to super PACs, according
to the Center for Responsive Politics. And, that's only what has been
publicly disclosed. This $61 million does not include about $100
million that Sheldon Adelson has said that he is willing to spend to
defeat President Obama; or the $400 million that the Koch brothers have
pledged to spend during the 2012 election season. These 26 billionaires
have a combined net worth of $146 billion, which is more than the bottom
42.5 percent of American households (equal to nearly 50 million
families in the United States.)" Sanders added, "What the Supreme Court
did in Citizens United is to say to these same billionaires and the
corporations they control: 'You own and control the economy, you own
Wall Street, you own the coal companies, you own the oil companies. Now,
for a very small percentage of your wealth, we're going to give you the
opportunity to own the United States government."
The
response of ordinary citizens to these appalling developments is
profoundly disheartening. In the second century A.D., the Roman poet
Juvenal lamented the demise of the Roman Republic after it was corrupted
into an oligarchy, largely, he believed, because of the indifference of
its citizens: "Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man,
the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a
time handed out military command, high civil office, legions --
everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two
things: bread and circuses."(Juvenal, Satire 10.77-81)
Will history be allowed to repeat itself? Have too many Americans opted
to become merely passive spectators, content to surrender our rights and
eschew our civic responsibilities, in return for an endless menu of
NASCAR and 24 hour reruns of the Kardashians on cable television?
