Politics is simply the expression of the economic interests of certain groups or classes. The “captains of industry” as they like to call themselves wish to steer the ship of government. They finance chosen and favoured politicians with generous party campaign funds with which the political process becomes corrupted. The exploiters realise they are in politics, not in non-partisan politics, but in politics. The capitalist tries to obscure it in every way possible by pretending to be responsible concerned citizens. The capitalist doesn’t vote for a workers’ party , yet money is spent to ensure that the working class will vote for the capitalist one. This is why the capitalists are in power and the workers are in subjugation.
In the American presidential elections an estimated $3 billion went to political advisors. $6 billion in 2012 went towards the advertising costs on TV, radio and press.
Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson (fortune worth $26.5 billion) . He and his wife, Miriam, first gave $16.5 million in an effort to make Newt Gingrich the Republican presidential nominee. Once Gingrich exited the race, the Adelsons invested more than $30 million in electing Mitt Romney. They donated millions more to support GOP candidates running for the House and Senate, to block a pro-union measure in Michigan, and to bankroll the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other conservatives . All told, the Adelsons donated $94 million during the 2012. When you add in so-called dark money, one estimate puts their total giving at closer to $150 million.
Super PACs can raise unlimited amounts of money from pretty much anyone and there is no limit on how much they can spend. Every so often, they must reveal their donors and show how they spent their money. And they can't directly coordinate with candidates or their campaigns. For instance, Restore Our Future, the super PAC that spent $142 million to elect Mitt Romney, couldn't tell his campaign when or where it was running TV ads, couldn't share scripts, couldn't trade messaging ideas. The savviest political operatives quickly realized how potentially powerful such outfits could be when it came to setting agendas and influencing the political system. Karl Rove, George W. Bush's political guru, launched American Crossroads, a super PAC. As consultants like Rove and the wealthy donors they courted saw the advantages of having their own super PACs -- no legal headaches, no giving or spending limits -- the groups grew in popularity. Having decried super PACs as "a threat to democracy," Obama and his advisers flip-flopped and blessed the creation of one devoted specifically to reelecting the president.
The American Action Network raised $27.5 million from July 2010 to June 2011; of that haul, 90% of the money came from eight donors, with one giving $7 million. The story is the same with Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS. It raised $77 million from June 2010 to December 2011, and nearly 90% of that came from donors giving at least $1 million. And while Priorities USA, the pro-Obama nonprofit, raised a comparatively tiny $2.3 million in 2011, 80% of it came from a single, anonymous donor.
The liberal think tank Demos found that out of every $10 raised by super PACs in 2012, $9 came from just 3,318 people giving $10,000 or more. That small club of donors is equivalent to 0.0011% of the U.S. population.
In late April, roughly 100 donors gathered at a resort in Laguna Beach, California. They were all members of the Democracy Alliance, a private group of wealthy liberals that includes George Soros and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. Over five days, they swapped ideas on how best to promote a “progressive” agenda and took in pitches from leaders of the most powerful liberal-leaning groups in America, including Organizing for Action, the rebooted version of Obama's 2012 presidential campaign. Since the Democracy Alliance's founding in 2005, its members have given $500 million to various causes and organizations. At the Laguna Beach event alone, its members pledged a reported $50 million.
At the same time, a similar scene was playing out at the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort and Spa in Palm Springs . A few hundred conservative and libertarian donors were there for the latest donor conference convened by billionaire Charles Koch . Over two days, donors mingled with politicians, heard presentations by leading activists, and pledged serious money to bankroll groups promoting the free-market agenda in Washington and around the country.
The money raised by the Democracy Alliance and the Kochs' political network is secret. The public will never know its true source. Call it “dark money.” what is dark money? Say you're a billionaire and you want to give $1 million to anonymously influence an election. You give that money, as many donors have, to a nonprofit organized under the (c)(4) section of the tax code. That nonprofit, in turn, can spend your money on election-related TV ads or mailers or online videos. But there's a catch: unlike super PACs, the majority of a 501(c)(4) nonprofit's work can't be political. Where the IRS draws the line on how much politicking is too much, and even what the taxman defines as political, is very murky. Wealthy donors have seized on this as a new way to direct secret money into campaigns. Between 2010 and 2012, the number of applications for 501(c)(4) status spiked from 1,500 to 3,400, according to IRS official Lois Lerner. During the 2010 campaign, politically active nonprofits outspent super PACs by a three to two margin, according to the Center for Public Integrity. The Commission on Hope, Growth, and Opportunity (CHGO) was created in 2010, it informed the IRS that it wouldn't spend a penny on politics. During the 2010 elections, however, it put $2.3 million into ads attacking 11 Democratic congressional candidates. Then, in 2011, CHGO simply closed up shop and disappeared -- a classic case of political hit-and-run. And it wouldn't have happened without a secretive wealthy bankroller: of the $4.8 million raised by CHGO, tax records show that $4 million came from a single donor (though we don’t know his or her name).
Millionaires and billionaires handpick the candidates and the issues. "It'll be wealthy people getting together and picking horses and riding those horses through a primary process and maybe upending the consensus of the party," a Democratic strategist recently said. "We're in a whole new world."
A serious Senate or White House bid is dependent not on climbing the party ranks, but on winning the support of a few wealthy bankrollers. Although the political parties may still claim to officially pick the candidates for office, the power increasingly lies with the elites of the political donor class. After the 2012 elections, Republican politicians including Governor John Kasich of Ohio and Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana met privately with Sheldon Adelson. They were officially in Las Vegas for a gathering of the Republican Governors Association, but it was never too early to court the man who, with a stroke of his pen, could underwrite a presidential hopeful's bid for his or her party's nomination.
Democratic candidates are no different. House and Senate hopefuls are flocking to Hollywood studio boss Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of their party's biggest donors and fundraisers. And why wouldn't they? Barack Obama might not be where he is today without Katzenberg. Days after Obama launched his presidential campaign in 2007, the DreamWorks Animation mogul gave the junior senator his imprimatur and prodded Hollywood into raising $1.3 million for him. Years later, Katzenberg provided $2 million in seed money for the pro-Obama super PAC that played a pivotal role in his reelection.
Increasingly, it looks like before the rest of us even have our say, before we enter the voting booth, issues, politics, and the candidates will have been vetted, and predetermined by the wealthiest Americans.
Unfortunately, it is not a whole new world but the continuance of what has always been. Just the manner has changed.
ADAPTED from here
Hat-tip to JanetS
In the American presidential elections an estimated $3 billion went to political advisors. $6 billion in 2012 went towards the advertising costs on TV, radio and press.
Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson (fortune worth $26.5 billion) . He and his wife, Miriam, first gave $16.5 million in an effort to make Newt Gingrich the Republican presidential nominee. Once Gingrich exited the race, the Adelsons invested more than $30 million in electing Mitt Romney. They donated millions more to support GOP candidates running for the House and Senate, to block a pro-union measure in Michigan, and to bankroll the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other conservatives . All told, the Adelsons donated $94 million during the 2012. When you add in so-called dark money, one estimate puts their total giving at closer to $150 million.
Super PACs can raise unlimited amounts of money from pretty much anyone and there is no limit on how much they can spend. Every so often, they must reveal their donors and show how they spent their money. And they can't directly coordinate with candidates or their campaigns. For instance, Restore Our Future, the super PAC that spent $142 million to elect Mitt Romney, couldn't tell his campaign when or where it was running TV ads, couldn't share scripts, couldn't trade messaging ideas. The savviest political operatives quickly realized how potentially powerful such outfits could be when it came to setting agendas and influencing the political system. Karl Rove, George W. Bush's political guru, launched American Crossroads, a super PAC. As consultants like Rove and the wealthy donors they courted saw the advantages of having their own super PACs -- no legal headaches, no giving or spending limits -- the groups grew in popularity. Having decried super PACs as "a threat to democracy," Obama and his advisers flip-flopped and blessed the creation of one devoted specifically to reelecting the president.
The American Action Network raised $27.5 million from July 2010 to June 2011; of that haul, 90% of the money came from eight donors, with one giving $7 million. The story is the same with Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS. It raised $77 million from June 2010 to December 2011, and nearly 90% of that came from donors giving at least $1 million. And while Priorities USA, the pro-Obama nonprofit, raised a comparatively tiny $2.3 million in 2011, 80% of it came from a single, anonymous donor.
The liberal think tank Demos found that out of every $10 raised by super PACs in 2012, $9 came from just 3,318 people giving $10,000 or more. That small club of donors is equivalent to 0.0011% of the U.S. population.
In late April, roughly 100 donors gathered at a resort in Laguna Beach, California. They were all members of the Democracy Alliance, a private group of wealthy liberals that includes George Soros and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. Over five days, they swapped ideas on how best to promote a “progressive” agenda and took in pitches from leaders of the most powerful liberal-leaning groups in America, including Organizing for Action, the rebooted version of Obama's 2012 presidential campaign. Since the Democracy Alliance's founding in 2005, its members have given $500 million to various causes and organizations. At the Laguna Beach event alone, its members pledged a reported $50 million.
At the same time, a similar scene was playing out at the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort and Spa in Palm Springs . A few hundred conservative and libertarian donors were there for the latest donor conference convened by billionaire Charles Koch . Over two days, donors mingled with politicians, heard presentations by leading activists, and pledged serious money to bankroll groups promoting the free-market agenda in Washington and around the country.
The money raised by the Democracy Alliance and the Kochs' political network is secret. The public will never know its true source. Call it “dark money.” what is dark money? Say you're a billionaire and you want to give $1 million to anonymously influence an election. You give that money, as many donors have, to a nonprofit organized under the (c)(4) section of the tax code. That nonprofit, in turn, can spend your money on election-related TV ads or mailers or online videos. But there's a catch: unlike super PACs, the majority of a 501(c)(4) nonprofit's work can't be political. Where the IRS draws the line on how much politicking is too much, and even what the taxman defines as political, is very murky. Wealthy donors have seized on this as a new way to direct secret money into campaigns. Between 2010 and 2012, the number of applications for 501(c)(4) status spiked from 1,500 to 3,400, according to IRS official Lois Lerner. During the 2010 campaign, politically active nonprofits outspent super PACs by a three to two margin, according to the Center for Public Integrity. The Commission on Hope, Growth, and Opportunity (CHGO) was created in 2010, it informed the IRS that it wouldn't spend a penny on politics. During the 2010 elections, however, it put $2.3 million into ads attacking 11 Democratic congressional candidates. Then, in 2011, CHGO simply closed up shop and disappeared -- a classic case of political hit-and-run. And it wouldn't have happened without a secretive wealthy bankroller: of the $4.8 million raised by CHGO, tax records show that $4 million came from a single donor (though we don’t know his or her name).
Millionaires and billionaires handpick the candidates and the issues. "It'll be wealthy people getting together and picking horses and riding those horses through a primary process and maybe upending the consensus of the party," a Democratic strategist recently said. "We're in a whole new world."
A serious Senate or White House bid is dependent not on climbing the party ranks, but on winning the support of a few wealthy bankrollers. Although the political parties may still claim to officially pick the candidates for office, the power increasingly lies with the elites of the political donor class. After the 2012 elections, Republican politicians including Governor John Kasich of Ohio and Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana met privately with Sheldon Adelson. They were officially in Las Vegas for a gathering of the Republican Governors Association, but it was never too early to court the man who, with a stroke of his pen, could underwrite a presidential hopeful's bid for his or her party's nomination.
Democratic candidates are no different. House and Senate hopefuls are flocking to Hollywood studio boss Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of their party's biggest donors and fundraisers. And why wouldn't they? Barack Obama might not be where he is today without Katzenberg. Days after Obama launched his presidential campaign in 2007, the DreamWorks Animation mogul gave the junior senator his imprimatur and prodded Hollywood into raising $1.3 million for him. Years later, Katzenberg provided $2 million in seed money for the pro-Obama super PAC that played a pivotal role in his reelection.
Increasingly, it looks like before the rest of us even have our say, before we enter the voting booth, issues, politics, and the candidates will have been vetted, and predetermined by the wealthiest Americans.
Unfortunately, it is not a whole new world but the continuance of what has always been. Just the manner has changed.
ADAPTED from here
Hat-tip to JanetS
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