Yes We Can! Long Island 2012Despite the glorious weather, I am in a particularly crappy mood this morning. Upon opening my lids I realized that I had been dreaming about Dick Durbin’s frustrated scream in the well of the Senate that the banks own the place.
Moments later, beneath my coffee mug, I found myself focusing on a photo of Jamie Dimon laughing at us all (all but the banksters, that is). JP Morgan’s debacle had reached $3 billion but its CEO had little to be concerned about. For his bank (hah!), his industry, such an amount is chump change, a misplaced decimal point, a news item that would be batted around for maybe a week. There will be no significant Volcker Rule by 2014. At best there may be a totally diluted version perhaps by 2016.
We are schooled that our political system rests upon the standard, one man, one vote. If that was ever true, it is untrue today. And it will be far, far less true ten years from now. That’s because the standard has changed. It is now and forever will remain one dollar, one vote.
America operates under the legalization of corporations as people. America limps along while billionaires tell elected officials what to say, how to act, how to vote. America is controlled by CEOs whose accepted responsibility it is to turn a profit for a single entities’ shareholders. Not unlike the Norquist Pledge, corporate boards put something before America. That something is greater profit. The difference is that CEOs don’t have to sign a pledge; they sign contracts. Upon signing, their legal responsibility to shareholders comes before the general population.
As the adage says–keep it simple, stupid: One dollar, one vote. That is why Elizabeth Warren may lose in Massachusetts. Because she is not running against Scott Brown. She is running against every corporate CEO whose very purpose is threatened by her election. That is why Scott Walker may win the recall vote in Wisconsin. Because he has bundled tens of millions of dollars from vested interests who see unions as threats to their raison d’etre.
That is why I awoke in a foul mood. I am going outside now to mess around in our garden where there is a natural purpose and order to life. One snip, one weed. Keeping it simple because I own the place.
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