One way to understand WHY “America is heading in the wrong direction” is to discover how much THEFT of YOUR former rights and privileges as an American citizen has occurred since 1980.
A list of such THEFT for YOU to consider, of services and rights DENIED YOU begin with these:
– loss of medical services – loss of your right to travel – loss of voting rights
– loss of right to die onYOUR terms — loss of ability to read books of YOUR choice
– loss of workplace safety rights – loss of workplace human rights
– loss of ability to access legal prescription drugs – you’re paying more for power
– you’re being forced to support a church you DON’T attend with YOUR tax dollars
– loss of learning FACTUAL American history and FACTUAL science truths
– loss of ability to earn a living wage with ONE job
– being forced to pay the taxes that rich people and corporations formerly paid
– YOUR children’s public schools deliberately underfunded [so rich and corporations don’t get taxed]
– elementary public services DELIBERATELY underfunded [so the rich and corporations don’t get taxed]
– basic maintenance of public infrastructure not done [so rich and corporations don’t get taxed]
Previous posts dealt with the CORRUPTION of the American legal system, and especially the ORGANIZED plot to place radical right-wing ideologues on the “Supreme Court.” See for YOURSELF the depth of this by reading the “Appendix” of Senator Whitehouse’s “THE SCHEME’: the 80 “Roberts Five” 5-4 IDEOLOGICAL decisions protecting four right-wing goals. And also the supposed “conservative principles” deliberately violated to achieve predetermined results.
The depth of the Far Right plot to destroy Congress as a “democratic” institution is revealed to YOU in Pearl & Payne’s “Tax the Rich,” on page 166. the famous Gilens study that found: “Not a single policy supported by the majority of voters but opposed by the rich and the business community ended up being passed into law.” And – the two confessions [pg. 164] by Republican Representative Chris Collins and Republican Senator Graham: “[ if we don’t pass tax cuts ] ‘The financial contributions will stop.'”
This post is primarily concerned with enabling YOU to understand the equal depth and breadth of CORRUPTION that has occurred at state and local levels since 1980. YOU need to be aware of the “American Legislative Exchange” of “ALEC” and the “State Policy Network” or “SPN” as a BEGINNING.
Remember also the crucial truth in your research: the ENTIRE Far Right works together as a “team.” All aspects of what YOU might be tempted to think of as being “independent’ are NOT!!!!! The billionaire funders. – the political activists – the columnists and authors. – the politicians. – the judges & “justices”. – the R-W media [radio-TV-social media-newspapers-books-magazines-“experts”-etc] – are ALL members of “THE TEAM.” They work together, are often on separate parts interchangeably, to promote the approved messaging.
***** “American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created…Much of the inequality that exists today is a result of government policy, both what the government does and what it does not do.” [Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz]
***** “People who contribute get the ear of the member and the ear of the staff. they have the access and access is it. Access is power. Access is clout. That’s how this thing works.” [U.S. Representative Romano Mazzoli [ret]; in Collins & Yeskel’s “Economic Apartheid”}
1} “American Legislative Exchange” – the following is from Gordon Lafer’s “The One Percent Solution”
“No bill becomes a law without a coalition of political actors behind it. Most of the legislation described in this book – attacks on labor unions, the minimum wage, and public services – has been advanced by a combination of Republican politicians and conservative advocacy groups…
“..behind the Republican operatives, the most important force driving this agenda forward is a network of extremely wealthy individuals and corporations..All three of the country’s largest corporate lobbies – the Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and the National Federation of Independent Business – are active in state political debates…the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity has join4d them…several industry and employer associations…Above all, the corporate agenda is coordinated through the American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC].”
“ALEC. the most important..brings together two thousand member legislators [one quarter of all state lawmakers..] and the country’s largest corporations to formulate and promote business-friendly legislation…The organization claims to introduce eight hundred to one thousand bills each year in the fifty state legislatures, with 20 percent becoming law.
“..the “exchange”..ALEC facilitates is between corporate donors and state legislators. The corporations pay ALEC’s expenses and contribute to legislators’ campaigns; in return, legislators carry the corporate agenda into their statehouses. Member corporations also fund the ALEC-affiliated State Policy Network, whose procorporate think tanks produce policy papers in support of model legislation.”
*****!!!!! – read over the above again!!! What does this sound like to YOU????? Some might use words like “quid pro quo,” or “bribery,” or “corruption.” Defenders will justify this is “normal political advocacy” – in which a person would attempt to use “free speech” to convince legislators – glossing over entirely the fact that MONEY is THE central “convincing” measure – and that without the money, the “advocacy” would be nowhere is powerful. And, YOU???
YOU can read Lee Fang’s “The Machine,” on pages 212-217, 22l- to obtain corroborating material: “Paul Weyrich, an architect of much of the modern right, founded ALEC to help corporate interests establish relationships with state legislators…ALEC directly writes pieces of legislation for state lawmakers and coordinates multistate lobbying campaigns. ALEC has grown precipitously…and includes over 2,000 members, almost all of whom are Republican. Corporate members pay at least $50,000 a year to play a role in the group.”
*** “anyone who has been around..Congress or a state legislature or a city council knows that over time the payoff by public officials for the PAC contributions they receive is real and as sure as the sunrise..contributions constitute gilded corruption that has no sight, no taste, no smell, no feel, no sound, and ..no smoking gun..one reason it ..it is so insidious. the other reason is..everybody does it, or almost everybody.” { senator William Proxmire, “Selling Out’]
*** “..at one time, [Senator Rudy]. Boschwitz actually had his staff give donors different-colored stamps for them to put on..mail they sent to his office to indicate their donation levels in order to facilitate preferential treatment.” [“Selling Out’]
2] “State Policy Network” [SPN] – the following is from Lee Fang’s “The Machine” – “Founded at about the time President Clinton was elected..the State Policy Network..is an organization dedicating to building a conservative infrastructure on the state level that mirrors the right-wing machine that now dominates government on the national level….Staffers for the South Carolina Policy Council took policy recommendations, such as public school privatization and the elimination of environmental regulations from Heritage and modified them to recommend to legislators in the state capital.”
“SPN flourished by serving as a nexus between existing local conservative groups and the national conservative policy centers. Initially, SPN think tanks worked closely with a parallel network of right-wing religious Family Policy councils…”….
“Like most right-wing think tanks, SPN’s Heritage clones are rigidly Republican but maintain a veneer of independence by posturing as simply ideological. SPN think tanks are so sensitive about their image that they explicitly advise their local affiliates to be wary of local media portraying them as “pseudo think-tanks” created “by public relations firms and industry to promote single issues.”……..
“Even the language from SPN groups promising “intellectual integrity” is a carbon copy of a document handed down from political operatives in D.C. The legitimacy of SPN affiliates hinges on the ability of each local think tank to appear independent. But in reality, SPN is just another cog in a corporate-backed right-wing messaging machine.
*** “To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always in the interests of..dealers..to narrow competition must always be against [public interest]..The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution..never to be adopted..but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from..men..who generally have an interest to deceive and even oppress the public..” [Adam Smith]
For corroboration, YOU can read Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money,” pages 345-349: “..Thomas A. Roe, an anti-union construction magnate..went on to found the State Policy Network in 1992, a national coalition of conservative state-based think tanks. By 2012, the network had sixty-four separate think tanks turning out cookie-cutter-like policy papers, including at least one hub in every state.”
*** “Rewriting..economic rules that define our society in the past few decades has been done under the banner of “deregulation”..less government means more economic growth.. The term itself is a misnomer. No society is free of regulation. Everything has rules..our government has enacted new rules..[creating]..not only free markets, but rigged ones. These rules..weakened and even destroyed consumer protections while increasing..power of the already powerful.” { “Free Lunch. How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense [And Stick You with the Bill”} – Pulitzer Prize winner, David Cay Johnston]
*****. REMEMBER – the above is the tip of the iceberg – much more evidence exists. As Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz said above – the 19870-2024 economic inequality is NOT an accident. “America has been going in the wrong direction”. since 1980 – that was and IS the plan!!!!!! Keeping voting for the post-1980 Republican Party – and YOUR children and grandchildren will continue to suffer, likely even more than YOU – because YOU already DO NOT live in the world those who lived in the 1945-1975 STATISTICAL PEAK of American middle class prosperity did.
With Justice For All 