Exit, Stage Left

I surmise that [the gains from increased productivity] are flowing to the multinational/political machinery.

This statement from my post To Get Rich Is Glorious led me thinking this morning on the bus about how pernicious money in politics has become.

For those of you living in California, I ask you, when have you last heard/read/thought about Meg Whitman, the most recent major party gubernatorial candidate to lose? For a woman who spent the most money in history on an election to gain her first elected seat, indeed, one of the most powerful seats in this nation, she's completely fallen off the radar.

It seems to me that only the financial elite, the top 1%, ever stands a chance to win against the backdrop of a nation far more interested in the affairs of the Kardashians than anything in reality. And by financial elite, I don't necessarily mean that the candidate falls into that category per se, but regardless, he/she still requires the financial backing of those in the top 1% to even enter the party.

This is a vicious cycle and it's amplifying; it's growing geometrically. The ever growing concentrations of wealth creates a feedback loop, and it's obvious to any casual observer who's eyes are not glued to Kim's ass that for every additional election cycle the cost of competing rises dramatically.

Meg Whitman enters, stage right, and drops a colossal deposit (money, by the way, earned not in a truly productive activity but earned by a digital vacuum sucking all those loose nickels from what would have been yard sales) just to enter the fray. She gains the support of a small cadre of other 1% Republicans organized in political action groups or other front groups. She also contributes mountains of her own wealth above and beyond her initial "investment" to chug forward.

Jerry Brown and company needs to raise a shitload of money to counter the $178,500,000 this single wealthy woman raised, and he himself is forced to draw on contributions from the wealthy elite on the other side. State-level groups such as teachers unions and other PACs form the other side of the power balance equation.

Jerry wins, due in part to Whitman's inability to appeal to non-financial elites like my co-worker, who as a registered Republican chose not to support the overt buying of an election. Nonetheless, he failed to realize how Brown only won based on the covert purchasing of the governorship by the California Corrections Union et al. Meg Whitman, a la Snagglepuss, exits, stage left, never to be seen or heard from again.

The real issue I have is that, if wealth wasn't so concentrated in that top razor-thin tranche of well-connected people, then all these political candidates couldn't amass such huge sums from such a small cadre of people. They would have to seek campaign contributions from a broader base, like people who read this Monologue. But more critically, any new candidate, trying to counter the war chest of an incumbent, is wholly reliant on an ever decreasing number of wealthy elitists on his/her political side to raise even more money to compete, much less win.

And more critically still, the influence of that small financially powerful group over the elected grows as well.

A teacher's union is only ever interested in maintaining the status quo. I'm simplifying things greatly, I know, but their focus is to ensure they remain in the debate. Witness the power these sorts of groups have had in Wisconsin recently. Here we have several immense, politically powerful groups competing for a dwindling resource base. If any candidate alienates any of these competing factions their millions will simply flow to others who won't.

The next level of Snagglepuss Politics now enters, stage right, when we have the Supreme Court ruling that unlimited sums of contribution cash can now flow from corporations who are "individuals" who are simply exercising "free speech." These are, obviously, boarded and CEO'ed by the very same top 1% (who own as much as the bottom 60%), and so the dependence of political candidates on these financial elites is only strengthened.

This is how, when someone like Chris Dodd gets a sweetheart deal from Countrywide as a Friend of Angelo, Congress overrides the will of the American consumers people who, by a 600-1 margin, did not want to bailout the financial industry in 2008 to the tune of seven hundred billion dollars. The American consumer exits, stage left.

I like to think about such things on my bus ride. I think about the coming energy constrained future, but it's clear to me that there is far, far too much inertia in the existing form of democratic repression representation for us to galvanize any rational energy policy. Thus, I plan things around a possible future of resource constraints, financial implosion, and subsequent social meltdown. I have conditioned myself to these Snagglepuss Politics, and I'm conditioned by riding the bus.