Don’t be sad — Get mad
Six reasons to get mad about 2010 midterm elections.
1. Big money won big.
This was the first election after the Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate spending in our elections. A record $4 billion was spent, far surpassing any previous midterm election. Republican candidates benefited twice as much from the type of election expenditures enabled by Citizens United, and much of that came from undisclosed sources. This was a big factor in Republican electoral gains, and big corporate donations were a deciding factor in many statewide initiatives.
2. Big media won, too.
The major beneficiaries of campaign advertising dollars were the corporate-owned broadcast media, which share similar corporate interests as many of the funders of these ads. These increasingly consolidated corporate media channels (increasingly influenced by FOX News, a right-wing political propaganda machine masquerading as a news organization) are where most citizens get their electoral information.
3. Democracy lost. Again.
The impact of Citizens United, combined with corporate media, combined with the power of corporate lobbyists in our political process that has grown dramatically in recent decades, makes the pretense of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” a hollow promise. Corporate plutocracy is completely overwhelming democracy, reducing the role of regular citizens to mere consumers choosing between prepackaged & heavily marketed products.
4. Climate crisis remedies are stymied as time is running out.
The federal gridlock ensured by this election will further delay any progress in addressing the climate crisis, which threatens the future of all human and natural systems on the planet. The clock is ticking, and climate scientists tell us that time is running out to prevent various tipping points that will cause irreversible changes. This election virtually ensures that the United States, with its hugely disproportionate role in the problem, will not be part of the solution for at least another two years.
5. Millions will suffer.
Climate crisis is of course not the only urgent national priority that will be stymied by the gridlock just voted in. Millions of people suffering from a broken economy will be unable to get any relief from DC, and people who would have benefited from health care reform will find that the funding to enable those reforms will be cut by a Republican-controlled House.
6. A fake “popular rebellion” gains momentum.
A faux-grassroots movement called the Tea Party, which has been heavily funded by wealthy benefactors and over-hyped by FOX News & other corporate media, took center stage in this election cycle, way out of proportion to the actual numbers involved. Much of it is about manipulating people’s anger & fear to get them to support an agenda directly opposed to their own interests. Ever wonder what a real popular uprising would look like? Wanna find out?
Comments
By MikeMc on November 4th, 2010 at 10:06 am
Is anyone surprised? Folks had two years to organize while the less conservative party had Congress, the Senate and the White House and they choose to use that time to update their facebook pages. People need to stop hitting the snooze button and get out of bed.
By Lansing Scott on November 4th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Mike, I completely agree about the need to organize & push hard while there was some window for opportunity. Many progs were stressing that 2 yrs ago, but many others felt they had worked hard to give the “less conservative party” a large majority in government & could sit back & watch the inevitable progress occur. As if the forces of Greater Evil would not push back hard with every available resource (& of course the rich fucks always have the most resources). Let’s hope this election is a progressive wake-up call.
Also wanted to note a couple other reasons to get mad:
1) The fuckers succeeded in taking out Russ Feingold, perhaps the most principled voice & vote in the Senate.
2) Because of gains in state elections, the party of Greater Evil is now largely in charge of redistricting electoral districts to ensure continued wins through the next decade.
By kirk91 on November 6th, 2010 at 9:40 am
Two years ago (and now) many more mainstream Democrats were saying ‘Leave Obama Alone’ and ‘give him time to fix things’ even as it became more and more obvious that not only was he NOT going to fix things but was going to continue to make things worse.
So can we start now to run real alternative candidates to Jim “Spineless” McDermott or Norm Dicks or someone not from MSFT against the Sheriff?
By MikeMc on November 8th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
I think people choose their own interpretation when hearing terms like ‘give him time to fix things’. Many people probably thought fix = repair, whereas I tend to think of fix in terms of “fix a horse race”.
By geov on November 8th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
“Fix” can also mean “to neuter,” as in a pet. Just sayin’.
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