Defending Democracy

We learned from last month’s CNN poll that an overwhelming 86% of Americans agree that, “Elected officials in Washington are mostly influenced by the pressure they receive on issues from major campaign contributors”.

This number has increased over the past decade and is a hopeful indication that most Americans want their democracy back, despite the Right’s hysteria about “wanting their country back”, whoever “their” means, and whatever “country” means. We may reasonably suspect they don’t mean us, or the majority of Americans.

The good news is Americans are waking up.

There are growing grass roots efforts to defend democracy from corporate personhood and money as free speech. Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap serves as Field Organizing Coordinator on the Executive Committee of Move To Amend, a “a national coalition of hundreds of organizations and over 113,000 individuals”. She tells us, “In April, voters in Madison and Dane County, WI overwhelmingly approved measures calling for an end to corporate personhood and the legal status of money as speech by 84% and 78%respectively.”

At their website we see the statement of their mission:

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

* Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.

* Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our vote and participation count.

* Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments.
The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law. In a democracy, the people rule.

They are at the front of our struggle for democracy and freedom, with the mission to “end corporate rule” and “legalize democracy”.

Please check them out and help them however you are able to do so.

There are more signs of an “American Awakening” in today’s release of a Washington Post-ABC News Poll under the headline, “Obama Tops GOP on Helping Middle Class”.

Asked who cares more about the financial concerns of middle-class Americans, Obama has a big advantage, 53 percent to 35 percent, over the Republicans in Congress. He’s up 47 percent to 37 percent when poll respondents were asked about themselves and their families. On protecting the interests of small businesses, 48 percent of Americans say Obama cares more; 39 percent say so of the GOP.

Majorities across party lines see the GOP as caring more than Obama about Wall Street and big business.

I find this quite encouraging, especially knowing how difficult it is to get our message out in an environment where most national media are under the control of Corporate America.

As We the People rise to the task of defending democracy, we can expect the forces of plutocracy and tyranny of the minority to resist the will of the people even more tenaciously. They will not surrender. They must be defeated. If today’s Americans love freedom and democracy as much as our Founders did, we will prevail.

”I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”- Thomas Jefferson