The Empire's Collapse Continues Unabated (2009 In Review)

The Supreme Court finally came off the bench today (pun most certainly intended), firing yet another salvo in the all-but-officially-declared Class War the United States' corporate masters have spent decades waging against we mere mortals.

The decades-old system of rules that govern the financing of the nation's political campaigns was partially upended by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued just ahead of the pivotal 2010 midterm congressional election season.

Thursday's landmark decision, approved by a 5-4 margin, could unleash a torrent of corporate and union cash into the political realm and transform how campaigns for president and Congress are fought in the coming years.

[...]

The new ruling blurs the lines between corporate and individual contributions in political campaigns. It also strikes down part of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that banned unions and corporations from paying for political ads in the waning days of campaigns.

Even before the court's decision, national political campaigns had been growing increasingly expensive. Watchdog groups worry that by removing limits on expenditures by corporations that are not coordinated with candidates' campaigns, the court will boost the role of special interests in politics.

That last sentence is the kind of “no shit, Sherlock” reporting you can only find on NPR, a paragon of mainstream media tedium. Nevertheless, the implications of this ruling are so blatantly obvious even Nina Totenberg felt compelled to admit, “[The ruling] will undoubtedly help Republican candidates since corporations have generally supported Republican candidates more.”

Occasional liberal hero Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) seems to be the only member of “our” Congress capable of seeing the implications of all this through the fog of lobbyist cash:

"If we do nothing then I think you can kiss your country goodbye," Grayson told Raw Story in an interview just hours after the decision was announced.

"You won't have any more senators from Kansas or Oregon, you'll have senators from Cheekies and Exxon. Maybe we'll have to wear corporate logos like Nascar drivers."

Grayson said the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling -- which removes decades of campaign spending limits on corporations -- "opens the floodgates for the purchases and sale of the law."

Nice words, and Grayson at least has the courage to do what his position allows: In the lead-up to this decision, he introduced five bills with wonderful names like the Business Should Mind its Own Business Act, intended to plug the new holes Justice John Robert's court seems intent on burning into our Constitution. Yet Grayson still appears blind to the essential problem of “our” democratic institutions. Within this little Empire of ours, there is no law that can't be overturned by the influx of cold, hard cash.

Add to this the fact that Our Glorious Leader has renominated Ben Bernanke to his apparently-sacrosanct position as head of the Federal Reserve. The merest hint of a delay in his reconfirmation sent the jackals, vultures and vampires of Wall Street into an uncontrolled, three-day orgy mass nappy-soiling, despite the soothing promises of Senate Banking Committee Chairman, former presidential candidate, and all-around toothless, corporate hack, Chris Dodd.

Add to this the fact that, over a month ago, on December 13, Our Glorious Leader's top financial-industry waterboy and former Laura Ingraham date, Larry Summers, won the unofficial Within the Empire Holy Shit Award when said, live, on CNN, that “everyone agrees that the recession is over,” a comment that certainly holds true for the billionaires he's helped enrich throughout his entire career. The rest of us are faced with one, undeniable message from America's ruling class: “Bend over, shut up, and take your medicine, you fuckin' crybabies. Don't act like you don't like it.”

Meanwhile, the lunatic asylum more commonly known as the U.S. Congress has shelved any further discussion of health care reform until former nude model Scott Brown takes Ted Kennedy's old seat in the Upper House, providing him a greater vantage point from which to join his fellow Republicans in their by-now-year-long campaign to demonize President Obama and piss on the non-billionaire citizens of this country. Their fear-mongering intransigence, along with the opportunism and stupidity of their Democratic “rivals,” has destroyed any chance at meaningful health care reform, ensuring that, whatever legislation eventually appears on the president's desk, it will include a massive give-away to the insurance industry.

From Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) comes conformation of my worst expectations, among them that,

at the highest levels of the Senate and the White House, there's still no plan, and he doubts whether President Obama will insert himself forcefully into the process.

Of course he won't. Our Glorious Leader has two foreign wars to fight, plus the domestic propaganda war against the paleo-conservatism. Hamstrung by his own post-ideology ideology, he seems incapable of realizing the scope of this last war, perhaps the most important one of his first term. With three years to go, the score is a rather obvious 0-1, and no amount of rousing speeches in Ohio or on television are going to change that, Mr. President.

Mr. Obama's appearance coincided with new state figures showing Ohio's jobless rate climbed last month to 10.9%, from 10.6% in November, nearly a full point higher than the national average. National figures released Thursday showed a jump in the number of Americans who applied for jobless benefits, with claims rising 36,000 to 482,000 last week, the third straight week claims increased. Analysts had expected new claims to slip to 440,000.

I offer these comments with no wonkish solutions to the crisis this country faces. Mass firings of those responsible for our current financial crisis would only a trigger another, for which Our Glorious Leader would, in true “liberal” fashion, fall all over himself to take the blame, even without an opposition ready, willing, and clearly able to foist it all upon him. Despite all the myths surrounding President Obama, he is and always has been a conciliator, a self-conscious shill for the status quo. That is the awful truth at the heart of his non-ideological ideology: a truth that, by its ability to please the robber barons that truly own this country, ensured his election in the first place.

How Obama won over the managers and money movers of this country remains the great untold story of the 2009 campaign. The results of this marriage between the centrist politics and the robber barons are visible on any street in the country not named “Wall.”

Outside the corridors of power, the status quo is quickly becoming unmanageable. Now, from the series of tubes comes word that Our Glorious Leader has agreed to cut his party's throat, announcing a freeze in discretionary spending...except for that which is sure to disappear down the military-industrial complex's black money hole across the Potomac River from his house, otherwise known as the Pentagon.

New Review: Star Trek (2009)

Around here, we like to start the New Year off right.

I'd feel remiss here if I didn't add that this was the last film my father and I saw together, on December 28, 2009. He (as a Terminator might say) is the man most directly responsible for my three key obsessions: technology, Star Trek and Monty Python's Flying Circus. Absent these three key ingredients I would literally have no friends...Instead, I have the best group of people a misanthropic writer could ask for. Thank you all for everything in these dark times. We are, all of us, under orders to be happy. So sit back, grab a loved one, and enjoy a movie. Though not necessarily this movie.

And once again, Dad, thank you.

Memo from the Obit Desk

Gary Edward DeMoss passed on to the Gray Havens at 5:15 a.m. on January 6, 2010, one day shy of his sixty-third birthday. He is survived by his big sister, Jenni, big brother Jack, son David and beloved wife, Gene Kay. Per request, he is to be cremated and his ashes scattered where ever the fuck we want. There will be no funeral, but there will be a private party held in his honor as soon as the weather breaks, featuring plenty of margaritas. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be sent to your nearest food bank and/or homeless shelter. Have a few margaritas yourself while your at it, in honor of my father, the hero.