When The Sky Is Falling, PICK IT UP! by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #154

January 25, 2010 Mike Gold 11 Comments

Last week the Supreme Court, the highest court of the land, removed all impediments preventing corporations from spending as much as they want to control elections. Given their financial resources, they can now buy and sell elections at will.

Yeah, I know. The highest court of the land must have been high. It’s an old joke; Arlo Guthrie did it in one of his alternate versions of Alice’s Restaurant back during, I dunno, the Spanish-American War. It’s probably true; SCOTUS had a rep for consuming a lot of cocaine wine – it’s part of their tradition.

I hate to annoy my liberal friends whose stock in trade, like that of the right, is paranoia, but I’m not under the belief that the sky is falling. As a political activist who actually remembers when Arlo Guthrie did alternate versions of Alice’s Restaurant, I believe this creates a lot of positive opportunities. People don’t trust the big corporations – even less so since the big bonus bailouts – and that provides an excellent opportunity for organizing. In this case, it’s pretty easy.

First and foremost, vote and get out the vote. Almost half of those eligible to vote don’t. If you’re in a precinct where you think you might be subjected to discrimination, bring your friends and come in as a group. If they deny you your vote, immediately complain to the poll-watchers. And then to the media.

If you have friends and family who have difficulty getting out to vote, pick them up (presumably in your car) and take them to their precinct. A lot of elections were determined by these types of voters.

Of course, in order to vote you must first register. Do that.

Next, contribute. The real lesson of the 2008 Barack Obama campaign – which built on Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign game plan – is that, according to the Washington Post, three million donors made a total of 6.5 million donations online and that brought in more than $500,000,000. For the zero-challenged, that’s over a half billion dollars, and virtually all were in increments of $100.00 or less. The average online donation was $80.00, and the average Obama donor gave more than once. This is called “a good start.”

As they taught me in journalism school long before Woodward, Bernstein and Goldman, follow the money. Actually, this advice used to be the mantra of the old-time Barry Goldwater conservatives, back when Barry Goldwater was seen as a conservative. Look at the politicians who are receiving the support of Big Business – you know, all of them – and look at if and how they act when they introduce legislation and vote on other people’s bills. If there’s a pattern that indicates these politicians have been bought and paid for, start blabbing. Make it a campaign issue. Call in to talk shows. Go ask questions at town councils. Write to the local newspapers, if they still exist.

In other words, organize.

The fact is, the threat of Corporatism is real but not quite as substantial as the most lazy doomsayers might believe. Business has its priorities, and they’re not monolithic. Unless you’re Rupert Murdoch funding his vanity press, the laws of cost-effectiveness apply to corporations. They do not have unlimited resources, they are geared to short-term gain, and they tend to understand that controlling the politicians only goes so far: if politicians see themselves being held accountable to the electorate, their corporate masters will mitigate their efforts out of a fear of regulation which, in the short-term, could kill them.

Moreover, if people get sufficiently angry, we could kill Corporatism. We could bring an end to the fraudulent ruling that empowers corporations as human beings. As my wife Linda posted on this forum a couple days ago, the ruling “was slipped in the backdoor by a legal clerk who took it upon himself to alter the judicial ruling that would have denied corporate per personhood.”

If we simply lie down and take it, we will get what we deserve. Don’t mourn, organize. Stand up. Fight back. Do it now.

Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking bizarro music and blather show starts up Sundays at 7:00 PM Eastern on www.getthepointradio.com, replayed the following Thursdays at 10:00 PM Eastern. Likewise, his Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind rants pop up every on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday exclusively at www.getthepointradio.com. The regular Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind rants continue every Monday and Friday on The Point podcasts, available right here at www.michaeldavisworld.com, as well as at www.comicmix.com, www.getthepointradio.com, www.zzcomics.com, and www.ravenwolfstudios.com. You can subscribe to The Point podcasts at iTunes by searching under “The Point Radio.”