A Few Dozen Rich Reactionaries Calling The Shots In GOP Presidential Race

The corporate oligarchy and its media, along with other dominant institutions, creates the reactionary political framework in which U.S. electoral politics operates. The millions of (overwhelming white) reactionaries provide the shock troops and voters, plus millions of easily-manipulated stooges.

When it gets down to the specifics of which arch-reactionary GOP politician will get the nod to run for President, that is determined to a great degree by a handful of filthy rich, neofascists who are funding SuperPacs that back or attack the contenders.

For example, Sheldon Adelson, the Arab-loathing Zionist casino billionaire who helps fund Israeli colonization of the West Bank, has (with his wife) poured $10 million into Newt Gingrich’s SuperPac in just the last month. But to make sure he can be a kingmaker, he’s ready to switch to backing Mitt Romney if his bet on Gingrich comes a cropper.  (This according to media reports.)

Another obscenely wealthy, viciously reactionary plutocrat, one Foster Friess, is funding the anti-sexual freedom candidate Rick Santorum.

According to the New York Times, there is a “battle among a few dozen wealthy Republicans to influence their party’s choice of a presidential nominee.” [“A Wealthy BackerLikes the Odds on Santorum,” NY Times, 2/9/12 p. A1.]

We hear much moaning and handwringing from “liberals” and “progressives” about the deleterious effects of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case, that “opened the floodgates” for such money to flow into SuperPacs. And to be sure, the rightwing Justices who reached out and grabbed that case to take a whack at campaign finance law (the actual issue in the case was much narrow than the decision handed down, a case used opportunistically as a vehicle for the court majority’s assault on a law they didn’t like) certainly threw even more political power to capital to control elections. But it didn’t fundamentally change anything; rather, it exacerbated what is already wrong. Namely the power of money, the class dictatorship of the haute bourgeoisie, the oligarchy of capital. (“Money is Power,” goes the old saying.)

Contrary to mythology, the U.S. is not now and has never been a democracy. It’s a country that began with voting restricted to white male property owners! On its face it wasn’t a democracy. Then there’s the fact that women have been allowed to vote for less than half the lifespan of the U.S., that blacks haven’t been able to vote for almost all of that time, and millions of them are prevented from voting today. And the U.S. is functionally a two-party dictatorship, with both parties dedicated to maintaining the status  quo.  Election laws make it extremely difficult for new parties to even get on the ballot. Corporate media domination keeps people mystified and confused about reality, so for them it is unthinkable to vote for something other than one of the two corporate capitalist parties, much less think of creating an actual opposition party.

Finally, the real measure of a democracy is where power resides. The root of the word democracy is the Greek  word demos, the people. Power does not rest in the hands of the people in America, and never has.

Taboo-truths.blogspot.com

Jasonzenith.blogspot.com