The challenge of bringing transparency to an American Corporatocracy

Posted on May 21, 2013 by fjwhite

American activists Sheila Krumholz and Danielle Brian talk about the challenges they face as heads of independent watchdog NGOs in the US

No 752 Posted by fw, May 21, 2013

“I think that the most important thing for people to remember is that they can do something about it. I worry that people become despondent and walk away from government. I think that’s our biggest danger. Because in the end as we’ve talked about how industries will have endless lawyers and money to pursue lobbying. But they don’t have the numbers of people. Our side has the numbers of people. And if we can just remind people that getting engaged still is what’s going to put pressure on the public figures who don’t want to be embarrassed. Media matters. Bad press matters. Going to town halls and having people yell at you for doing something corrupt matters. And that’s what we need to remember to empower people to take action.” —Danielle Brian

corporatocracy — Economist Jeffrey Sachs described the United States as a corporatocracy in his book The Price of Civilization. He suggested that it arose from four trends: weak national parties and strong political representation of individual districts; the large U.S. military establishment after World War II; big corporate money financing election campaigns; and globalization tilting the balance away from workers. (Source: Corporatocracy, Wikipedia).

Bill Moyers is joined by the heads of two independent watchdog groups keeping an eye on government as well as on powerful interests seeking to influence it. Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics and OpenSecrets.org, and Danielle Brian, who runs the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), talk about the importance of transparency to our democracy, and their efforts to scrutinize who’s giving money, who’s receiving it, and most importantly, what’s expected in return.

To watch the original broadcast and access the complete transcript, visit Moyers’ website by clicking on the following link. Or watch the 20:31-minute embedded version below and read an abridged version of the transcript, featuring added subheadings, text highlighting and hyperlinks.

Sheila Krumholz and Danielle Brian on How Money Rules Washington, Moyers & Company, May 17, 2013

ABRIDGED TRANSCRIPT

[Introduction by Bill Moyers] – So what does it say about the state of democracy when public health is sacrificed to private profits because our political system has been bought out from under us? No two people are better qualified to answer that question than my next guests.

Now, the two of you have collectively been at this work of public watchdogs for more than 40 years. What have you learned in all that time about how money works?

In US, money spent on lobbying buys influence. Rising payoffs are now the norm

SHEILA – Money buys outcomes. It’s not that money is given as a quid pro quo to purchase a vote. But, well-placed contribution, money spent on lobbying, well-placed former aids now working to lobby are all assets that can be used by private interests to influence policy.

Every cycle, cycle after cycle, the money climbs inexorably up. So it has more than tripled in just the last decade in terms of all told — money going to candidates, political action committees and parties, and also the lobbying and now this secret dark money which is going to newly energized, newly formed political nonprofits that are actively trying to shape electoral outcomes.

Revolving door as senior bureaucrats exit government to enter corporations and vice versa

DANIELLE — Oh, there’s no question that it’s become the norm. And part of the problem with that is that people are less and less outraged. They get sort of used to it, journalists as well. And so I do think that what Sheila’s pointing to in addition to the campaign contributions and lobbying, which people think of when they think of money affecting government, it is also that revolving door that goes on where jobs, where people are leaving the federal government either from the Congress or the agencies and going to the industries that they had been overseeing or vice versa where they are leaving those industries and coming into the federal government.

These are the kinds of things that are really affecting policies. And then you have those same lobbyists who are dealing with legislation who are in the agency level who are also affecting how rulemakings, which is really some of the details that matter most. When a law is passed you then have to get down to the details, or the agency has to figure out exactly what the rules will be that implement that law. So that is one way that rulemakings are established. Sometimes an agency will just establish what new regulations will be without legislation. And either way, those same lobbyists are dealing at the agency level to make sure that their interests are protected.

As long as it’s legal no one questions the morality or ethics of corporate lobbying

SHEILA – It means that organizations — and mostly we’re talking about corporations — understand that Washington is often standing in the way of bigger profits for them. And so they see this as a perfectly legal, entirely common way for their companies to shape policy legislation, even regulation coming out of Washington that will ameliorate the damage and ultimately enhance their ability to turn a profit.

And so private interests if they are not successful in achieving their legislative agenda in Congress have other opportunities, many bites at the apple, to try to water down regulations that they see as onerous or to otherwise tweak laws as they are actually being implemented by the agencies.

Look at this headline: After a Powerful Lobbyist Intervenes, EPA Reverses Stance on Polluting Texas County’s Water. That’s a story from the news organizations ProPublica reporting that a big energy company wants permission from Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, for a large-scale mining project in Texas that would pollute a pristine supply of drinking water.

Got a problem? No problem! Cut a deal with Democrat fundraiser and fixer Heather Podesta

So the EPA says no, can’t have it. The big company hires Heather Podesta who’s a big time lobbyist, a big time fundraiser for Democrats who was married at the time to another big Washington Democratic fixer named Tony Podesta, who used to be president of the liberal organization People for the American Way.

Through their connections these two have become the king and queen of influence peddling. Lo and behold, some months after the industry hires Heather Podesta, EPA reverses itself and the company gets an exemption and is allowed to pollute the aquifer. To hell with the public health. This is routine, isn’t it?

Uneven playing field because Big Money has deep pockets that citizen activist organizations can’t match

DANIELLE — And it’s exactly what you’re talking about with the pay to play. So it’s, in this case you have companies that have the money and the resources to hire the lobbyists or the lawyers who will go to battle for their clients endlessly. I mean, those of us who are working on the other side in the public interest realize that when we have our wins which we get industry is going to be there and they’re going to keep going and fighting because they have those endless resources to keep battling back.

Difficult for activist watchdogs to know what’s going on inside a murky payoff system with revolving doors and reverse revolving doors

It’s the question of who is paying those influencers, who is behind that which is often not transparent and part of what we really think is essential is to make these communications even at the agency level. For example, if we could get visitors logs, many of the agencies track electronically if we’re going to visit an agency you’re listed. Those logs are not public. If we could get a better sense of, who are these people who are coming through the door to meet with the people for example at the EPA, we would have a better sense of what was going on.

SHEILA – And that’s especially important because we do know that there are over 12,000 registered lobbyists advocating on behalf of their clients in Washington. And we can see who they are, whether they’ve already spun through revolving door coming from Capitol Hill or elsewhere in government to advocate on behalf of these paying clients and how much they’re being paid. But we also need to see those senior advisors, others who are not technically registered as lobbyists but are in fact doing much the same work, advocating on behalf of a paying private client.

Unfortunately the Lobbying Disclosure Act, which governs disclosure of lobbying activity does not mandate that lobbyists disclose whom they’re meeting with. So they only say, “We lobbied the House of Representatives, or we lobbied the Senate,” which is ridiculous. That doesn’t provide us with a roadmap to exactly who their targets are in Congress

DANIELLE — It’s really I think the revolving door is maybe the most important corrupting element of in Washington because of — you have what we call, in this case that’s a reverse revolving door, right. But either way what you’ve got is people who are coming to the government or to be in public service with an incentive coming from their prior employer in this case.

You know, you’re not forgetting your friends who just gave you a multibillion or a multimillion dollar deal. Or you have people who are in the public service who are anticipating their next step, you know, their public service is essentially a stepping stone in their résumé to make more money. I don’t want that kind of person in my government. I would rather see that we have policies that really slow down the assumption that the reason you’re in government is to help go make money for yourself and for your next business afterwards.

Government loses expertise when public servants exit through the revolving door to join the lobbyists

SHEILA – It’s also damaging because it used to be, I think, that one could aspire to be a senior congressional advisor and that would be the pinnacle of your career, that would be a real achievement. Now young staffers are looking to trade on their investment in public service to leave work on Capitol Hill to go work on K Street for much more lucrative jobs very quickly. They’re not investing that time in public service. So I think that has had a damaging effect and means that the lobbyists are the ones that have the expertise. We’re losing expertise that’s not being developed on Congress, on Capitol Hill, it’s the seat of that is in some cases in K Street.

I think that is a large part of the cynicism that’s developed around government. People don’t see it as an honorable profession because the money is playing such an important role. Across the board from left to right people, Americans believe that government has been purchased, that it’s been corrupted by the money.

Recently five Congresspeople pocketed tens of thousands of dollars from private prison corporations

DANIELLE — You know what I found really shocking about the private prison industry is that recently you know, POGO tracks the top government contractors and their misconduct because the government hasn’t until recently actually done that which is shocking in itself. But only in the last couple of years suddenly two of the top government contractors are private prison corporations. That was pretty shocking to me.

And this is happening at a time where we see that there’s all kinds of legislation that is moving in Congress, that is criminalizing at a federal level, especially when it comes to immigration. We are very fascinated by that nexus. And I think it’s really terrifying. It raises the point that we haven’t touched on yet in terms of money in policy which is how much of what used to be done conducted by the federal government, by federal employees has been privatized to government contractors.

And that’s a whole separate way that money is influencing policy where entire agencies are essentially relying on employees that are private sector employees with private sector interests. And they are in many cases really pushing the agenda of those agencies.

Activists’ biggest problem is that the people become so cynical they simply ignore what’s going on

DANIELLE — Well, people need to see it, but then they need to do something about it. And I think that the most important thing for people to remember is that they can do something about it. I worry that people become despondent and walk away from government. I think that’s our biggest danger. Because in the end as we’ve talked about how industries will have endless lawyers and money to pursue lobbying. But they don’t have the numbers of people. Our side has the numbers of people. And if we can just remind people that getting engaged still is what’s going to put pressure on the public figures who don’t want to be embarrassed. Media matters. Bad press matters. Going to town halls and having people yell at you for doing something corrupt matters. And that’s what we need to remember to empower people to take action.

How can ordinary citizens help?

SHEILA – There are organizations like ours which are both credible, offering credible information, non-partisan information through which you can be informed and servicing opportunities to get involved, to take action on specific issues that are happening now

DANIELLE — I think that’s the key is those specific moments of time where it really will matter. And so we have at our website, at pogo.org we have a signup list for people who are joining what we’re calling our good government army of people who really — are willing to join us in being nerdy sometimes and saying “okay, now is the time.” And we get not just the one person, but the one person times 10,000 making a point, the people in that agency will say, “Wow, I didn’t know anyone other than Heather Podesta was looking.”

SHEILA – And whether it’s agency staff or whether it’s members of Congress, they’re not going to risk the liability of being seen as allied with the moneyed interests against the public interests, particularly for elected officials. They know what side their bread is buttered on and it’s the voters who hold, kind of the cards here. We need to make sure that they [members of Congress and their staff] understand that we [watchdogs and citizens] are paying attention. Because it’s those secret deals that are most powerful. When we can expose the money and the players we help neutralize their impact.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog, Citizen Action Monitor, may contain copyrighted material that may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I claim no ownership of such materials. Such material, published without profit, is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. It is published in accordance with the provisions of the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada ruling and its six principle criteria for evaluating fair dealing.

Large-scale public protests in Japan against secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership

Posted on May 9, 2013 by fjwhite

“If TPP advances and is implemented it will destroy the American social system,” says former Japanese politician

No 742 Posted by fw, May 09, 2013

“Unfortunately, most people have never even heard of the TPP in America. Our corporate media sure isn’t telling us anything about it…. Sure we can sign petitions but most are ignored. AND President Obama has something called “fast track authority”, left over from what Rahm Emmanuel helped Bush get. From what I understand he can quietly sign this thing and the next day, it’ll be in our faces. Get ready, by the time people realize that our sovereignty has been taken away, it’ll be too late.” —Visitor’s comment posted to Real News website

The Japanese are up in arms over the proposed TPP deal. Some of their concerns are highlighted in the following post. Meanwhile, Harper is doing his best to keep Canadians in the dark about the impact of TPP. According to Toronto Star reporter, Michael Geist, “[A] November 2012 email to government officials noted that their access to TPP texts was conditioned on ‘Secret’ level clearance, an acknowledgement that all texts are watermarked and can be traced back to the source, and confirmation that no sharing within government is permitted without prior approval.” This is why no one not in Canada’s tiny trade policy club knows the slightest thing about the TPP or Canada-European Union free trade deal, even though both will impact policy across dozens of departments. Source: Business lobbyists ride inside track of Conservative trade agenda, Stuart Trew, rabble.ca, May 6, 2013

Returning to the Japanese reaction to TPP, watch the 8:42-minute video report and read the accompanying transcript below. Or click on the following linked title to access the original broadcast.

Japanese Movement against TPP Growing, Michael Penn reporting for The Real News Network, May 7, 2013

TRANSCRIPT

Critics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership say it’s an attempt to impose an American system on Japan and would threaten Japanese public healthcare system -

Michael Penn, Tokyo — The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, may not yet be a household topic of discussion in the United States and many other countries, but it has been one of the most prominent political issues in Japan for several years. The debate over whether or not Japan should enter the TPP negotiation process has divided major political parties and led to large-scale protests, especially from Japan’s agricultural sector. Indeed, in the Japanese media and elsewhere, supporters of TPP have painted the issue as mainly a conflict between the interests of the urban, modern sectors of the Japanese economy and the backward, inefficient farmers, who they say are only interested in maintaining high tariff protection against foreign foodstuffs, especially rice.

Protesters — Participation in TPP negotiations is a violation of the government’s campaign promise!

Penn – But this is only a caricature, as in fact there are plenty of voices in urban areas who fear the economic effects of trade liberalization:

Protester — Foreign laborers could come into the country; not only the workers, but the companies too. The fact that they are foreigners is no problem. We are worried about the effect on wages. For skilled Japanese craftsmen, we worry this will be used to bid down the money we make.

Penn – Others point to deeper implications arising from TPP, which they see as far more than another free trade agreement. Nobuhiko Suto, until recently a House of Representatives lawmaker, is a leading Japanese critic of TPP.

Nobuhiko Suto, Former Representative, Democratic Party Of Japan — What we really fear has nothing to do with trade and economy but with ethnic diversity. Local and regional variations may be deeply affected by this systemic change. When I first learned of this fact, I wanted to know more, but the negotiations are secret. My studies led me to understand that TPP is not trade liberalization but systemic liberalization. Put simply, they want to take the U.S. system and make it operate across the Pacific region.

Penn – Outside of the agricultural sector, some of the deepest fears that Japanese have about TPP regards what it will mean for the nation’s excellent system of national health care.

Suto – It would destroy our health insurance system. This is not because America intends this result. When the U.S. insurance companies enter our market, they will focus on profitable sectors. But Japanese health insurance depends on pooling together profitable and other sectors. The U.S. companies would go after cancer and other specialized medicine to make their profits, and this would leave out poor people who can’t pay and would destroy our insurance system.

~~~

Penn – Do you want American health insurance?

Protester — No!

Penn – Why not?

Protester — They are money-crazed! We have the best system now. Japanese have universal insurance and the U.S. does not. that’s why it is no good. The U.S. system isn’t fair and favors the rich. We don’t need it here in Japan!

~~~

Penn – Another area of deep concern among those Japanese who have studied the TPP issue at some length is the international harmonization of patent laws and intellectual property rights. There is a fear that the United States wants Japan to adopt a new system of rules that will unfairly pour money into the pockets of American corporations.

Suto – The U.S. way of thinking is that those who develop original technologies should profit. To take an extreme example, consider the case of someone developing some new software. Well, originally you need screens to see what the software does, meaning it is based on TV. That means any new software technology is originally based on television technology. Going further back, all television technology is based on the mastery of electricity. That means that they want Japanese software developers to pay money to Thomas Edison. I’m being facetious, but this is the kind of idea the U.S. wants us to base patent laws upon.

Penn – Suto asserts that the Japanese government’s strong attachment to TPP has less to do with a rational assessment of its own national interests and is more connected to the fact that conservative political leaders like Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have been duped by Washington’s so-called “Japan Handlers” into seeing TPP as a strengthening of the U.S.-Japan military alliance.

Suto – Even if TPP has no economic merits for the Japanese economy, Prime Minister Abe would still want to join on alleged national security grounds. There are a lot of people in Japan who accept this reasoning all too easily. But I believe this is quite a dangerous way to approach this issue.

Penn – In the end, however, Suto believes that the TPP process will fail, first of all because it will prove impossible to match so many different kinds of economic systems in the Pacific region, but also because the United States itself will reject TPP when its full implications become clear to local leaders and to the general public.

Suto – What really surprises me about TPP, and I might add ISD as well, is that if TPP advances and is implemented it will destroy the American social system. Take as an example the United States’ federal system of government. Since its founding, the states had their power and formed “The United States of America.” But under the TPP regime the power of individual states would evaporate. Right now you have cases in which one state has the death penalty but the next doesn’t, or maybe this state here allows people to buy alcohol and the other doesn’t. TPP would take these kinds of powers out of the hands of state governments. You could have foreign liquor companies suing states that try to restrict sales of alcohol. Up until now, such a thing couldn’t happen, and quite naturally so. TPP would break down the United States’ own independent system.

So when it comes to TPP, I think you’ll see their own citizens’ groups rise up against it. And when the Americans themselves begin to figure out the strange things entailed by TPP, their own opposition will grow. And so, finally, I believe that it will not be enacted.

Penn – Some well-informed observers in Japan believe that TPP is so ambitious and its consequences would be so profound that it is likely to ultimately collapse under its own weight, even with the powerful political support it currently enjoys.

SEE ALSO

TPP: Corporate Power Tool of the 1%, excellent briefing published by Public Citizen, probably in 2012. Threats posed by TPP include: Power to corporations to attack nations; Threats to public health; Bye “Buy America” and jobs; Undermining food safety; Curtailing Internet freedom; and Banksters’ delight.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog, Citizen Action Monitor, may contain copyrighted material that may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I claim no ownership of such materials. Such material, published without profit, is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. It is published in accordance with the provisions of the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada ruling and its six principle criteria for evaluating fair dealing.

LANDMARK RULING – U.S. judge elevates rights of communities over those of corporations

Posted on April 2, 2013 by fjwhite

Community Bill of Rights liberates citizens to build economically and environmentally sustainable communities free from corporate interference

No 708 Posted by fw, April 02, 2013

“The ruling represents the first crack in the judicial armor that has been so meticulously welded together by major corporations. And it affirms what many communities already know – that change only occurs when people begin to openly question and challenge legal doctrines that have been treated as sacred by most lawyers and judges. It is that disobedience – of entire communities sitting at lunch counters demanding to be served – that is our only hope of salvation in a world increasingly commandeered by a small handful of corporate decision-makers intent on remaking the world as their own.” —Thomas Linzey

A Pennsylvania Judge Holds That Corporations Are Not “Persons” Under the Pennsylvania Constitution by Thomas Alan Linzey, CELDF Executive Director, March 28, 2013

A new Civil Rights Movement liberates our communities from corporate control.

To protect small and family farms from industrial factory farms, over a decade ago a handful of Pennsylvania townships picked a fight with some of the country’s largest agribusiness corporations. Recognizing that the state and federal government, rather than protecting them from factory farms, were in fact forcing them into communities, the townships took the unprecedented step of banning corporate farming within their borders.

Thus began the journey to spark a new civil rights movement – one aimed at elevating the right of communities over the “rights” of corporations to use communities for their own ends.

In a departure from the usual David and Goliath story, with one tiny community battling a giant corporation, today there are over 150 “Davids” in eight states that have followed the lead of those Pennsylvania townships. Community by community, they’ve banned corporate “fracking” for shale gas, factory farming, sludge dumping, large-scale water withdrawals, and industrial-scale energy projects.

But they’re not intent on simply stopping the immediate threat of fracking or factory farming. Rather, they’re adopting Community Bills of Rights that ban such projects as violations of the community’s right to a sustainable energy and farming future. And to protect those Bills of Rights, they are legislatively overturning a slew of corporate legal doctrines – like corporate “personhood” – that have been concocted over the past century to keep communities from interfering with corporate prerogatives.

These communities believe that if ten thousand other localities do the same, that those tremors will begin to shake loose a new system of law – a system in which courts and legislatures begin to elevate community rights above corporate rights, and thus, begin to liberate cities and towns to build economically and environmentally sustainable communities free from corporate interference.

Last week, a Pennsylvania county court gave this new movement a boost – declaring that corporations are not “persons” under the Pennsylvania Constitution, and therefore, that corporations cannot elevate their “private rights” above the rights of people.

The ruling was delivered in a case brought by several Western Pennsylvania newspapers which sought the release of a sealed settlement agreement between a family claiming to be affected by water contamination from gas fracking, and Range Resources – one of the largest gas extraction corporations in the state. Range Resources argued that unsealing the settlement agreement would violate the corporation’s constitutional right to privacy under the Pennsylvania Constitution.

In a landmark ruling, President Judge Debbie O’Dell-Seneca of the Washington County Court of Common Pleas denied the corporation’s request on the basis that the Pennsylvania Constitution only protects the rights of people, not business entities.

In the ruling, Judge O’Dell-Seneca declared that “in the absence of state law, business entities are nothing.” If corporations could claim rights independent from people, she asserted, then “the chattel would become the co-equal to its owners, the servant on par with its masters, the agent the peer of its principals, and the legal fabrication superior to the law that created and sustains it.”

She further found that “the constitution vests in business entities no special rights that the laws of this Commonwealth cannot extinguish. In sum, [corporations] cannot assert [constitutional privacy] protections because they are not mentioned in its text.”

Judge O’Dell-Seneca cited sections of the 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution in support of her contention that corporations were never intended to be constitutionally protected “persons.” She declared that “an even more dubious proposition is that the framers of the Constitution of 1776, given their egalitarian sympathies, would have concerned themselves with vesting, for the first time in history, indefeasible rights in such entities. . . that language extends only to natural persons.”

Finally, she tackled the very nature of corporations by declaring that “it is axiomatic that corporations, companies, and partnerships have no ‘spiritual nature,’ ‘feelings,’ ‘intellect,’ ‘beliefs,’ ‘thoughts,’ ‘emotions,’ or ‘sensations,’ because they do not exist in the manner that humankind exists. . . They cannot be ‘let alone’ by government, because businesses are but grapes, ripe upon the vine of the law, that the people of this Commonwealth raise, tend, and prune at their pleasure and need.”

The court records unsealed by the ruling reveal that Range Resources, and the other corporations which were the subject of the complaint, paid out $750,000 to settle claims of water contamination caused by fracking.

The ruling represents the first crack in the judicial armor that has been so meticulously welded together by major corporations. And it affirms what many communities already know – that change only occurs when people begin to openly question and challenge legal doctrines that have been treated as sacred by most lawyers and judges.

It is that disobedience – of entire communities sitting at lunch counters demanding to be served – that is our only hope of salvation in a world increasingly commandeered by a small handful of corporate decision-makers intent on remaking the world as their own.

A revolution that subordinates the powers and rights of corporations to the rights of people and nature now waits in the wings. Perhaps now, we’re ready to move it to center stage.