Shana Pearlman, author of The Palin Effect: Money, Sex and Class in the New American Politics, doesn't want government to be awarded to the highest bidder. In order to avoid that happening, we must demand better.
Last week, in compliance with the Federal Election Committee, the Obama campaign revealed its Q1 fundraisers. Among the top bundlers, raising more than $500,000, was Jon Corzine, the former governor and senator from New Jersey, former head of Goldman Sachs, and currently under federal and congressional investigation because of the disappearance of more than a billion dollars of client funds while he was chief executive at collapsed financial firm MF Global.
Corzine is being investigated by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department because of the missing funds; Corzine has testified before Congress that he doesn’t know where the missing money is, but a witness has testified that indeed Corzine was aware that MF Global illegally transferred client money to cover the company’s debts.
The investigations are ongoing, and will no doubt take some time to untangle. But it is utterly extraordinary that Corzine is still allowed to fundraise for the Obama administration while that same administration is investigating him for wrongdoing. It is a profound conflict of interest. Corzine is a very successful fundraiser; will the Justice Department and the SEC find themselves under pressure from Obama’s campaign to go easy on the former financier because he kept the dollars rolling in? Corzine is raising money from the very people who the SEC and Justice Department are regulating; what is he promising them? What have they promised him if he delivers the money? Allowing Corzine to fundraise for an administration that is investigating him is corrupt, and it is wrong.
If you’re wondering why the bankers get away with all the money while the rest of the world is plunged in worldwide recession, this is why; bankers bankroll the organisations that are meant to hold them accountable, which means they are able to get away with just about anything. I have a lawyer friend who often says that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done. If we are going to let the government regulate healthcare, food production, energy, and more, we must be able to trust that it will regulate wrongdoers and look out for our best interests. We’ve seen that the Obama administration has given preferential treatment to its donors already; with big donors getting more access, more federal funds, and even escaping federal prosecution despite violating federal rules, this kind of crony capitalism means that it’s the people with money and connections who benefit from federal largesse, whereas the rest of us are left out in the cold. It’s corrupt, it’s immoral, Obama told us he wasn’t going to conduct business in Washington this way, and it was a lie.
So I can hear you ask, “What do I do? You want me to support Romney, he’s crazy and I would never vote Republican!” I’m sorry, but that’s weak. That’s a copout. If not voting Republican is your excuse for putting up with corruption and poor governance, then you are part of the problem. If you care about corporatism, if you care about not making this government by and for the rich, if you want to avoid American plutocracy, then you have to let your government, even if it’s populated by adorable Democrats that you once loved, know that this is not acceptable behaviour. You have to make them listen to you, like the Republicans now have to listen to the Tea Party.
The incredible price of running a Presidential election has poisoned American politics to the point that any administration cannot be trusted to regulate American industry as it needs those dollars to win. That’s not a position we want our government to be in. The intellectual leaders of Occupy Wall Street, like Matt Renner of Truthout, have done some serious thinking about how to decouple politics from corporate money; it’s time for all of us who want government to function for us, not against us, to start taking these ideas seriously.
I know it’s not easy to accept that the people for whom we all had such affection 3 years ago could betray the principles they ran on. But if we don’t want government to go to the highest bidder, we have to demand more of our leaders, whoever they are. I’m an optimist; I believe that if we work to get better government, we will get it. But we have to do the work first.