Hightower Lowdown

Despite a constant racket from the forces of the far-out right (Fox television's yackety-yackers, just-say-no GOP know-nothings, tea-bag howlers, Sarah Palinistas, et al.), the great majority of Americans support a bold progressive agenda for our country, ranging from Medicare for all to the decentralization and re-regulation of Wall Street. Indeed, in the elections of 2006 and 2008, people voted for a fundamental break from Washington's 30-year push to enthrone a corporate kleptocracy.

Yet the economic and political thievery continues, as the White House, Congress, both parties, the courts, the media, much of academia, and other national institutions that shape our public policies reflexively shy away from any structural change. Instead, the first instinct of these entities is to soothe the fevered brow of corporate power by insisting that corporate primacy be the starting point of any "reform." Thus, when Washington began its widely ballyhooed effort last year to reform our health-care system, step number one was to announce publicly that the monopolistic, bureaucratic insurance behemoths that cost us so much and deliver so little would retain their controlling position in the structure. Likewise, Wall Street barons who crashed America's financial system were allowed to oversee the system's remake--and (Big Surprise!) the same top-heavy structure and shaky practices that caused the crash are being kept in place.

In other words, the foxes who ate the chickens keep being put in charge of designing the new hen house--so nothing really changes.

This is more than frustrating, it's infuriating --and it's debilitating for our democracy. As a fellow said to me about the lack of real changes in national policy during the Clinton presidency, "I don't mind losing when we lose, but I hate losing when we win."

Why does this keep happening to us, and who's doing it? It's not merely a matter of too many fickle and pusillanimous politicians--they're the on-stage actors in this drama, but not the producers, not the ones behind the scenes plotting to thwart the people's democratic will. Who, specifically, are these plotters, and how do they impose their narrow agenda of self-interest over the public interest?

These crucial questions for our democratic republic are the focus of this Lowdown, and they'll be a recurring topic in future issues. After all, to achieve genuine grassroots power, we have to know the full dimensions of the plutocratic powers we're up against. Most Americans are totally unaware of these interests, which have attained a dangerous reach by quietly embedding themselves (and their self-centered worldview) much more deeply in our society's governing institutions than they want us to realize. So let's take a peek at them, beginning with a look at the intricate web of power woven by a huge corporation you've probably never heard of, even though your consumer dollars are financing its right-wing political agenda. [ read more ]

At his 2005 hearing to be confirmed as chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts had to convince some skeptical senators that he would not be merely a judicial shill for the corporate powers he had long served in both private practice and government work. To get over this hump, the dapper and affable Roberts charmed senators (as well as the media) with a comforting, homespun baseball analogy:"Judges are like umpires," he softly assured the committee. "Umpires don't make the rules. They apply them. The role of an umpire and judge is critical. They make sure everyone plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire."

Boffo performance! This son of a corporate executive, this disciple of (and former clerk for) right-wing Justice William Rehnquist, this faithful Republican who served on George W's legal team that wrested Florida and the presidency away from Al Gore in 2000, this Washington lawyer who made more than $1 million a year representing corporations--Roberts won confirmation by convincing 22 uneasy Democratic senators that he would be an unbiased umpire, not a judicial activist for his former clients. His tenure on the court, he said plainly, would be marked by "modesty and humility."

He lied. In his four years as chief, Roberts has consistently, unabashedly, and rather ruthlessly championed the corporate position over aggrieved workers, the environment, taxpayers, and others. Along the way, he has not been hesitant to make law from the bench. For example, he sided with Goodyear Tire in the infamous 2007 ruling against Lilly Ledbetter. From 1979 to 1998, she was the only woman serving as a plant supervisor at a Goodyear factory in Alabama. Only at the end of her career did Ms. Ledbetter learn that she had routinely been paid as much as 40% less than her male counterparts. So, in 1998, she filed an anti-discrimination lawsuit, which finally made its way to the Supremes. There, in an absurd rewriting of the law and a blatant rejection of legal precedent, Roberts joined four other justices to rule that she had no valid claim because she had not filed suit within 180 days of first suffering the discrimination--even though she didn't know about the pay disparity for 20 years!

In a time when the public has been making clear its disdain for corporate avarice, arrogance, and abuse--and its desire to rein in the ferocious power of these behemoths--Roberts has crafted a slim majority of the nine justices (usually this is himself, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito) to go 180 degrees in the other direction. These five men have quietly turned our judicial branch of government into an activist, antidemocratic force for expanding the reach of corporate elites over the rest of us. [Interesting non sequitur about Scalia and Alito: Irreverent songwriter Randy Newman asked an intriguing question: How is it that the only two tight-assed Italians in America both ended up on the Supreme Court?] [ read more ]