Is it really either/or? The belief that â€government is the problem†is, I believe, a huge part of this as well, since it provides philosophical cover for what would otherwise be just a criminal conspiracy.

â€Even the Democrats are reluctant to dismantle.†GMAFB. Lyndon Johnson — way back when he was a congressional aide — helped develop this approach to politics. Willie Brown perfected it in the California Legislature. As Big Daddy Jesse Unruh (a Democrat) once said, â€Money is the mothers milk of politics.â€

In many ways, the Republican ascendence circa 1980 came because Republicans had learned the lessons Democrats had taught them — grassroots politics, collecting small donations. When Republicans finally got power in 1980, further Democratic lessons were learned — trading legislative and regulatory favors for donations, using government to fund activist groups that are foundations of the ruling coalition. For Democrats it was unions; for Republicans it was the churches. For both parties it was defense contractors, companies that made money through resource extraction, and companies that wanted a race to the bottom via international free-trade (but who wanted (and got) restrictions on trade in intellectual property).

Let’s give credit where it’s due. Democrats oversaw development of the modern adaptive capitalist state. And the corrupt ways the oligarchy managed to keep and increase its power were developed while Roosevelt and Truman were in office.

This give us an understanding of how difficult it will be to actually reform American politics to make it more democratic and less oligarchic.

Simply electing more Democrats will only usher in the Night of the Living Gray Davises. That may be a first step toward a less corrupt progressive politics, or maybe not. In California it certainly wasn’t. Somehow we need to drive a stake through the heart of our corrupt bi-partisan corrupt zombie politics. Social revolution is not a hot topic in the â€left†blogosphere these days, but there you have it. David Sirota harps on this all the time.

This type of behavior trickles down from the top and pervades all of society. We are becoming a rude, cheating nation because the bully pulpit is a rude, cheating asshole.

We are our leaders. Shame. Let’s change that before it is too late.

Fine post, EW. It always comes back to legal corruption, whichever party. That is, corruption is the system. (Modern Republicans are, as is their wont, simply more matter of fact about it, freeing them to be as systemic as they are.) I don’t take a (dem) pres. candidate seriously unless they grasp the centrality of this problem, which is one reason -a big one – I support Edwards, despite finding Obama very appealing. As several states have demonstrated, it is possible to really reform political finance, notwithstanding Buckley v Valejo, etc. I’m disgusted, but not surprised, by the House dems on this. Sniff around the career of, for example, Rahm E. if you have illusions about dems.

Kaleidescope is right, this is totally embedded in the system. That is one of the things that makes sites like the BlueAmerica ActBlue bloggers so important. They help raise money from people who don’t want favors, for candidates who we hope will be free to support good policies just on the merits. If we want change, we have to be ready to pay for it on the front end, in the hopes that we can in the medium term change the system.

Bmaz, I made an inquiry into the matter we e-mailed about, and I didn’t get much useful. I will continue to look.

masaccio – Good to see you; tried to catch you on an FDL thread a few days back, but I think you had already left by the time I got there. Your findings mirror mine for the most part and, you know, that is actually a good thing. I am sure there is probably a little gaming of the Trustee stuff going on, but there probably always is. As long as it hasn’t been turned into a new full scale front of attack by the Administration, I am pleasantly surprised. When I first saw that stuff here in the comment thread, a pain in my gut appeared because that is exactly the insidious type of thing these guys would implement. Again, thanks much for your input.

okay — if the governing thesis of
this administration is â€take whatever
you can — give nuthin’ back†[apologies
for insulting pirates the world over, with this
reference, CAPTAIN jack, commadore barbosa, and
tia dalma most definitely included. . .], then
i do think it differs from watergate.

i agree, EW, watergate was a unified, mostly
organized, conspiracy. . . while this adminis-
tration’s philosophy was unitentionally summed
up by dick cheney on friday, when he said in
a pre-canned ’press-interview’, posted on the
whitehouse.gov site that he and george bush
â€did not run for these offices to be popular. . .â€

while i think he meant to infer that they
were doing the hard things. . . it does strike me
that when almost three-quarters of the nation
decides their policies are failing us — â€unpopularâ€
isn’t what the polls are about, at all. it
doesn’t begin to cover it. . .

he and bush govern by our consent only.

if only 28 percent of us are presently
consenting to their brand of governance. . .

what ought we now do?

i am just wondering, here — cheney seems
to fundamentally believe the will of the
people is something to blithely ignore. . .

okay — need to lie down again. . .

If the Democrats don’t disavow the Bush style of corruption and non-disclosure, they can forget ’08.

But let’s tell remind ’em, anyway.

We have a much larger goal ahead because of the inability of the established Democratic leadership — those that have been in office for more than two terms — to use the bully pulpit of their newly regained majority to demand the removal of money from politics.

Once the current administration and all its potential heirs and assigns have been removed in January 2009, we need to set about redeveloping a third party that will serve to dilute the power of the other two. There must be room for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party that can peel away voters from both Repugs and Dems alike. That third party must promote as a fundamental portion of its platform public funding of elections and a rejection of the premise that money is equal to speech. These Pioneers were able to buy access, which in turn entitled them to â€indulgencesâ€; we must find a way to rouse the lower deciles against this violation of their rights, even if it means setting them on both parties at a point in the not-too-distant future.

Perhaps what we are looking at is not so much a quasi-monarchy and corrupt duchies, but a new Church of Bush and all the wealthy sinners who have so far been able to buy forgiveness by way of a corrupted Justice Department and judiciary. Too bad for those whose grasp exceeded the ability of a purchased indulgence to ensure their continued success…

EW, too much is probably made of a Bu$hCo governing philosophy.

Review those Bu$hCo Pioneers; those funders IIRC are primarily from extractive industries whose main financial incentive is to control regulatory mechanisms within industries that rely on natural resources (think Enron). Their thought process is constrained by assumptions that all key resources are limited. (I’ve been in long, long meetings with people of this ilk and for them ’politics’ is primarily an ECONOMIC activity. They have almost no mental constructs for concepts like ’the public good’. They view their ’public service’ as doling out paychecks.)

I’ve seen them buy Democrats as cheaply as they buy Republicans. They keep their names out of the news, and they contribute scads of money via PACs.

In their worldview, ’politics’ is primarily about controlling politicians, regulations, laws, accounting rules, and limited resources in their own hands.

Just to state what I hope is the obvious: it’s a mistake to equate what 20th century dems and repubs have done in terms of corruption. Democratic corruption has tended to be more petty, or at the very least, more benign. LBJ was stupendously corrupt, but he got the Voting Rights Act, and Medicare, and Head Start, etc. If ’corruption’ is defined strictly as what happens to be illegal at any particular time, then we have a very shallow – and ultimately meaningless – definition. The Bush ’administration’ is corrupt in a more fundamental sense of the word. It’s certainly true that dem corruption can be seen as having enabled the gop type, but it must be admitted that our corporate overlords would use some other excuse if this one were not available. That is: if every past Democrat in history were absolutely goo-goo clean, the current GOP would still do, or try to do, exactly what they’re doing now. So I guess I part with Marcy (and maybe myself earlier) to some extent: the grotesque and shameful role cold cash plays in our politics – grandfathered in, ridiculously unworthy of a great, modern country – is a central problem which urgently needs to be addressed, and the rules have to change for everyone. But it’s a seperate issue from outright fascism, which always has its own reasons. Or rather, ’reason’ is beside the point.

we know it is no accident.