Nate Aspenson's blog

Less than a year is left until the 2012 national election, and nonbelievers in democracy are taking no chances. Right now, North Carolina is one of twenty-one states that have passed or are trying to pass legislation to close the early voting period. Many in the NC General Assembly are still trying to pass a bill that would add North Carolina to the auspicious list of states that require a voter ID to combat nonexistent voter fraud. In every state where this legislation is present, the goal is the same: to make voting more difficult.

There's a cautionary tale to be seen in Wisconsin these days under governor Scott Walker. We all remember when he gained national notoriety for both trying to dissolve government worker's unions and tipping his hand that he was doing so at the behest of the Koch brothers. More recently, he signed into law a voter ID bill nearly identical to the one NC Republicans are currently trying to pass here in the old north state. There, like here, they have little to no problems with voter fraud, making the measure a transparent move to reduce voter turnout.

Having been pushed back on the voter ID bill, the NC general assembly recently slashed a week off of early voting time. If we're not careful, what's happening in Wisconsin could happen here. Where they have the Koch brothers, we have Art Pope. Unless we are vigilant, our democracy can and will be dismantled and sold, piece by piece.

For those citizens of North Carolina who live outside the radius served by the Independent Weekly, they recently published an excellent article about House Bill 129. The innocently titled "level the playing field" bill is a Civitas/AFP-backed agenda item to prevent local governments from establishing their own municipal broadband service and thereby compete with the big telecom companies. The same companies who currently enjoy big tax breaks to bring us overpriced broadband services that still ranks among the slowest in the developed world.

In the past few days, while painstakingly filling out my 1040A and D-400's and hearing what seems like non-stop rhetoric about sacrifice and reducing the deficit, I've found it very hard to conceal my rage and disgust at the corporations who have found a way to avoid paying taxes altogether. Though we've long been aware that businesses spend horrific amounts on lobbying to congress to get them to create loopholes and shelters, to then have congress turn around and rail against federal spending is nothing short of insulting. For weeks my senses have been inundated with bluster from capitol hill demanding that social programs and unions be sacrificed to feed the monster of our national debt.

Evidence continues to accumulate that our democracy in this country is not only for sale, but comes at a reasonable price. Recent news has called into question the integrity of the highest court in the land, as we find out that years before the supreme court's Citizens United Decision that was supported by justices Thomas and Scalia, Citizens United spent $100,000 to support Thomas' nomination to the supreme court. You may recall the Citizens United decision as the one allowing unlimited anonymous corporate donations to political campaigns.

Your average petty criminal gets a pretty bad rap, all things considered. At first glance your burglars, muggers, and other varieties of thieves appear to be among the lowest of the low that society has to offer, but compared to those who are gradually pilfering the most important parts of our democracy, you begin to see the first group of lowlifes in a new light. For example, most burglars will wait until you’re away to steal all of your worldly possessions. They know, as do we, that if they were to appear in broad daylight while we were at home, they would be caught and subjected to whatever punishment the law handed down. That small act of waiting until your back is turned to rob you blind seems like a measure of respect compared to the electoral shenanigans of North Carolina’s own Art Pope.

In the most recent tiding of our backslide to oligarchy, it has been revealed that some politicians are dealing with the ever-mounting cost of running political campaigns by augmenting their war chest with their own vast fortunes. As more and more self-financed candidates crop up in numerous elections, the fragile illusion that any citizen with the will to represent their peers and enough popular support can win office is in danger of being shattered. Without some measure of reaction to restore our democracy, there is little that can be done to protect us from the formation of a ruling class. If we truly live in a democracy, then the opportunity to run for office should be available to anyone.

From Democracy NC's link of the day

It seems every day we lose a little more ground in the backslide to oligarchy. Already the Supreme Court has ruled that any entity with enough money can buy all the free speech they want to, effectively converting money into rights. The recent ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals put another stamp of approval on that transaction. Ask yourselves, all of you, if money is the equivalent of constitutionally protected speech, how could your rights possibly be equal to those of Wal-Mart? Or Exxon Mobil? Or GE? At this rate it looks like there will come a day in the not-too-distant future when corporations and the exceptionally rich are the true citizens of the United States, and the rest of us merely serfs in their magnanimous employ.

I experienced what I like to think of as a "Howard Dean moment" yesterday at the North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections lobby day. As some of you might remember, then-governor Dean famously destroyed his presidential ambitions with one frenzied exclamation (we should all have such passion for government), and I confess I felt a similar surge of enthusiasm yesterday at our state's capital. Professor Larry Lessig delivered what has to be one of the most important presentations of our time, touching on three of the most critical issues facing our country today. I'll spare you the details, but the part of the presentation that really struck me was this message: connect the dots.

Here in the United States of America, less than one percent of the population controls ten percent of the wealth. This is a figure that many have no doubt heard before, but it takes on new meaning in the era of corporations' rights that we now live in. In this new era, money changing hands is no different than conveying thoughts and feelings through articulate sounds in the eyes of the supreme court, both are equally protected by the first amendment. This shift in the basic nature of reality is dangerous because, by its very nature, the decision affords more rights to the moneyed and well-connected and diminishes the rights of those who are not. Post Citizens United, less than one percent of the population controls ten percent of the free protected speech in this country, and the balance is further skewed by the inclusion of corporations and interest groups into the equation.