Money Doesn't Talk, Part 2: The Pope of North Carolina

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." --Justice Louis Brandeis

"While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."--Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissenting opinion to Citizens United

"Money doesn't talk, it swears."--Bob Dylan

 Kudos to Rachel and her gang for talking about this New Yorker article by Jane Mayer that documents in chilling detail how one Rabid Right Richy took over the state government of North Carolina in 2010, and is busy making it very difficult for people to vote who are in categories that normally vote Democratic, and therefore trying to make it impossible for President Obama to win the state again in 2012.  It's happening elsewhere as well, but here we have a compelling narrative of exactly how.

The specific story is about how Art Pope spent a lot of money, sometimes openly as contributions to candidates but more often secretly through various dummy groups, to buy the state legislature.   He succeeded. 

Art Pope is the Koch Brothers writ small, including those deadly ironies.  Like the Kochheads who make their money by destroying the climate conditions for human civilization and life as we know it on planet Earth,  Art Pope makes his bucks with discount stores that in various ways exploit the lower middle class he is out to further betray.

The contextual story is the instant exploitation of a Supreme Court decision to subvert democracy in multiple ways, and to institute corruption that leads only to virtual totalitarian rule.   Mayer quotes Bob Phillips, head of North Carolina Common Cause:

Phillips argues that the Court’s decision, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, has been a “game changer,” especially in the realm of state politics. In swing states like North Carolina—which the Democrats consider so important that they have scheduled their 2012 National Convention there—an individual donor, particularly one with access to corporate funds, can play a significant, and sometimes decisive, role. “We didn’t have that before 2010,” Phillips says. “Citizens United opened up the door. Now a candidate can literally be outspent by independent groups. We saw it in North Carolina, and a lot of the money was traced back to Art Pope.”

The article describes how much of the money was spent--on  tabloid TV lurid lies and other sensationalistic misrepresentations of candidates Pope opposed.  He and his minions didn't just oppose them, they assassinated them politically and in personal character.  Here's more of the supposed Christian approach to politics.  In this, the Pope of North Carolina is also not unique.  This unholy alliance of major money and the dominationist Rabid Right and their cynical strategies and self-righteous unethical tactics is becoming characteristic.  It is being used not just in high profile national or state or congressional races, but in every possible state legislature election, at least in particular states for the moment.  Millions of dollars spent for state legislatures.  Nobody should be blindsided by this in 2012.  It's here now.