Breaking the grip

(It occurs to me that I should reference the essays that lead into this one. If you haven't already read them, I would recommend that you go first to The Stonemason and the Gunman, then Hyperscopic life, and then Sharing the bottle.)

In my last essay on hyperscopic life I wrote about the importance of law in the physiology of the corporation. It is the sinew that holds together the physical assets of a corporation, the DNA that defines its structure, and the set of boundaries that restrict its actions. The problem we face is that corporations presently have overwhelming influence in making the laws that define and restrict them. Given the blind pursuit of growth and profit that characterizes corporations, it is akin to letting crack dealers and addicts write drug laws.

The influence of corporations over lawmaking is threefold. First, corporations and their highly paid managers provide most of the money to an electoral system that has been designed to require large infusions of private cash. This acts as a filtration system, mostly eliminating those aspirants to office who might be threats to corporate interests. (See my earlier essay, First Things First) Second, corporations provide selected information to these preselected officials through a system of lobbyists. The services of these lobbyists are expensive, thus giving the most access to the minds of government officials to those entities with large lobbying budgets. (See my earlier essay, Second Things Second) Third, most informational outlets in this country have been consolidated under the ownership of five corporate conglomerates, some of which have extensive business interests outside of the news business. Most U.S. citizens receive their information about the world and government policy through a corporate-controlled filter. As a result, much of the information truly necessary for making informed political decisions never makes its way to your average American.

This is a powerful, interlocking triple threat. The question that confronts us is how to break the corporate grip over corporate law and wrestle that power back into the hands of the majority of human beings in this country. There is a reason I titled me essay on campaign finance reform “First Things First.” Media consolidation is a problem of law that is not resolvable while media conglomerates have such influence over legislation. Lobbying reform likewise. That brings us to the catch-22 of campaign finance law. Money is the lifeblood of political campaigns, and the ability to bring the largest quantity of money to a campaign is the determining factor, nine times out of ten.

So how can we convince those selected by the big money system to abandon the big money system? It is going to have to be analogous to the civil rights movement. It will be easier, in a way, because we'll have 99.9% of Americans naturally on our side of the line, instead of being partially split on racial lines. The movement will have some necessary characteristics.

It will have to be a movement outside the two party system and the legislative system, but bringing pressure to bear inside the system. It does not have to run its own candidates for office, but it will have to review and approve or disapprove of party candidates according to its principles. The pressure mechanisms will be the bundling of votes and, to a lesser extent, money. Despite all, they still need our votes to get elected. We need to organize a voting bloc dedicated to getting the money out of politics. It might take the form of a pledge by individual voters to exclude from consideration any candidate who fails to make campaign finance reform a priority. At the same time, we can influence some campaigns by bundling our small donations into large ones dedicated to reform candidates.

It will have to do most of its communications and outreach outside the usual news media system. The movement can expect to be ignored, misinterpreted, belittled, or savaged by the mainstream news media. Thankfully, we still have a relatively free internet. Since this is not a movement of the wealthy, all communications methodologies will have to pass the cheapness test.

It will have to be decentralized, but linked by common principle. National movements with charismatic national leaders are vulnerable to intimidation, assassination, and co-option. They also tend to waste a lot of time on internal politics and a lot of money on national infrastructure. (The present national parties are more money vending machines than associations based on shared principles.) The movement I am proposing would have a few fundamental principles about electoral reform, honest practices, and non-violence carved in stone, and that's it. If you agree with and practice the principles, you're in. All other belief systems are optional. I could see an association of state or sub-state organizations cooperating on whatever levels work for a particular project.

The methodologies used by the movement would have to be non-demanding in terms of the time and money of individuals. Everybody seems to be working extra hours for less money these days. Driving long distances to rallies is out. Long weekday evening meetings are out. Buying TV airtime (see above) is out. The movement needs to lay out strategies at the beginning, make them adaptable to local conditions, and provide them in an easy to use format to interested people. The movement needs to have a learning mechanism built in to modify strategies as it runs up against obstacles.

In actuality, we would be creating a dispersed hyperscopic political organism. It would be designed to spread its democratic, egalitarian genes. It would operate in the environments in between those dominated by corporate media and corporate politics. Most importantly, it would be focused like a laser beam on the means by which we select our political representatives.

Anybody can lie on a bed of nails, but nobody can lie on a bed of one nail. The physics behind the bed of nails trick is that the performer's weight is distributed over hundreds of nails. No one nail exerts enough pressure to do damage. So it is with politics. A flurry of effort on a flock of issues is like firing a cannon full of feathers.

People who are dissatisfied with the way decisions are made in Washington need to focus on how the decision makers are chosen. If we can change that, then we can focus on how the decision makers are influenced, both in terms of lobbying and news media. Then, and only then, can we have a chance of curing the other ills of society. I propose an acronym for ending political squabbles withing the movement: A.C.E., meaning (We'll fight that one out) After Clean Elections.

I have to admit that I am taken aback by what I am proposing. It is nothing less than an inter-species war for power. The concept of hyperscopic life is probably tough enough for people to accept all by itself. Add to that the concept that we have to engage in mortal combat with this species within which we live, whose existence we didn't even consider, and that we can't directly perceive. It is, however, necessary for homo sapiens to gain dominance over the corporate species if we are to survive.