Stop Spewman

There's more at the Stop Spewman website. This isn't just humor. It has a point. As they describe it:

Nathan Spewman and Bethany are funny, fictional characters, but the growing dominance of the American political process by big corporations and the super-wealthy is real. These special interests are making a brazen attempt to buy our elections, and the Chamber of Commerce is leading the way. They’ve already aired more than 8,000 television ads and have pledged to spend a record-breaking $75 million dollars from sources they won’t disclose, including foreign corporations and governments.

The chamber and other powerful forces are unleashing this torrent of money to spread lies about the new health care law and other progressive issues. Much of the money is sent to shadowy organizations and front groups like American Crossroads (a corporate political cash machine masterminded by Karl Rove), and 60 Plus, which has launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign of lies about Medicare to scare seniors. That’s why Health Care for America Now asked 83 TV stations around the country to take the 60 Plus ads off the air.

Thanks to recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, there is no longer anything to stop foreign powers, terrorist groups, big corporations or any other people with bad intent from secretly undermining the integrity of our elections by contributing to the Chamber of Commerce and these front groups.

News reports make it clear that the river of mystery money is rising as never before because of funding from corporate interests and a small number of millionaires and billionaires. For example, Rove’s Crossroads group in August collected 91 percent of its funding from two billionaires and a company owned by a third billionaire. Meanwhile, the Chamber of Commerce is hauling in money from foreign governments and corporations. These forces are engineering a hostile takeover of America. That’s why we’re fighting back.

The Nathan Spewman videos joke about the well-organized and lavishly funded mythmaking machinery trying to bend our elections to repeal the new health care law and increase corporate power. The links below give some of the facts:

• HCAN: facts about the new law – the truth
• The HealthCare.gov website contains valuable information about what is happening with health reform.
• The nonpartisan FactCheck.org review of 60 Plus advertising.
• The independent fundraising gold rush that was enabled by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
• The Chicago Tribune coverage of the health insurance industry’s campaign contributions to undermine the new health care law.
• Coverage of the huge imbalance in fundraising between the two political parties by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show

OK, I really doubt that terrorists are funding the Chamber of Commerce, but the point is that we don't know where anonymous money comes from. And corporations are multinational. You may well be a part owner of these corporations yourself - through mutual funds in your IRA, for example - but without any control at all. But the managers of these corporations, and stockholders with big stakes in the companies, control even more than what they own.

For example, the second-largest shareholder in News Corp., the parent company of Fox "News," is a Saudi Arabian sheik. He has a lot of influence there (Fox has been quite careful not to criticize him, even as they rail about other Muslims supporting the so-called - erroneously - "Ground Zero Mosque"). So when they give $1 million to the Republican Party and another $1 million to the Chamber of Commerce to lobby Republican positions, whose interests are being promoted? Well, Big Oil, for one. Is it just a coincidence that these are Saudi Arabia's interests, too?

Thanks to GOP policies in the Bush administration, billionaires have made out like bandits in recent years, while the middle class has barely kept its head above water. So these billionaires are taking some of that windfall - not even their personal money, often enough, but from corporate coffers they control - and funneling it back into the political process to elect more right-wing politicians who'll grant them even more benefits - tax cuts specifically designed to benefit the wealthy, deregulation and exemption from pollution-control, health, and safety standards, corporate welfare, and much more.

The goal, of course, is more money for them. It's basically an investment in personal greed. And with the Supreme Court in their pockets, they don't even have to use their own money. All this can be kept a secret, since front organizations don't have to disclose the names of their donors anymore. It's control behind the scenes by shadowy figures with unknown intentions. Sounds like a movie, doesn't it? It might be entertaining if it were just fiction. But is this actually what we want in real life?

Furthermore, where does this "river of money" flow? It's being spent on advertising, the lifeblood of our media - yes, the same media we rely on for information about what's going on. Newspapers, radio stations, television networks - none of these want this flood of money to go away. OK, it might be terribly damaging to our nation,... but it's money flowing into their pockets. It's really hard to resist that kind of seduction.

So is the media going to hammer hard on the dangers of this? Will they emphasize the problems inherent in a system that funnels vast sums of money to them? It's doubtful. Some will, perhaps. But most will direct their outrage elsewhere. Most will convince themselves that money benefiting their own bottom-line can't be all bad. Some may even convince themselves that this is a good thing. After all, none of us want to believe that we're greedy bastards who can be bribed this easily. To keep the money flowing and to feel good about it, they just have to convince themselves that the right-wing lunatics are right.

Fox "News" has already showed us what happens when the media stop reporting the news and start propagandizing a particular political stance. Sure, some people will always recognize their lies. But the vast majority of their viewers will assume that they're telling the truth. Many won't realize that the media can lie like this. Others will believe it because they want to believe it. If they hear the other side, too, they might have a chance to make an informed judgment. But what if all of the media has a vested interest in receiving this flood of money?

Be sure to check out Part 2 of this humorous video, either at the Stop Spewman website or at YouTube. It's even funnier than the first.