Democracy

Wisconsin Protests, Thursday, February 17, 2011

Kill the bill! So easy a caveman can do it! Or a gorilla!9:30 p.m. - IN THREE WORDS: DECEPTIVE, DISHONEST, DESTRUCTIVE

Mary Bottari: Outside the capitol, I bumped into UW Professor (Law, Political Science, Sociology, Public Affairs) Joel Rogers and asked him to explain the budget number to me. The national media can't seem to decide if Wisconsin has a budget deficit or not, or whether $30 million in concessions being demanded from workers is significant or not. Rogers explained that the $3.5 billion shortfall projected over the next biennium is about half what the one projected last time, which Wisconsin survived, and that $30 million was both trivial and dwarfed by new concessions unions had already offered to make. Says Rogers, "you just can't make sense of this as a deficit reduction strategy. It's a political strategy. Destroy public sector unions and you destroy the campaign organization of your opposition, Democrats. Of course he won't ever just say this." Rogers thinks the budget repair bill is "in three words: deceptive, dishonest, destructive. Deceptive because its not what people elected him to do. He's got no mandate to take away worker rights. Dishonest because unions are really not the source of our budget problems. A lousy national economy is, and unions are anxious to work with him in surviving in it. They're really not the problem, but can be part of the solution. And it's destructive because their help is needed. Nothing is gain by blowing up a 50 year tradition of public sector collective bargaining that was born in Wisconsin and gives a lot of people a great deal of civic pride."

Wisconsin Protests, Wednesday, February 16, 2011

I Miss Tommy Thompson!10:10 p.m. - GOOD OLE DAYS

Mary Bottari reports that another protestor says she yearns for the good old days when republicans were somewhat reasonable.

10:00 p.m. - WEAC INVITES TEACHERS AND CITIZENS TO CAPITOL

Wisconsin's largest teacher's union, Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), announced that its 98,000 teachers and citizens across the state are invited to the state capitol tomorrow to visit their state legislators. This means that schools across the state will be closed. Check your local TV listings for news on your local school district. Madison Schools are closed.

The Day Egypt Disappeared

On February 11, 2011, after 30 years of dictatorship, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak announced he was stepping down. As ancient pharaohs slumbered inside, a crowd of over a million surrounded the rose-colored Cairo Museum setting off fireworks and jumping for joy as they peacefully forced a modern pharaoh to flee. This hopeful moment will be studied for years, and no topic will be more hotly debated than the role of social media in the uprising.

Egyptian Protests Expose Fraudulent U.S. "Spreading Democracy" Meme

The Egyptian people have exposed the great myth that prevails in the sphere of United States' foreign policy, namely that U.S. foreign policy elites are concerned with "spreading democracy."

That is because, as Hampshire College's Michael Klare has written, since 1945, the United States has maintained a foreign policy that is centered around "blood and oil." The foreign policy establishment often uses "democracy spreading" as a public relations platitude because it sounds much better than saying, "We went to war for oil." But caring about democracy goes out the window when one truly scrutinizes U.S. foreign policy through a critical lens. Sourcewatch calls this phenomenon Big Oil, Big Lies.

Effort Afoot in Vermont to Abolish Corporate Personhood

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Vermont mapOne year after the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case that corporations have the same rights as people, movements are underway around the U.S. to reverse the new protections granted by the country's highest court. Vermont State Senator Virginia Lyons has introduced the country's first anti-corporate personhood resolution which proposes amending the U.S. Constitution to specify that "corporations are not persons under the laws of the United States." The resolution would make it clear that corporations are not the equivalent of human beings and do not have the same constitutional rights afforded people.

No
Main Source: 
AlterNet, January 22, 2011
Topics: 
Activism
Corporations
Democracy

CMD Appears at People's Summit in Washington D.C.

Submitted by Anne Landman on

LisaCSPANThe Center for Media and Democracy's Executive Director Lisa Graves appeared at "The People's Summit," a public affairs event held in Washington, D.C. January 21 to discuss the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The landmark ruling, which is one year old this month, was achieved on a divided 5-4 vote and overturned a century of previous court rulings that held that corporate political donations can, and should be regulated. The decision effectively equated money with speech, and protects corporate speech the same way the law protects individual speech. Other panelists discussing the impact of the law included Marge Baker, Executive Vice President for Policy and Program Planning for People for the American Way, Douglas Clopp, Deputy Director for Programs for Common Cause, and Craig Holman, Legislative Representative for Public Citizen's Congress Watch. The panel session, which was broadcast on CSPAN, was held to highlight the effects of money in politics and the rise of corporate power in our democracy. Video of the 1 hour, 17 minute panel discussion is available here.

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Main Source: 
CSPAN Video Library, January 21, 2011
Topics: 
Corporations
Democracy
U.S. Government

"How Everybody Exists" Doesn’t Have To Be

democracy soldIf you want to know how things really get done in Washington -- or don't get done, depending on the desires of America's corporate executives -- all you have to do is read a couple of paragraphs in a January 23 story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Reporter Joe DiStefano quotes a vice president at APCO Worldwide -- one of DC's most powerful and influential PR firms -- in response to questions about my book, Deadly Spin. Throughout the book, I disclose the previously secretive work APCO did for the health insurance industry to manipulate public opinion on health care reform, in part by trying to scare people away from a movie, Michael Moore's 2007 documentary "Sicko".

The surprising gem in the Inquirer piece was that APCO VP Bill Pierce essentially agreed with me. He acknowledged that interest-funded pressure groups "are all over the place" in Washington. "That's how everybody exists here," Pierce said.

One Year after Citizens United: Lessons from 2010 and Implications for 2012 (Public Forum / Panel Discussion)

Submitted by Sari Williams on

Event Details
Event Date: 
Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 1:00pm to 2:00pm

Location

Capitol Visitors Center, Congressional Meeting Room North (Room 268) Washington , DC
See map: Google Maps

One Year after Citizens United: Lessons from 2010 and Implications for 2012 (Public Forum / Panel Discussion)

Thursday, January 20, 2011, 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Capitol Visitors Center, Congressional Meeting Room North (Room 268)

Amy Walter, Political Director, ABC News (moderator)

Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Michael Boos, Vice President and General Counsel, Citizens United

Cleta Mitchell, Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP

Spencer Overton, Professor of Law, The George Washington University School of Law

Topics: 
Corporations
Democracy
U.S. Government

Political Rhetoric, Before and After Arizona

Jesse Kelly with gunJesse Kelly, a former Marine, Iraq war veteran and Gabrielle Giffords' Republican opponent in last November's election, ran a campaign that used gun imagery as its main eye-catching visual. Several of Kelly's campaign ads show him brandishing an M-16 automatic rifle with the slogan, "Send a Warrior to Congress." A print ad for one of his fundraising events reads, "Sat., 6/12/10, 10:00 AM - Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." Kelly's spokesman, John Ellinwood, naivley claims he doesn't see any connection between promoting fundraisers featuring weapons and the public shootings in Tucson.

A Banana Republic Once Again?

(Part two of a two-part series)

bananasIn the first part of this series, the Center for Media and Democracy reported how the 2009 coup d'etat that toppled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was successfully maintained not through the use of force, but through the power of lobbying and spin. That tale, whose details were revealed through Wikileaks' publication of diplomatic cables and research into lobbying activities, had some echoes of the role PR played in an earlier "regime change" in the region. Here is the story of how the Chiquita banana company successfully used PR spin to help topple Guatemala's left-leaning government in 1954, and how they may have done it again in Honduras, 2009.

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