The American political system is profoundly deformed - by Charles P. Pierce

[kpete]

Santorum's Demi-Victory Hangs the 2012 For-Sale Sign
By Charles P. Pierce
at 2:11AM




The American political system is profoundly deformed. It is deformed by the now limitless power of unaccountable corporate money. (I would remind folks that, in 1972, unaccountable corporate money in a Republican campaign safe was what the Watergate scandal ultimately was all about.) Nothing that happened last night in any way changes that. The American political system is also deformed by the nearly limitless power of concocted narrative, reinforced by an elite political media locked into a self-contained, airless universe, and completely incapable of recognizing a luxurious farce even when there right in the middle of it. For six months, we have heard from the more polite precincts of this universe that the Republican field is made up of second-raters. (Politico, The Daily Racing Form of that universe, ran a piece only just yesterday saying exactly that.) Rick Santorum's sudden ability to garner 25 percent of the Republican caucus voters in Iowa last night doesn't change that simply because it happened. When that unaccountable corporate money is the silent engine behind the creation and maintenance of concocted narrative, the system cannot prevail left to its own devices.

This is the beginning of a watershed election in the history of the country. It is the first presidential campaign that we have had since the turn of the last century that has to be contested while everyone involved has to cooperate in the fiction that the whole process isn't completely for sale.

I watched this happen in Iowa over the last three days, and I continue to be astonished why this isn't the only story being told. This is something epochal. It is something that happens very, very rarely. It is the dawn of the age of thoroughly weaponized money, encouraged by every branch of the national government, most especially including the judiciary. Remember back all those years when Barack Obama looked down at the justices from the podium in the House chamber and read them out for Citizens United, and Sam Alito shook his head and mouthed, "Not true" visibly on TV?

............

............The election of the next president does not belong to the country any more. But we will pretend that it does. We are very good at that.


Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/rick-santorum-iowa-caucus-results-6632446#ixzz1iVPWjBgg

[Demeter]

1. It's been that way for decades

It's just that the Corporations are legal, now. Before, they did surreptitious funding.

[Uncle Joe]

2. More shadows for the people in Plato's Cave

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=103711



Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[yurbud]

3. this could be why Obama doesn't use the bully pulpit more--it doesn't matter what we think

[MindMover]

5. Think, that is a big word for the American electorate..........nt

[xtraxritical]

4. I heard a statistic that Santorum spent .50 cents per vote to Romney's $49 per vote in Iowa.

This would inveigh against the post's premiss.

[dougolat]

6. Yes, at first blush, but the point was about "unaccountable money"

which had a super-pac take down Newt, and corporate media's massive and glowing presentation of Santorum, and the same media's down-playing of Paul.
Corporate "unaccountable money" playing the voters like an organ! (nasty Santorum and all)

[phantom power]

7. "It is the dawn of the age of thoroughly weaponized money"

I do love a turn of phrase