Update from the
Heartland
No.645
21.4.14 – 27.4.14
Blog version: http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/
To all,
The big news this week, at least for
lil’ol’ me out here on the Great Plains of this Grand Republic, I submitted my
letter of resignation for retirement.
I will officially leave the corporate world on Friday, 2.May.2014. Jeanne and I are both excited to move
on to the next stage of our lives.
I will finally be able to write full time. I will be working for myself from now on. I am currently in the final editing
process for my next book – The Clarity of Hindsight; The Words and Deeds of
World War II – a history book decades in the making. Following shortly behind Hindsight, Book III and Book IV of
the To So Few series of historical novels are written and just need final
editing. Stay tuned, there is more
to come.
“A Putin affiliate
evokes Hitler. The West should be worried”
Washington Post
Published: April 21 [2014]
While I agree with Cohen’s recitation of history in this
instance, I believe he and most folks fail to recognize the overarching
blueprint / playbook Hitler gave us in 1925 – Mein Kampf (My Fight). Seven years before he became Deutsche Reichskanzler, Hitler
told us in explicit detail exactly what he intended to do. We had pretty good clues, validating
his plan in progressively audacious actions from 1933 to the invasion of Poland
in 1939. While I may quibble a bit
with the history, Cohen’s point is spot on! The Migranyan position further fails prima facie in the light of Stalinist hegemony both prior to 1941
and certainly after 1945. Arguably,
Stalin killed more people than Hitler.
While Putin has not carried out (to public knowledge) the paranoid
purges and pogroms of Josef Stalin, more than a few similarities persist in
illuminating Putin’s actions.
Recent anti-Semitic papers add a very chilling punctuation to what is
happening in Ukraine. Migranyan’s
attempt to rationalize Putin’s actions fails on numerous levels, not least of
which is reflected in Cohen’s opinion.
What so many fail to acknowledge in these hegemonic rationalization
debates is, if ethnic peoples are dissatisfied with the established government,
they can and should immigrate to their affinity state rather than foment unrest
or violence. So, if ethnic
Russians are unhappy in Ukraine, they should move to Russia, to live with
others who think and act like them rather than encourage an aggressor to
“defend” them. That said, I hold
no illusion as to who the instigator was in Crimea or in Eastern Ukraine. The only question in my mind remains,
where and when will the West draw the line to stop Putin’s hegemonic
intimidation and intent? I can
appreciate the Russian apprehension regarding threats or enemies at its
doorstep. Russian history is
replete with examples of misplaced trust and tragic suffering as a consequence
of invasion. Heck, the Soviet
Union agreed to and signed pacts with the Germans on 23.August.1939 – the Treaty
of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that
divided up Poland and green lighted Soviet domination of the Baltic states –
and, on 11.February.1940, the German-Soviet Commercial Agreement. The German deception was so thorough
and convincing that Stalin disbelieved and ignored the mounting intelligence
warning of German offensive intent, only to be confronted with the invasion on
22.June.1941 that came within a hair’s breadth of taking Moscow and Stalingrad.
Even more amazing in that event, it took days for Stalin to believe his
commanders at the dissolving front that Germany had actually attacked the
Soviet Union. I suppose we should
recognize the societal paranoia of Russians. We can only hope that someday a generation of Russians will
grow up to accept their strength and not see enemies in every crack and
crevice.
I choose
to read judicial rulings, old and new, high and low, out of an integral
curiosity about living, the law and governance in this Grand Republic. I usually learn about our history and
our laws from these judicial pronouncements. The process helps me formulate opinions on a wide variety of
topics. It is not often I am
depressed by my curiosity. That
said, I must confess one of those rare episodes upon reading McCutcheon v. Federal Election
Commission [570 U.S. ___ (2014); no. 12-536]
– the Supremes’ latest decision regarding political donations. The focused, singular question at issue
in the McCutcheon case
is the aggregate limit on donation imposed by the Bipartisan Campaign
Reform Act of 2002
(BCRA) {AKA McCain–Feingold Act, or Shays-Meehan}[PL
107-155; 116 Stat. 81;
27.3.2002], as an amended to Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) [PL
92–225; 86 Stat. 3; 7.2.1972].
Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the 5-4 majority, as he observed, “If
the First
Amendment protects flag burning, funeral protests, and Nazi parades--despite
the profound offense such spectacles cause--it surely protects political
campaign speech despite popular opposition.” He added, “At that point, the limits deny the individual all
ability to exercise his expressive and associational rights by contributing to
someone who will advocate for his policy preferences. A donor must limit the
number of candidates he supports, and may have to choose which of several
policy concerns he will advance--clear First Amendment harms that the dissent never acknowledges.” Roberts added, “Moreover, while
preventing corruption or its appearance is a legitimate objective, Congress may
target only a specific type of corruption – ‘quid pro quo’ corruption.
Spending large sums of money in connection with elections, but not in
connection with an effort to control the exercise of an officeholder's official
duties, does not give rise to such quid
pro quo corruption. Nor does the possibility that an individual who spends
large sums may garner ‘influence over or access to’ elected officials or
political parties.” The Chief
Justice concluded, “For the reasons set forth, we conclude that the aggregate
limits on contributions do not further the only governmental interest this
Court accepted as legitimate in Buckley. They instead intrude
without justification on a citizen's ability to exercise ‘the most fundamental First Amendment
activities.’ {Buckley v. Valeo [424 U.S. 1 (1976)]}.” Not surprisingly, the concurring
opinion of Associate Justice Thomas supported the Court’s judgment, as he
disagreed with the extent; he believed all restrictions on campaign donations
should be removed. Associate
Justice Breyer wrote for the dissent and went directly to the point, “Taken
together with Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission [558 U.S. 310
(2010)], today's decision eviscerates our Nation's campaign finance laws,
leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic
legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve.” Justice Breyer concluded, “The result, as I said at
the outset, is a decision that substitutes judges' understandings of how the
political process works for the understanding of Congress; that fails to
recognize the difference between influence resting upon public opinion and
influence bought by money alone; that overturns key precedent; that creates
huge loopholes in the law; and that undermines, perhaps devastates, what
remains of campaign finance reform.”
To
be blunt and perhaps rather crass, Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion seems
to discount, i.e., nearly ignore, the history and pervasive, corrupting
influence of money, as if he is quite content existing in the crystal palace of
purity, unencumbered by reality or practicality. They see money and the process of donating money to
political candidates in a rather sterile, naïve manner. Soft money, hard money, who cares? It is all potentially corrupting of the
political process. Citizens
United brought to sharp focus numerous unsettling aspects of the
thinking of the current bench of Supreme Court justices. The majority of the Supremes have
convinced themselves that corporations are citizens and money is speech, so we
can only imagine what is next.
As
I read the ruling, the image that kept creeping into my consciousness is the game
of whack-a-mole. Chasing money is
never easy. What all of the vaunted
Supremes missed here is the public versus private aspect of this issue. Flag burning, protests & parades,
and even speech itself are public events; giving money to a candidate is a very
private & clandestine action.
Further, the collateral consequences of that “giving” sets up a quid pro quo that is likewise largely
hidden from public scrutiny. When
private or perhaps clandestine intention is attached, the task becomes
virtually impossible. Congress has
made numerous attempts to reduce the corruptibility of vast amounts of money
from 1907 to 2002.
What
is the difference between a bribe and a donation? I say, intention – a personal and private attribute. The dissent offer three examples of
grotesque circumvention of political campaign donation laws, albeit eviscerated
by Citizens United and now McCutcheon. Given the bent of the Roberts Court,
perhaps the best we can possibly hope for is refinement and/or reform of the
surviving laws. My suggestion:
repeal all existing, surviving, campaign finance or donation laws, so that
there are no limits, caps, thresholds or other restrictions other than every
contributor (individual, business or organization) publicly disclose ALL
contributions in money or otherwise.
We should make it federal law, so that political donations of any form
must be “cleared” by or through the Federal Election Commission (FEC), declared
on federal tax returns, both individual and business, and excluded from business
expenses of any form, so that political donations cannot be claimed as an
expense against revenue, thus make all taxpayers cover his donations. The
current FEC donor files are antiquated and of little value, as they are far too
segmented and not linked; plus, they cover only individual donations. I suggest we make a public, federal, searchable
database that connects donations greater than a threshold, perhaps US$100 per
donor, per candidate (or political entity), such that anyone can query the
database by donor, by candidate, or any other relevant metric. Further, political action committees in
any form should be segregated and excluded from 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and
placed into a new category of political organization that must report all income
and expenses to be correlated with the Internal Revenue Service and FEC
databases. At least in making
political contributions public, we would stand some modicum of chance at
illuminating conflict of interest as well as graft and other forms of corruption. I think we can all recognize the
difficulty for Congress to make donations public; they might want to make
everyone else’s donations public but not theirs, but somehow we must demand
they overcome their natural reticence with the objective of making corruption
more difficult to attain.
I
absolutely agree that a wealthy citizen’s freedom of speech and political
affiliation is protected by the Constitution, and that his freedom of speech
must not be hampered or infringed upon more than a poor citizen – no more, no
less. Where I diverge from the
Supremes’ reasoning hangs upon the “advantage” of wealth to amplify any
particular citizen’s voice.
Ideally, our individual political voice is infused with our vote; thus,
a rich man’s vote should be inherently equal to a poor man’s vote. While the philosophical equality is
explicit in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence and NOT in the
Constitution, any historian can circumscribe an argument that Jefferson’s words
of equality did NOT truly mean equality, i.e., “. . . all men are created equal
. . .” did not mean all human beings or even all citizens; since at those days,
only landed, educated, free males were considered “men.” We have taken a far more broad,
inclusive interpretation of those immortal words, and thus the meaning of the
Declaration and implicitly the Constitution.
Just
a personal footnote: technology has enabled and strengthened our capacity as
citizens. Just a decade or two
ago, citizens did not have access to legislation in progress or the laws as
enacted or modified. We would have
to have some form of knowledge of legislation and request a copy from our
representative; and even then, if we received a response at all, it would take
weeks or months to fulfill. Even
our public libraries did not have law books. Today, we can read and assess for legislation and laws
ourselves. Openness and access has
enhanced our citizenship. The same
openness can reduce the likelihood of corruption. As Justice Brandeis so succinctly said, “sunlight is the
best disinfectant.” So, let us
shine a very bright light on the money and remain vigilant for laws that favor
big donors. Equal is equal in my
mind.
News from the economic front:
-- According to the Wall
Street Journal, Amazon is reportedly testing its own delivery network to
cover the final leg of a package's journey to consumers' doorsteps – “the last
mile,” the holy grail of e-commerce: same-day shipping.
-- Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services lowered Russia’s
credit rating one level from BBB to BBB-minus – one level above junk status –
and kept its outlook on the country negative. S&P cited heightened tensions with Ukraine and the
prospect of economic sanctions. In their public statement, S&P said, “In
our view, the tense geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine could see
additional significant outflows of both foreign and domestic capital from the
Russian economy and hence further undermine already weakening growth
prospects.”
Comments
and contributions from Update no.644:
Comment to the Blog:
“Even as the Russian government looks more and more as if it follows the
usual strongman strategy of growing by taking over the neighbors, you throw a
monkey wrench into that picture by mentioning “embarrassing defections of
troops to the rebel cause.” Once again, this seems a bit more complex than the
usual domination by the strong. The refusal of the pro-Russian rebels to abide
by Russia's truce agreement adds to the weirdness.
“Incidentally, the concept “hell bent upon creating enemies to focus and
amplify nationalist juices among believers and suppress voices of dissent” also
fits the US government for most of this century.
“I agree with Mr. Pitts' analysis. The flow of huge amounts of money into
political parties and campaigns has come very close to eliminating the representative
republic designed in the Constitution. Let's hope it's not too late.
“The immediate cause of the Korean ferry disaster is known. The real
question is how that came about.”
My response to the
Blog:
Re:
Ukraine. I do not see the
incongruity. I imagine the
defectors are ethnic Russians and most likely recognize Russia as the stronger
nation as well as most likely to succeed . . . not particularly different from
the loyalist colonists during the American Revolution . . . except the stronger
nation lost.
Re:
“hell bent.” My apologies, I do
not and cannot think of any instances the U.S. responded or acted in such a
manner. An example or two would be
quite helpful.
Re:
Pitts’ opinion. Indeed! I share your hope.
Re:
Korean ferry disaster. OK. What is the root cause? My observation was supposition based on
public information that has not been validated or verified. I am not confident we have sufficient
information to determine root cause.
My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)
