by BJW Nashe
As we struggle to digest the terrible news of yet another mass shooting in America — this time occurring once again at Fort Hood in Texas — we simultaneously find ourselves recoiling from the overwhelming stench of corruption emanating from the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
A strange coincidence? I don’t think so. The stench and the shooting bear some unholy connection to each other. That rotten smell coming from Washington, D.C. is the same foul odor now hovering over Fort Hood. It is the stench of corruption in our politics that stands in the way of any serious effort to try and stop these senseless shootings.
We need to be crystal clear about this fact: the corrupting influence of big money in American politics is leading to paralysis in the face of gun violence. I can’t think of any simpler or more direct way to phrase it. And this is more than simply a matter of concern, or a topic of polite discussion. It is a state of affairs we must conclude is evil, disgusting, and perverse. How else should we describe a situation in which politicians are paid to do nothing to stop the slaughter of innocent citizens who are being gunned down at work, school, the mall, the military base, and the movie theater? PAID TO DO NOTHING. To sit on their hands and steadfastly refuse to seek solutions, and to stonewall the efforts of anyone trying to make a difference. It’s sick, depraved, and insane.
Let’s hold our noses and take an honest look at a big source of the awful stench these days.
The five conservative judges who hold sway over the U.S. Supreme Court think that money is equivalent to speech, and that campaign contributions are thus protected by the First Amendment. They are committed to eliminating all restrictions on money flowing into political campaigns. The Citizens United ruling in 2010 opened the floodgates for a tsunami of corporate cash to start filling the coffers of a growing number of shadowy PACs and SuperPACs. Now, in a nifty follow-up to Citizens United, the Court has ruled in the case of McCutcheon v. FEC that certain limitations on individual contributions to political campaigns are unconstitutional. This will allow a small number of billionaire tycoons such as Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers to spread even more money around in our electoral process, buying influence in congressional districts across the nation.
Chief Justice Roberts — along with Justices Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy — would like us to believe that this tidal wave of money will lead to no corruption and will have no damaging effect on American democracy. Who do they think they are fooling? Their argument insults the intelligence of American voters and slams the door in the face of American workers. It is a brazen act of class warfare, designed to render the votes of ordinary citizens meaningless and hand control over the country to an elite group of wealthy donors.
I’d call these conservative justices swine, but that would be unfair to pigs. They might be seated on the highest court in the land, but they don’t deserve the respect implied by cordial discourse. Their view of politics is a shameful perversion that has no place in any legitimate democracy. They have no guiding principles; all they care about is money and power. They will go down in history as some of the sleaziest, most amoral characters to ever slither into prominent roles in government. Leadership? No, these are political hacks armed with law degrees, eager to kiss the asses of a cabal of fat cats who think their wealth entitles them to omnipotence. Listening to Supreme Court justices mangle concepts such as “freedom” and “liberty” as they put our democracy up for sale to the highest bidder is a sickening, vomit-inducing experience, at best.
Many of us were furious over the Court’s foul McCutcheon ruling. Then we received news of the Fort Hood shooting, which only reminded us just how far the stench of corruption tends to travel. Synchronicity is a strange phenomenon that is worth paying attention to. I doubt whether Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia were thinking about gun violence as they modified their “corporations are people” riff to come up with a brand new jingle: “money is speech.” Gun violence is highly relevant in this context, though — at least for those of us who are paying attention. We may as well connect the dots here, if Chief Justice Roberts is unwilling to do so.
We don’t have to look too hard to find evidence of problems caused by big money in politics. Gun violence is just one example out of many. Pick an area of contemporary concern, and most likely you will find corporate interests standing in the way of progress. Health care, education, energy, the environment, our criminal justice system — big money has a negative political impact in all of these areas. Corporations are willing to shell out mucho dinero to make sure that politicians don’t pass laws that might — heaven forbid — cut into their profits. In fact, corporations are eager to pay lobbyists and lawmakers to pass laws designed for no purpose other than enhancing their bottom line. (See the federal tax code, for example.)
Gun violence, however, is one of the most troubling areas in which payola — in the form of campaign contributions — is used to earn favors from politicians, and take revenge on opponents, to the detriment of the public good. If you’re putting together a Powerpoint presentation on the corrupting influence of money in politics, go ahead and use gun violence for the first slide in your show. Nowhere else is the sheer human toll quite so shocking and visceral.
Few will deny that gun violence is a plague that threatens the safety of all Americans. Even most gun rights advocates have to admit this is true. Their “solution,” however, is just more guns. “The only solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Sane, reasonable people understand this is no solution at all. It only compounds the problem — like battling skin cancer with leukemia. Americans together now own over 300 million firearms. That’s nearly as many guns in our nation as there are people. We must have the most heavily armed civilian population on the planet. Yet this has not made us safer. On the contrary, it has turned the country into an armed madhouse. Approximately 100,000 people are shot in the U.S. each year. Thirty thousand or so die annually from gunshot wounds. Because of rampant gun violence, the U.S. is statistically a more dangerous place to live than any other modern Western democracy. With so many guns around, should this be any great surprise?
The worst incidents are the mass shootings that keep recurring with alarming frequency. Mother Jones just published a detailed timeline of 62 mass shootings in America during the years 1982-2012. This report is a horrifying reminder that our predicament will continue to get worse, unless we take concrete steps to address the problem. For now, we are stuck in a predictable holding pattern. As each incident occurs, we are inundated with wall-to-wall media coverage. We express our shock and our outrage. The President makes a heartfelt speech on TV. We cry at funerals and discuss possible solutions to the problem. We say “never again should this be allowed to happen.” Then we eventually move on. Human nature allows us to forget much of the pain associated with these events — unless we were personally involved, in which case we are far less likely to be rid of the traumatic memories. Before too long, another mass shooting disrupts the nation once again, and we repeat the whole damn process. It’s an insane spiral of grief and despair and hopelessness. And somehow nothing changes. Our government seems to be unwilling or incapable of doing anything to address the problem. Why is this so?
The reason for the paralysis is simple. It’s caused by the corrupting influence of big money in politics — which is the stench emanating from the Supreme Court right now. When it comes to fighting progress on gun laws, the big money comes from the good old boys of the gun lobby, which is led by the good old National Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA and their allies have enough money and clout to stifle most serious attempts at reform, and they are motivated by a single driving concern: increasing profits from gun sales. Public safety? Not a big priority, but useful as a marketing ploy. The NRA likes to pretend they represent gun owners who want to protect their families, but it’s gun businesses who they’re truly looking out for. To do this, the NRA runs a protection racket. By throwing money and threats in the faces of politicians, the NRA protects the interests of the gun industry, allowing them to keep making profits by selling harmful products.
The NRA is good at what they do. Elected officials who dare to vote for legislation that could cut into the profits of gun manufacturers and dealers promptly find their names highlighted in big bold letters high on the NRA’s vaunted shit list. That means a “negative score” from NRA on gun rights issues. It means no more campaign contributions. It means funding goes to rival candidates. It means attack ads will be aired on TV. Most likely, the offending politician’s career is toast. The NRA is particularly feared in red states and conservative districts where the group has demonstrated that it can make or break candidates at will. Look at what happened to the state senators in Colorado who worked on gun reform. They’re history. In some districts it’s impossible to get elected without publicly embracing the NRA, and doing so with plenty of fanfare. In other words, pull your pants down and bend over. Much better to tow the party line and watch the big dollar contributions come rolling in, than to fall out of favor by doing something foolish — like working across the aisle to reduce gun violence.
The burning debate about the Second Amendment — originally conceived to account for militia men scampering around the colonies with muskets, not online shoppers stocking up on semi-automatic handguns and rifles — these heated discussions are just a smokescreen, a big distraction. Between the two extremes of outlawing guns on one hand, and maintaining a gun market free-for-all on the other hand, there’s a whole range of measures that can effectively regulate guns and reduce gun violence without eroding Second Amendment rights. Let’s think outside the box for a minute. Consider that owning a gun could be treated similarly to obtaining a driver’s license — with some added precautions thrown in for good measure. Before you can be declared a legal gun owner, in other words, you would need to jump through certain hoops to demonstrate that you don’t pose a significant risk. To own a gun, you would undergo a process of licensing or certification. This might involve attending some classes, passing safety/proficiency tests, submitting to a background check, and perhaps even undergoing a psychiatric evaluation (bad news for Ted Nugent, but probably just as well). Maybe your family members are interviewed (if you have a schizophrenic teenager holed up in the basement playing violent video games, you probably won’t qualify for gun ownership). Once you are certified, alas, you will not be able to get your hands on certain types of paramilitary, assault-style weapons. These have no place in civilized society. Plus there will be no more “gun show loopholes” or shady internet sales. The amount of ammunition you can purchase will be limited. You will need to comply with laws pertaining to proper use and storage of guns. You and your guns will be registered in a national database. Congratulations: you are now part of the well-armed militia specified in the Second Amendment — and you still have way more firepower than the Founding Fathers ever dreamed of.
None of these are radical measures that would infringe on the constitutional rights of responsible hunters or sportsmen/women.
Well, good luck trying to get anything close to this even debated in Congress, let alone passed into law and implemented. Despite the outrage caused by our current gun violence epidemic, we have very few protections in place. In many states we have the equivalent of a laissez-faire gun-freak bonanza. Why this is so? Because the gun lobby has enough politicians in their pockets — or simply bullied into submission — to stifle all attempts at meaningful reform. If you dare to introduce meaningful gun legislation through Congress, you will have a serious war on your hands with the NRA. And while the NRA does not have the Koch brothers’ level of “f— you” money at their disposal, their pockets are still pretty deep. After elementary school children were massacred at Newtown, the NRA fought tooth and nail to kill all proposed reforms — including a simple background check amendment (which the NRA once upon a time supported). They won. Reformers lost. The end result is that Americans are buying more guns than ever before, gun-related profits are flying high, and lunatics nationwide can go online or head over to a gun show and buy enough firepower to kill scores of people with no questions asked. They can arm themselves so heavily that during their ensuing rampage they won’t even have to pause to reload. This is insane. It makes about as much sense as the phrase “money is speech.”
Now, as the Supreme Court continues on their epic quest to let big money run roughshod over our political system, I imagine there is a select group of around 200 economic royalists (as FDR called them) and wealthy robber baron-types who can’t wait to get a bigger, juicier piece of the action. Wayne LaPierre’s rich pals are no doubt licking their chops. We know Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers are bathed in a state of euphoric bliss. As for the rest of us, we have to ask ourselves, is this any way for our democracy to move forward and address serious issues such as gun violence? Or mental illness? Or climate change? Or income inequality? The obvious answer is no, of course not. This is an unfolding disaster — a political train wreck.
I am not arguing that the Supreme Court or the NRA directly caused the tragedy at Fort Hood — or any other mass shooting. I’ll leave the crude, simplistic arguments to Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia, who are quite fond of sophistry. I just want to stress that we need to be aware of certain grim connections. And when we keep seeing gun violence in the news — when we see mass shootings tearing our communities apart — we can be sure that the stench of big money and political corruption will be hovering over the scene of every crime.