Why VoteNo2BigDough?
Hello World!
Welcome to VoteNo2BigDough where we’re starting a movement to recruit political candidates to refuse to accept corrupting Big Doughonations, and convince voters to cast ballots only for office seekers who’ve taken the pledge. But with de facto governance of, by and for all the people now on life support we’ve got to do something about it besides wring our hands.
“The People” for whom governance is supposed to be “of, by and for” is now an ever shrinking set of very wealthy individuals and their families, and their enabling professionals and managers overseeing the for-profit businesses, non-profit institutions and captured federal government elements they operate and influence. This has occurred over the past half century as intricately interwoven causes and effects have occurred that exemplify Winston Churchill’s definition of history as “one damn thing after another.”
Whereas the preamble of the Constitution states its purpose is to “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” the de facto reality in this first quarter of the 21st century is that:
The union has not been as imperfect as it is today since the Civil War. This time the divisions are of class and culture, and are diffused throughout the country, instead being about economic underpinnings and slavery, and delineated by state boundaries.
The justice system has been stacked at all levels with judges who were selected primarily because they could be counted on to support the interests of the wealthy and their enablers.
Instead of recognizing that imperialism of all kinds has passed its sell-by date, over the past three decades our “elites” have doubled down on the stealthy, economic version of domination and predation we have practiced since the middle of the 19th century. In doing so the United States single handedly squandered an historic opportunity to lead the world toward an agreement that could have minimized the threat of nuclear conflagration for generations. Instead our “betters” have ignited Cold War II with policies intended to put Russia in a situation in which the only responsible actions its leaders can take in their citizens’ best interests is to be in permanent state of their equivalent of DEFCON 2 – finger on the nuclear trigger with the safety locks off. This is beyond insane!
Within both families and the wider communities domestic tranquility is disrupted as ever more people face economic insecurity.
The “elites” use their influence over the federal government to enable ever more “creative” ways in which to prey on the rest of us, as shown by the ever increasing number of people dropping into penury. What they and their PR flacks tell us is a “trickle down” political economic framework is in fact a “deluge up” arrangement that undermines the general welfare instead of promoting it.
As ever more citizens wise up to the fact we’re being screwed over, the powers that be are fighting back with distractions and subtle initiatives that incite citizens to advocate actions that unwittingly constrain the reach of the “Blessings of Liberty” supposedly guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
As visionary in many respects as the founders were, we cannot expect them to have anticipated the convulsive changes that have taken place in the subsequent nearly two and a half centuries. The industrial revolution was just getting underway in Europe with their home country leading the way, and it would not begin to gain traction in its former colonies until several decades into their independence. But when it did, it took off with a vengeance and continued as if on steroids for nearly two centuries. The founders could not have anticipated the massive amounts of wealth that would be generated over this period, nor could they have foreseen the myriad of creative ways much of that lucre could be deployed to political ends. But they did understand human nature.
Lawrence Lessig in Republic, Lost identifies two kinds of corruption: quid pro quo corruption, such as bribery, which is clearly illegal; and systemic, or dependence corruption which he defines as “ . . when individuals within an institution become dependent on an influence that distracts them from the intended purpose of the institution. The distracting dependency corrupts the institution.” In her discussion of the founders on the matter in Corruption in America, Zephyr Teachout asserts that the overriding concern of the men who endured the heat of the 1787 summer in Philadelphia to hammer out the Constitution was to design the government so as to minimize the temptations office holders could encounter to serve their own personal and their associates’ interests at the expense of the people they were elected to serve. In other words systemic corruption.
In 2010 Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion or Citizens United vs. FEC: “The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy . .” This comment was disturbingly naive regarding human nature, as has been vividly demonstrated by the continuing collapse of Americans’ faith in our democracy during the twelve years since the Citizens United decision came down. A sense of resignation that the system was unreformable from within has set in as millions of older people found their prospects for comfortable retirements dashed when their jobs sailed across the sea a decade before they planned to call it quits, and as the generation of millennials who took on tens of thousands of dollars in predatory loans on the expectation a good, secure jobs would be available upon graduation that would enable a comfortable life beyond the debt service instead found those hopes dashed. Anger built as ever more people found themselves struggling at the lowest levels of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Small “d” democratic politics has always contained an element of theater, and that can be a useful thing. When the government is adequately fulfilling the goals succinctly stated by James Madison and his associates in the Preamble, a bit of performance art is appropriate for reassuring the public, in spite of intense passions over differences on some issues, the political actors are united in the pursuit of the general welfare and progressing in the that direction. But when the day-to-day experience of ever more people is that justice depends on who you are, domestic unrest is increasing, the nation’s foreign policy is not being conducted in the best interests of most of its citizens, our civil liberties are being eroded and the general welfare is waning, political theater becomes a tool to distract the peoples’ attention from these facts and that the politicians will not or cannot grapple with them, or even seriously investigate what their causes.
This is where we are in 2022, and the set of facts as to why we are here can be summarized as follows:
For historical reasons too complex to go into here, the USA has two dominant political parties.
For other historical reasons over at least the past half century, culminating in the Citizens United SCOTUS decision, common sense constraints on political campaign donations have been cast aside.
time the two major parties have become addicted to donations from the wealthy, acting mostly through the agents they control – business corporations, non-profit entities, coercively bundled donations, etc. – aka Big Dough.
policy interests shared by the Big Dough donors to the two dominant parties are primarily those that affect peoples’ economic security.
Big Dough donors’ positions on the economic security issues are in opposition to the interests of a large and increasing majority of the people.
the welfare of most of the people declines, the campaigns of both parties seek to distract us from this fact by focusing on less important issues.
decline of the general welfare becomes difficult to ignore, the uneven administration of justice becomes more blatant, domestic tranquility evaporates and in the name of law and order the powers that be tell us blessings of liberty will have to be “temporarily” set aside.
This is where the constant ka-chings of Big Dough in the coffers of Congressional campaign chests are leading us.
One way or another, in order to once again to seek to provide for the general welfare of all the people, and to preserve de facto government of by and for all the people, the influence of Big Dough must be reined in. The mission of VoteNo2BigDough is to motivate people to participate in a non-violent mass movement to accomplish this. The only action required to participate in the movement will take place in the privacy of the millions of voting booths across the country when participants vote only for candidates who have pledged not to accept Big Doughnations. This Substack page is the first step toward launching the movement. Please read the companion to this initial post, entitled “VoteNo2BigDough – As Currently Envisioned” to see what what it’s all about in more detail.
With regard to what you can expect of this site going forward, here are a few post categories for openers:
The whats, whys and hows of systemic, dependence corruption spawned by Big Doughnations.
Observations on current events that relate to Big Doughnations.
Advocacy of election honesty and fairness, including ease of access to the exercise of the voting franchise by all but only US citizens qualified to vote.
Other issues of contention if and only if they’re closely coupled with Big Doughnation systemic corruption.
Observations that will occasionally piss off Democrats and/or Republicans.
Observations that occasionally Republicans and/or Democrats strongly approve of.
And, of course, status and progress reports on the development of VoteNo2BigDough.
One thing you will not see here are pejorative posts or comments about individual senators and members of Congress, or other politicians. There are two reasons for this. First of all, like most of us, a person who is elected to office in a systemically corrupt legislative body is usually a blend of idealist and realist. To be successful in achieving power and influence in the body the idealism will inevitably have to fade into the background. It may not be extinguished entirely, but it will lose out in the interest of going along to get along. The resultant cognitive dissonance for the member will become more than he wants to live with so he quietly decides not to run for reelection. Two who I suspect fall into this category within the past decade are Democratic Senator Jim Webb of Virginia who did not run for reelection in 2012, and Republican/Libertarian Congressman Justin Amash who left the House eight years later after five terms.
Finally you never know in which senator or Congress member the idealism that first induced her to run for office is still smoldering with enough heat to burst into flame when she perceives the time is right to commit to reform. Since the whole purpose of VoteNo2BigDough is bring that time to the present, I don’t want to piss her off and thus discourage her from taking the pledge. The first sitting Congress Critter to commit to the VoteNo2BigDough pledge will be a huge milestone for the movement.
I am Chuck Lindeberg, a guy who grew up in a small city of about ten thousand people in southern Minnesota. I’ve lived in the state for all but twelve years of my life, first in Illinois followed by Pennsylvania. My career has been focused on the information technology involved in managing the power grids, in product management, marketing and consulting roles. I’ve been interested in history and current events since high school but like most people during the prime of life didn’t have much time to look beyond the headlines.
Two events early in the millennium changed that. Shortly before 8:00 am on a September morning we got an unexpected call from our younger daughter. She had been on the bus when the driver stopped mid block on East Broadway after he’d watched AA flight 11 fly into One World Trade Center, her place of work. If she’d caught her usual bus that morning she’d have arrived shortly before it hit. A year or so later my wife came home one day saying she was out of a job. She had been a middle manager with about 35 people reporting to her in a modest sized publicly traded company. Several years earlier the CEO of her employer of 22 years decided it was time to look for a successor. Several years earlier the CEO of her employer of 22 years decided it was time to look for a successor. He hired a guy from outside who had deeply imbibed the kool aide of financialized management, and he was the COO for a year or two before taking the reins. Soon thereafter he must have looked in the mirror while shaving and decided he saw a marketing genius because he started a costly, major program to reposition the company. When he could no longer ignore his project was a total flop and the chickens were circling in search of a place to roost, he pumped sales in a way that was all but certain to lead to massive bad debt. So after a few quarters of soaring revenues he dumped the company and walked away and a huge bundle of cash. Profits turned blood red a few months after the sale with no end in sight and the buyer, realizing they’d been scammed, shut down the operation putting 4,000 people out of work. Ever since I’ve been looking past not just the headlines, but also beyond the entire mainstream media complex as well. That path eventually has led to VoteNo2BigDough.
Thank you for reading! If you haven’t already please also look at the companion post, “Envisioning the VN2BD Movement.” And to assure you become aware of new posts as soon as they’re published, add your email address to our mailing list.