Money, loyalty to establishment win elections in US: Analyst

An intentional lawyer and political analyst says in order to win elections in the United States candidates must compete for money by proving their loyalty to Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, and Israel.

Barry Grossman, who is based on the Indonesian island of Bali, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Thursday while commenting on a report which says American investment bank Goldman Sachs is on track to be one of biggest contributors in the US presidential race again this year, with $794,609 chipped in so far.

“Two things win elections in the United States – 1. money and 2. a track record of commitment to supporting the establishment’s policy agenda which, in the US, means pledging unqualified support for  Israel, for Wall Street and for what loosely has come to be known as the ‘military-industrial complex,’” Grossman said.  

“To understand the political climate that exists currently, it is necessary to remember the groundwork laid by the US Supreme Court in the Citizen’s United decision,” he stated.  

“In an obscene display of bad judgment, obtuse logic,  and judicial activism, the decision formally extended to corporations, the same personal liberties which Americans once fought and died to win for individuals, and thereby permanently contaminated the already septic tank through which the massive sums of money spent on elections and the legislative process flow. The court’s characterization of corporate campaign contributions as an exercise of their right to free speech essentially spelled the death knell to what was left of America’s commitment to representative democracy,” he added.

Candidates to spend $5 to 10 billion

Grossman said that “the slate of candidates hoping to win the 2016 presidential are predicted to spend between 5 and 10 billion dollars to buy the election outcome. While Bernie Sanders is setting records raising small contributions from ordinary Americans, Clinton has assembled a massive corporate funded war chest and is most certainly still the darling of  both the corporate sector and the public policy making apparatus funded by it, even if her contrived campaign theme is intended to appeal to America’s progressive grass roots. For his part, Trump smugly says that he is self funding although, like most of his claims, that too is less than honest and certainly not entirely true.”

“Goldman Sachs has certainly long been one of the top ten player in campaign funding and is an easy target for criticism. But focusing too much on that parasitic enterprise misses the point in that it is but one of many corporate players which tend to cultivate political influence by covering the field of candidates in all elections with its financial largess,” he noted.  

“For example, during the 2014 Congressional elections, Goldman Sachs dished out an average of more than $5,000 to each of 219 candidates for the House of Representatives and more than $11,000 to each of 56 candidates for the Senate. Obviously presidential candidates receive far more. Moreover, the money spent on campaign contributions is only a down payment on the purchase price of loyalty and does not include the vast sums of money spent on lobbying,” he pointed out.

“This kind of money means that when someone decides to telephone any politician on behalf of Goldman Sachs, or for that matter, on behalf of Microsoft, Google, the Koch brothers controlled Wal-Mart, or at Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands, furniture is knocked over in the rush to take the call,” he said.  

Candidates are just contrived products now

“It’s not rocket science really,” Grossman said. “Political candidates are a now just contrived products which – like mops sold through TV shopping channels – are sold into American homes through advertising which costs a lot of money. That money is readily dished up to candidates who embrace the right policies and to their parties by America’s corporations and robber barons.”

“The ‘right’ policies, in turn, are carefully prepared and served up in the kitchens of corporate funded Think Tanks where under paid academics, lobbyists, analysts, journalists, corporate insiders, and former politicians are all happy to bend over in order to supplement their income,” the commentator stated.  

“The vast sums paid out by the corporate sector in direct campaign contributions hardly begins to fill the vast trough of pig slop made available by America’s owners to buy the machinery of government and the democratic process itself.  Practical impediments to corporate campaign funding that arise from reporting requirements and corporate concerns over public opinion have also been circumvented by creating a relatively new monster – the Super PAC – which is in effect an artificial entity used to aggregate individual and corporate contributions for dispersal to selected parties, organizations and political candidates,” he stated.

“All these campaign contributions, along with vast sums spent on lobbying, still more money available via a ‘revolving door’ that promises high paying corporate sector sinecures to compliant legislators, and corporate sector funding of the Think Tanks which dominate America’s policy making process, should leave ordinary voters in no doubt that the notion of a government by the people and for the people has long been nothing more than a charade,” Grossman concluded.

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