Legislation that would cut aid to oil companies appears dead, thanks to a coalition of Republicans and oil state Democrats. A minority of Senators, in fact, have scuttled legislation that would end subsidies for the most profitable industry in the United States.
The lessons from this?
- Big oil — and big business in general — has far more power than voters and consumers, thanks in part to the industry’s ability to spend massive amounts of money on political campaigns and buy candidates’ loyalty.
- The Senate system is undemocratic, both because it gives as much power to small states with little population as it does to larger states, and because it allows the filibuster and secret holds.
- We need a massive realignment of our politics that shifts power back to the citizenry — reform of the campaign finance system, constitutional checks on corporations, reconfiguration of the Senate, an end to the electoral college and to the two-party system.
The most important lesson, however, is that we cannot wait for government to fix things. Our elected representatives only react to threats to their jobs so we have to organize (civil disobedience and lobbying) and run aggressive primary and third-party campaigns designed to do what the Tea Party has done to the Republicans — pull the Democrats to the left.
- Send me an e-mail.
- Read poetry at The Subterranean.
- Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
- Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Hank Kalet 