Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy: Modern "Poll Taxes": Voter ID & Campaign Contributions

Once again Bernie Sanders is raising massive amounts of small donations; and despite obvious bias by traditional media it looks like he might have a better chance of wining the nomination this year, especially if he has enough support from the grassroots to show them that they're sick and tired of rigged elections, which enabled Trump to win in the first place.

However, even though I support him and think he's the best chance for major reform in the immediate future, even he isn't perfect. Some solutions are clearly going to have to come from the grassroots, even with Bernie, who still isn't addressing a few issues that need to be taken care of, including holding media corporations accountable so they can't rig elections by only covering candidates they support. And, he use of small donations to drive his campaign runs the risk of normalizing the current system, which is a disaster; and even if small donations do manage to help him get elected they can still be misused, and already are; while the traditional politicians are already trying to find ways to copy this feat.

This has the potential to turn into a variation of the poll tax which is designed to continue rigging the political system in favor of the wealthy; if we elect Bernie Sanders, and he manages to get far more reform than any other candidate on many issues including health care, raising the minimum wage, taxing billionaires, and much more, which he might be able to accomplish with enough grassroots support behind him, than it might seem like a success.

However if the media and election process isn't reformed then it will continue to be rigged against the working class and after he retires they can begin trying to chip away at any reforms to undo them, which they've routinely proven that they will do when ever they can get away with it.

Accepting the assumption that small donations helped bring about reform if Bernie wins and improves many things may entrench the assumption that the current system is working after all, even when it will still be seriously flawed.

I cited one example of how this is already being misused previously when I reviewed Elizabth Warren's record in a series of posts including Elizabeth Warren Makes Me Scream! where I pointed out that she never rose from the grassroots, as many people have been led to believe, and she's not nearly as much of a "consumer advocate" as her propaganda indicates. I went into it in much more detail in over half a dozen different articles, but basically she's had ties to the Democratic Party, she occasionally claims to criticize, since the nineties, and these ties helped her get media coverage that few if any grassroots candidates can get even when getting much more support without help from the media, like Jill Stein.

Despite her rhetoric about fighting the top one percent, which she happens to be part of with an approximate net worth of $8.75 million she's supported several positions pushed by the elites including Charter Schools which she backed away from only after enormous grassroots pressure, planned obsolescence, gambling and several other issues I pointed out in my previous articles about her. At times she's gained support by calling out both Lawrence Summers and Hillary Clinton when running for office or promoting her book, but when elected she caved and praised Summers on at least one occasions and endorsed Hillary Clinton, even reversing herself on a couple issues, which is what she called Hillary out for.

To cut it short, a close look indicates that she's much more like many other politicians that come up with great propaganda, often paid for by campaign donations, but when you research her record it's not nearly as good.

However thanks to her propaganda image presented by the mass media she looks like a progressive to many people, and as the following excerpts shows she's collecting small donations from people struggling for funds while she's worth much more than the majority of people funding her campaign with small donations:

Elizabeth Warren "Fighting Chance"

A thin young man-- really just a kid-- in a loose-fitting suit, with a backpack slung over his shoulder, looked at me and smiled. A minute later, he came over. "Are you Elizabeth Warren?"

He was from central Massachusetts, the first in his family to go to college. He was attending school in Boston and he loved it, but he said he worried about money all the time. He worked a full-time job during the school year and took two jobs during the summer to try to cover as much as he could. As we waited for the subway, we talked about student loans, declining government investment in universities, and rising tuition. Finally, he asked me if he could take a picture. Bruce [her husband] snapped the shot on the young man's phone. The kid smiled and started to walk away, then turned around.

"I give you money every month and I'm taking on hours so I can give you more."

I felt as if he'd hit me with a spear right between the ribs. Good Lord-- this kind was working until nearly eleven o'clock on a Saturday night and he was sending me money? I smiled weakly and said something along the lines of, "Uh, I'm doing okay in the campaign. Maybe you should keep your money. I'll be fine. Really."

He looked back at me. "No, I'm part of this campaign. This is my fight, too."

And that really was the answer. It wasn't just my campaign. My name was on the ticket, but these folks weren't volunteering and donating for me. They were supporting something a lot bigger. When I said that we were better off if we invested in the future together, they already knew it was true-- and they lived it. They thought America could do better, and they wanted it every bit as much as I did. And they would do everything possible to try to make that better future a reality.

This is my fight, too It gives me goose bumps. ..... Complete article

This kind of appeals to emotion distracts from the corruption of the system that requires candidates, or as I prefer to call them job applicants, for public office to collect massive maount of money to run their campaigns instead of financing an interview process that interviews applicants like corporations do when they hire employees. Occasionally someone like Medea Benjamin also unwittingly reinforces this system like when she recently tweeted As a Benjamin, I am so proud of @IlhanMN for calling out #AIPAC and its corrupting influence in our politics. I’m going to contribute some Benjamins to her right now, as should all who appreciate her courage and support for #Palestine. #BenjaminsforOmars 02/11/2019. I agree with Ilhan Omar and Medea Benjamin's criticism of oppression against the Palestinians and corruption of the political establishment by favoring those that collect massive amounts of money, but this tactic is guaranteed to fail in the long run. One of the comments to Medea's tweet showed exactly how it will back fire when someone who opposes her simply tweeted that she would donate to who ever runs against her!

Instead of a system that requires candidates to raise massive amounts of money to buy the ads we use to make important decisions we need a system where voters control the interview process as I explained in Election Reform and Saving Project Vote Smart and improving it or replacing it These articles recommend setting up a system where organizations like Project Vote Smart are run by the people, not by multi national corporations, who are currently allowed to decide which candidates can get media coverage and even screen the questions so only the ones they approve of are asked at debates or CNN's town hall meetings.

Another problem that helps rig the system in favor of the wealthy is new voter ID laws that are being pushed, primarily making it harder for lower income people to vote. This also has many similarities to poll taxes. I don't necessarily oppose reasonable efforts to ensure that voter fraud isn't taking place but that clearly isn't what's going on with these new voter ID laws, many of which are clearly trying to limit the ID's that qualify to and are often accompanied by purges of people already registered to vote and other practices closing polling places in poorer areas. This is clearly designed to suppress the vote in lower income areas, which is major threat to democracy.

If they're going to pass laws like thee they should clearly be accompanied by funds to make it easy as possible for people to get these IDs and even waiving fees that are required for many IDs if it's a low income person, especially as long as there are so many efforts to suppress working class wages to enrich the ruling class.

As much as I support Bernie Sanders and believe he's far better than the vast majority of the other candidates, even he hasn't filled out the questionnaire from Project Vote Smart, Bernie Sanders' Issue Positions (Political Courage Test), which he hasn't filled out since 2012. He also declined to call out the epidemic levels of cheating that went on in the 2016 primary and endorsed Hillary Clinton, even trying to patch together the reputation of the Democratic Party in many of his speeches either during the 2016 General Election or after it. This might be part of the reason why they're not smearing even more than they already are.

Can the political establishment count on Bernie to cave once he gets elected, like Barack Obama and many other politicians routinely do?

I doubt it, at least not on many issues, based on a close look at his long term record, but there are some issues that he can't be expected to reform as much as we need reform unless there's an enormous amount of grassroots pressure; and allowing the media to control the interview process, seems to be one of them.

He also hasn't done as much as he could have to speak out against wars based on lies, although he's far better than most politicians as an open letter signed by over 100 scholars, intellectuals, and activists, including David Swanson and over a dozen people I recognize that are active organizers of grassroots groups the traditional media refuses to cover, but they're much better known among people familiar with alternative media outlets. Despite his concerns David Swanson still said Let’s Try to Elect Bernie Sanders 03/04/2019; however these people and thousands if not millions more people that follow their work aren't blind cult followers and are probably far more familiar with politics than the majority of the public. Even with Bernie Sanders we shouldn't be blind followers, and he's often responded to the grassroots far better than most politicians, especially Hillary Clinton who treated the grassroots with contempt on several occasions including a couple times in 2016 where she was confronted by Black Lives Matter organizers, and at least one time in 2016 when she spoke to a group of teachers and suggested we should consider Charter Schools even though by then they were overwhelmingly discredited and the teachers loudly booed her for her blatant pandering.

When Bernie was confronted by Black Lives Matter, on the other hand, he may not have been happy with them but he heard them out, recognized that they had some legitimate concerns, and improved his campaigning as a result of that, just like he may have improved his campaigning in response to the letter signed by David Swanson and over a hundred other activists, many of whom are now more inclined to support him.

Under the current circumstances I wouldn't go so far as to recommend against donating to Bernie Sanders; however activities that don't involve financial donations at the grassroots level may be worth far more, since any campaigning on issues will be controlled at the grassroots. Even if you don't agree with him on all the issues this can be done and if he knows that he's accountable to those campaigning at the grassroots have some concerns he'll be more likely to address them.

If we continue fighting by their rules, the best we can hope for a small temporary victories, which they'll overturn as soon as we become complacent again!

Of course, if you want to get technical, you could argue that neither voter ID laws or relying on campaign contributions are exactly the same as poll taxes; and this might be true but they accomplish the same thing, rigging the process in favor of the wealthy even if they're not exactly the same, which is more important!

Right now we have a fraction of the public controlling the entire election process without much if any input from the majority. Over Ninety percent of the media is controlled by six corporations and the largest news papers not included in these corporation are owned by billionaires, and the social platforms like Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets are also controlled by billionaires!

This enables them to rig elections by ensuring that no candidate can ever get enough name recognition to get elected without their approval, which is why, even though Bernie Sanders is far better than any other candidate they allow us to hear from can't expect him to finish the job; even if we do get him elected many of the most important issues will still have to be pushed by the Grassroots which is why I also intend to continue reviewing other candidates to show how many people are ebing censored as I did in Censored Candidates For President By Mass Media