Everything is for sale, and this summer's Democratic National Convention in Denver is no exception.
More than four dozen national corporations have signed up as sponsors of the convention - everyone from Allstate to Xerox. And almost all of them have the same thing in common: They either have business with the federal government or they lobby on pending issues.
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They include companies like 3M, Allstate, AstraZeneca, AT&T, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co., Ford, Merck, Qwest, the Service Employees International Union, US Bank, Visa and Xcel Energy.
"Welcome to the American political system," Barnes-Gelt said of the companies ponying up money on both sides of the aisle.
Chris Lopez of the Democratic National Convention Host Committee acknowledged that sponsors get "opportunities" that depend on the level of their support. Those opportunities can include tickets to events surrounding the convention and even access to the Pepsi Center itself, where the convention will be held.
The host committee does not have to file documents outlining the level of sponsorships until after the convention. But Lopez said the access goes up as the contributions do.
Further evidence that if progressive activists want to seriously challenge corporate hegemony, they'll have to look outside party politics.And of course the right is doing the same, with groups like the creepily-named Youth for Western Civilization.
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When I was a senior in high school, The Nation had a contest where they asked high school and college students across the country what the most important issue facing young people was. In writing my response I deliberately chose to misread the question - rather than telling The Nation what I thought young people cared about the most, I decided to tell them what I thought the most important issue was, period. The answer? Undue corporate power and influence, particularly when it comes to the American political process.
Because if you don't, the whole scam may fall apart.
In the first two parts of this ongoing series on The Money Party, we discussed the fact that there is only one political party in the United States, The Money Party. It has two wings, Republican and Democratic. That party represents excessive concentrations of wealth in the hands of corporations, other organizations, and individuals. They put up the money and get what they pay for every time.
They make sure that the election system is rigged to rely on money like a junkie relies on heroin. The system takes care of them. They don't have to obey the same rules that we do. Why? Because they're above the law.
The Money Party owns the mainstream media entirely. NBC is really General Electric, ABC is Disney, CBS was Viacom but now it's just the name for a mega-corporation, and Fox is News Corp., the Rupert Murdoch financial empire. That's why it's called the corporate media. They're publicity shops, "corporate communications divisions," owned and controlled by Money Party members.
50% rise in the mortality rate. 3 out of 9 hospitals open, with the only public one of the three stuck in temporary facilities, operating at a third of its normal capacity. 6000 physicians displaced. No mechanisms for reimbursement for any physicians that want to return. Almost no places for Louisianan medical students to train in state, thus losing the doctors of the future. These are only a few parts of the disturbing picture that is New Orleans health care after Hurricane Katrina.
Where is the state? They're enjoying a surplus in the billions, yet refusing to invest in the non-existent hospital system.
And where is our federal government? Well, most of New Orleans's own representatives are too busy covering themselves for either corruption or hypocrisy.
In the hopes of raising more awareness about this issue, and getting some assistance for those who actually care, I joined some fellow Columbia students yesterday on Capitol Hill to lobby on this issue. More information about the horrible situation and the lobbying trip inside.
For those on the right who believe that all is equal in America, check out how a wealthy heiress gets a get-out-of-jail-free card... sorry Paris, but since when did Pinkberry cravings qualify as a health condition? Rumor has it she went on a "hunger strike"... right. No wonder our rates of incarceration are so skewed toward minorities in inner-cities (obviously, in addition to a number of other horribly screwed up systemic inequalities).
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo testified before the House Education committee today about his office’s headline-grabbing investigation into the often cozy relationships between student loan companies and college financial aid offices. He called many of the practices he uncovered “predatory lending,” and said that the mortgage market is now safer for consumers than the student loan market because of the lack of regulation, enforcement, and oversight. Read More »
Campus Progress today released to its network of student journalists and activists a step-by-step guide to probing their campus financial aid offices for conflicts of interests that damage the student loan system. The guide, “Honest Lending, Fair Lending,” comes in the wake of a groundbreaking investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and weeks of front-page newspaper disclosures about loan companies exerting apparent undue influence on colleges and college officials.
The good folks at Higher Ed Watch have found out that financial aid administrators at UT-Austin, Columbia, and the University of Southern California have financial interests in the same companies that they placed on their preferred lender lists.
Financial aid officers in all three schools sit on the advisory board of Student Loan Xpress, and owned stock in its parent companies. It seems stock options are given to board members, who can purchase them at discounted rates.
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