Produced by:
KBOO
Program::
Air date:
Tue, 04/22/2014 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Robert McChesney & John Nichols - Dollarocracy (lecture)
Robert McChesney (pictured at left) teaches at the University of Illinois. He is the author of many books including Digital Disconnect. He is co-author with John Nichols of Dollarocracy. He is a founder of Free Press, a national media reform organization. The Utne Reader listed him among their "50 visionaries who are changing the world."
John Nichols (pictured below) is Washington correspondent for The Nation. A contributing writer for The Progressive, he is also the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. He is a frequent guest on radio and television programs.
Dollarocracy: a system of government where private wealth determines political outcomes. Sound at all familiar? The corruption bred by boatloads of cash contaminates and pollutes our entire political process. So-called reforms won't cure the ailment. Radical surgery is required. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., understood this well when he counseled, "Timid supplications for justice will not solve the problem. We've got to massively confront the power structure." Washington is Lobbystan. The thousands of influence peddlars pretty much get what they want for their paymasters. Elections matter little. That's because, as McChesney and Nichols say, "Powerful interests-freed to, in effect, buy elections, set the rules of engagement. Those interests so dominate politics that the squabbling of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, is a sideshow to the great theater of plutocracy and plunder." Democracy has been sold down the river.