In a wide-ranging conversation with Chris Hedges about her new book, Crime and No Punishment: Wealth, Power, and Violence in America, Gottschalk traces how deregulation, mass incarceration, militarized policing, endless war, media consolidation, and bipartisan deference to corporate power converged to create the conditions for today’s authoritarian politics.
Marie Gottschalk’s Crime and No Punishment is about far more than crime. It is a sweeping examination of how the United States built a political and economic order that punishes ordinary people while increasingly protecting the powerful.
The central argument is simple but devastating: America now operates under two justice systems.
One system aggressively prosecutes street crime, drug offenses, and immigration violations. The other has steadily decriminalized corporate crime, allowing executives responsible for massive financial and social harm to avoid meaningful punishment.
Over the last four decades, prosecutions of corporate executives have steadily declined even as the United States built the largest prison system in the democratic world. The wealthy increasingly pay fines that amount to little more than the cost of doing business, while ordinary Americans fill the nation’s prisons.
The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission supreme court case has solidified Corporate/oligarchical control over the US electoral system tilting economic system rewards toward wealthy elites.
Citizens United is not responsible for the last four decades. Overturning Citizens United would not undo anything that you railed against.
CU is a very convenient boogyman but I find that few really know much about what it does or does not do. If CU was overturned, the administration could effectively silence entities like MoveOn, Indivisible, The Lincoln Project, No Kings, etc.
The crux problem is not Citizens United but rather the steady evolution of “the press” — now known as “media” in variously named and rapidly metastasizing increasingly idiot forms — into something that can no longer check the actions of the powerful with truth nor popular engagement.
We need to be purposefully evolving new means to attract and empower citizens in the culture, and nostalgia and whinig will not cut it.
Lets stick with my FULL quote:"The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission supreme court case has solidified Corporate/oligarchical control over the US electoral system tilting economic system rewards toward wealthy elites."
The 2024 federal elections saw the highest level of billionaire spending in American history. In an effort to influence outcomes, billionaire donors and their families spent over $2.6 billion—a figure amounting to nearly 20 percent of total federal election spending that cycle.
Every current member of Congress has been elected under the post–Citizens United campaign system. And the current system is extremely tilted toward incumbents. So they will remain in office until they show signs of dementia. And sometimes still remain in office if such signs are detected.
Corporations & billionaires control who is elected. So one can form any such entities as MoveOn, Indivisible, The Lincoln Project, No Kings, etc that can protest. But it is just an illusion that they have any meanful impact upon Congress. Also corporations & billionaires can simply flood the airwaves with their message and overwhelm any potential opposition. I have noticed that sort action locally as a data center was rammed through for my county with little input from citizenry. The local TV airwave
has been flooded with ads spouting how beneficial the data center is to the community by the data center owners.
Money is power. Corporations & billionaires have it & the local peons don’t and are stifled.
YES, but, notice how even your post is stuck in rapidly obsolescing modes: airwaves!
Despite and because of the hideous stench of rotting corruption on all sides, I expect citizen outrage to find a way to take control back. For example, by a mobilization of popular music/comedy/culture via internet and traveling live performance faires on a rarely before seen level of expressive ferocity (but i do remember the 60’s!), simultaneously with churches using such performances to leverage a reawakening from their exhaustion to once again address morality as crucial to both personal and national life.
What was that word? Oh yes, REVIVAL, the most powerful and typical form of mass political action throughout USA history. Like these guys: e.g.:The Wide Awakes (U.S. National Park Service)
Two separate justice systems, two separate economies? It’s what poor people have noticed for a long time. Now, the water’s rising and all our boots are getting wet.
The pain has to get severe enough for even the most racist, ignorant and innumerate among us to educate themselves on the cause – and it ain’t black and brown people.
We’re almost there. I think $15/gal gasoline and $12/lb hamburger will do it – likely before November.
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We’re almost there. I think $15/gal gasoline and $12/lb hamburger will do it – likely before November. intercst [/quote]
Ok, since I like this stuff… Where do you see $15 gasoline and $12 burgers by November? I’m assuming this is a retail “professional” hamburger, not a do it your-selfer.
Iran and the Houthis are going to choke off both the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea well before November, tripling or quadrupling the price of crude. Hamburger already averages $6.84/lb nationwide and is rising steadily due to the Western drought and other issues.
People are finally waking up to the fact that both Houthís and Iranians for different but mutually supportive reasons, are NOT simple tribespeople with guns but are quite sophisticated and patient players in this mess. They know the USA electorate has an important election soon, and likely have plans on the electoral cmpaign calendar to maximize the impact they can deploy.
Your full quote does not change the analysis, neither does the additional article.
That is false. In 2024, 14 lost their general election. More lost in the primary (and a few more lost their primaries this year). I know there were another round of losses in 2022 but I don’t care to research them.
I won’t argue that billionaires trying to buy an election is a problem - a cancer - but prohibiting all corporate speech is not the way to combat that.
We can agree on the ailment but we disagree on the method to cure it. Banning speech is treating the cancer with chemo. I would prefer a solution that is far more targeted. And no, I don’t have an off the cuff solution.