As is common in the media and Republican’t discussions: “This (article calling out wrongs) is too personal.”(“You should deploy the ‘bad apple’ meme.”) “The statistics are too clear.” (“Deploy the ‘oh you can make statistics say anything you want’ meme.”) …
…. Meanwhile, the killing, corporate thievery, and environmental abuse & poisoning, goes on and on - as we poor, confused, passengers try to read the “miles to” info off the passing road signs directing us to Hell while stuck in the front seat of our Hand Basket eV.
Follow the Money. The very old question, “Cui Bono?” (Who benefits?) can point you in directions that are telling, but give no results when your follow up question is, “What can we do about it?” Money buys influence which trumps (no pun intended) mere constituency or majority.
The most dedicated opponents to Health Care 4 All are the insurance and hospital corporations who see Medicare 4 All as their own personal death panel. Livable Gun Control Legislation opponents are the obvious: people who make, sell, & promote gun sales. Oil-Gas-Coal Companies are firmly entrenched with vast amounts of money gouged out of customers and government pockets so can fund as much as they like to keep their monopolies.
Seeing who benefits is easy, the usual suspects are those entities and individuals who make money from whatever product or policy is mentioned.
The hard to answer question is “How to stop them from running their corporate bus over our individual lives?” In the past, it was often Unions or political agencies like the FDA, EPA, OSHA, Planning Commissions, etc., that were big and influential enough to stand up to the fleets of Corporate lawyers. They were also aided by the media calling out abuses and raising the consciousness of the public about them.
Alas, the media and governmental actors are now captured by the Big Money cadre and see themselves as members of that group instead of their historical roles of watchdogs or protectors of the people. The Unions have been bled almost dry of membership by the Big Money class and their bought and paid for politicians so are now almost powerless. The same politicians who wrote (with the aid of Corporate think tanks like ALEC who provided boilerplate corporate-friendly legislation to copy and paste) “their” bill that was/is submitted for debate and voted on to pass into law.
My personal belief is that the DNC has its own agenda and preferred candidates for every office that they decide can be won. This leaves out a lot of popular local, state, and federal, candidates of a more progressive bent in favor of their “whose turn is it now” stable of approved candidates. This clearly shows a problem with the national party and ignores the possibility that a true populist/liberal movement can and must be built from the ground up starting in local elections and moving out and up from there. Do we currently have enough of a liberal populist movement established that we can turn things around from corporate ownership of our lives? That is what we will discover in the next few election cycles. Are there dedicated Public servants in office? Obviously not many and seemingly only of the democratic persuasion. So, we must elect more liberals. Liberals who are not afraid of a fight and of calling out Corporate or Governmental bad behavior. This will require freeing them from the necessity of fund raising from Corporate or other big money donors.
It is possible as Bernie Sanders proved, but it is not easy to raise the enthusiasm and focused dedication to be able to accomplish. The candidates must be able to garner enough media coverage to achieve recognition in the electorate while not spending tons of money.
It can be done. Bernie showed the way. Who will follow?