LETTERS: Becoming oligarchy, Cartoon catcalls

Becoming oligarchy

We are becoming an oligarchy country, ruled by the few — the billionaire class, the corporations — thanks in large part to the U.S. Supreme Court and their wrong-headed decisions that started in 1976.

This fear that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had that they had to guard against this happening is slowly becoming a reality. In the summer of 1785, Madison was running the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, and he gave a speech that pointed out the importance of not allowing the new country they were forming to become an oligarchy a country that was run of, by and for the rich. In another speech he said there were “two cardinal objects of Government, the rights of persons, and the rights of property.” He also said that if only the rights of property were written into the Constitution, the rich would ravage the few assets of the poor. Madison wrote, “Give all power to property; and the indigent (will) be oppressed.” Thanks to recent Supreme Court decisions that started in 1976 and 1978, the arch toward oligarchy has trended and has allowed the corrupting of our political process. It started in 1976 when the highest court ruled that rich people and corporations can own politicians and political parties. The court said that buying and corrupting politicians, something that had been illegal in this country since its inception, was no longer against the law because money was free speech for the billionaire class. This was Buckley vs. Valeo.

Our democracy has been on a downward spiral ever since.

Even more recent, the Citizens United case of 2010 opened the floodgates of political money even more to a continuous gusher when the court ruled that the super-rich should be allowed to spend as much as they want on campaign contributions as long as they are part of political action committees.

So all these court rulings of the past 40 years or so that money is free speech, that corporations are people and that the wealthy could contribute vast amounts of money through super PACs has done much harm to our democracy and our arch has steadily been trending more and more toward becoming an oligarchy much like Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the one in the Philippines with Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and several other countries around the world that are ruled by dictators.

We cannot allow this to happen in our country. Vote and vote blue! The very survival of our democracy, the oldest surviving one in the world, hangs in the balance and this is no hyperbole.

Jesse Dorsett

Lakewood, Calif.

Cartoon catcalls

GOP presidential candidates are picking on cartoon characters? Why?

First Ron DeSantis, the weird governor from Florida, picks a fight with Mickey Mouse. Then, during the GOP presidential debate, Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, looks directly into the camera and tells Donald Trump that because he has not shown up at the debates he will soon be known as “Donald Duck.”

The witty remark got a lot of laughs from the audience, but I don’t think Donald Duck appreciated it. It’s more likely he felt insulted. Hoo-boy.

So, who’s next? Daffy Duck, Goofy, Minnie Mouse, Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio?

Italo J. Zarate

Brownsville

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