Congressman Kucinich on the Growing Threat of Corporate Plutocracy

Here is some of what Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH) had to say in a recent interview with Democracy Now:

[T]he attack on public employees really presages an attack on the entire public sphere. So what’s happening here is ... a destructive undermining of the principle of government of the people . . . . [T]his is about privatization, writ large. It’s about attempting to create circumstances where the physical assets of the state, that were purchased through people’s tax dollars over many generations, are about to be auctioned off … often to a lower bidder, in order for the private sector to profit. . . . [W]e are at the threshold of a whole new world here, where workers are either going to be restored to a position of dignity in our society, or they’re going to be reduced to a second-class citizenship. . . . [T]he thinking is that there is no such thing as government of the people. This idea of government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations has actually taken hold. It’s taken hold in the Citizens United case. It’s taken hold in Buckley v. Valeo. And now it’s taken hold with [Ohio] Senate Bill 5. . . . [A]t this point, unions are one of the last lines of defense against a corporate plutocracy. . . . One of the things that I’m concerned about with respect to this particular White House is what seems to be the extraordinary influence that Wall Street has. We could not have 15 million, 14-15 million people out of work, unless there are those who are helping to manage the engines of this economy who feel that … to have that level of unemployment is somehow conducive to a functioning of the economy in order to keep the cost of labor low. . . . In some cases, you have an attempt, as in Michigan, to write laws that would even lead to the abolition of local governments … taken over by an unelected board.

For no extra charge, here is an excerpt from one of Juan Gonzalez's questions for Rep. Kucinich regarding Ohio S.B. 5:

[O]ne of the interesting aspects [is] that union members would be—or the governments, local governments, would be prohibited from collecting the voluntary political donations of workers to the political funds of their unions. This seems to be a direct attempt to prevent unions from being able to develop a political war chest before the upcoming elections, obviously, before the upcoming presidential elections.

SJP