Casino Capitalism: Democrats and Republicans Gamble With Democracy
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/casino_capitalism_democrats_and_republic
ans_gamble_with_democracy_20151014/
Posted on Oct 14, 2015
By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
Leonard Zhukovsky / Shutterstock
"We are live at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas!" So opened the first
Democratic presidential debate of the 2016 electoral season-that's right, in
a Las Vegas casino.
Five Democrats were given space on the stage at the casino: Former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Gov.
Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, and former Rhode Island Gov.
Lincoln Chafee. CNN, the network that hosted the debate, had a sixth podium
at the ready, hoping that Vice President Joe Biden would jump into the ring
in time to give its ratings a boost. He declined.
Democratic candidate Larry Lessig was available to use the extra podium, but
he was banned from participating. Lessig is a Harvard professor and public
intellectual who is running for president as a Democrat on a single-issue
platform: the removal of money from politics. According to his campaign,
Lessig raised $1 million in 28 days from close to 10,000 people, earned the
support of voters from across the political spectrum, won 1 percent in the
first national poll that his campaign conducted and spoke at the New
Hampshire Democratic Party Convention with the other presidential
candidates. Yet the Democratic National Committee has consistently ignored
his candidacy. Chafee, by comparison, raised just under $28,000 in the first
half of 2015.
Bernie Sanders has been the surprise candidate this year, attracting
record-breaking crowds at campaign events, raising tens of millions of
dollars in small donations and consistently rising in the polls against
Clinton. He is a self-described socialist, which CNN's debate moderator,
Anderson Cooper, made an issue of from the start: "You call yourself a
democratic socialist. How can any kind of socialist win a general election
in the United States?"
Sanders does not shy from the label: "We're going to win, because, first,
we're going to explain what democratic socialism is ... it is immoral and
wrong that the top one-tenth of 1 percent in this country own almost as much
wealth as the bottom 90 percent, that it is wrong today, in a rigged
economy, that 57 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent."
Cooper persisted, "You don't consider yourself a capitalist, though?"
Sanders: "Do I consider myself part of the casino capitalist process by
which so few have so much and so many have so little, by which Wall Street's
greed and recklessness wrecked this economy? No, I don't. I believe in a
society where all people do well, not just a handful of billionaires."
Of course, Democrats don't have a monopoly on casino politics. Several days
before the Democratic debate, Republican candidate Marco Rubio made a
pilgrimage to another casino, The Venetian Las Vegas, to meet with its
owner, gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson. Republican candidates line up to
"kiss the ring" of this billionaire, said by Forbes to be the 18th-richest
person in the world. His largesse can make or break a candidacy, and
candidates flock to his casino, to compete in what has been dubbed "the
Adelson primary." Rubio is said to be leading the pack for Adelson's
support. In the 2012 campaign cycle, Adelson spent $100 million to support
the Republican cause.
And let's not forget the GOP front-runner, billionaire Donald Trump. He,
too, is a casino magnate in his own right, with a rocky career owning and
running numerous casinos from Atlantic City to Vegas to a riverboat on the
Mississippi, most of which have ended up in bankruptcy over the years.
Many suspect the slot machines and other gambling options in Vegas are
rigged. So, too, have critics long inveighed against the presidential
debates. The two major parties formed a private company in 1987, the
Commission on Presidential Debates, taking over control of the debates from
the independent League of Women Voters. Third parties have virtually no
chance of getting on the debate stage in the general election, under rules
set by this company. It is run by a Democrat and a Republican: Mike McCurry,
former White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, and former
Republican National Committee Chairman Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr.
Until 2013, Fahrenkopf also ran the American Gaming Association, the
gambling lobby. The AGA has just launched an initiative, "Gaming Votes!," to
support pro-gambling candidates in key swing states. The AGA doesn't like to
take chances, apparently, spreading its donations just about evenly between
Democrats and Republicans.
The world is on fire. The climate is changing, threatening irreversible and
catastrophic harm. Wars are raging, forcing millions to flee in desperation.
Inequality is at an all-time high here at home. The U.S. elections are
indeed high stakes, but it shouldn't be just high rollers who determine the
outcome. Our democracy, and the planet, deserve much more.
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio
news hour airing on more than 1,200 stations in North America. She is the
co-author of "The Silenced Majority," a New York Times best-seller.
(c) 2015 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/
Casino Capitalism: Democrats and Republicans Gamble With Democracy
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/casino_capitalism_democrats_and_republic
ans_gamble_with_democracy_20151014/
Posted on Oct 14, 2015
By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
Leonard Zhukovsky / Shutterstock
"We are live at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas!" So opened the first
Democratic presidential debate of the 2016 electoral season-that's right, in
a Las Vegas casino.
Five Democrats were given space on the stage at the casino: Former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Gov.
Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, and former Rhode Island Gov.
Lincoln Chafee. CNN, the network that hosted the debate, had a sixth podium
at the ready, hoping that Vice President Joe Biden would jump into the ring
in time to give its ratings a boost. He declined.
Democratic candidate Larry Lessig was available to use the extra podium, but
he was banned from participating. Lessig is a Harvard professor and public
intellectual who is running for president as a Democrat on a single-issue
platform: the removal of money from politics. According to his campaign,
Lessig raised $1 million in 28 days from close to 10,000 people, earned the
support of voters from across the political spectrum, won 1 percent in the
first national poll that his campaign conducted and spoke at the New
Hampshire Democratic Party Convention with the other presidential
candidates. Yet the Democratic National Committee has consistently ignored
his candidacy. Chafee, by comparison, raised just under $28,000 in the first
half of 2015.
Bernie Sanders has been the surprise candidate this year, attracting
record-breaking crowds at campaign events, raising tens of millions of
dollars in small donations and consistently rising in the polls against
Clinton. He is a self-described socialist, which CNN's debate moderator,
Anderson Cooper, made an issue of from the start: "You call yourself a
democratic socialist. How can any kind of socialist win a general election
in the United States?"
Sanders does not shy from the label: "We're going to win, because, first,
we're going to explain what democratic socialism is ... it is immoral and
wrong that the top one-tenth of 1 percent in this country own almost as much
wealth as the bottom 90 percent, that it is wrong today, in a rigged
economy, that 57 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent."
Cooper persisted, "You don't consider yourself a capitalist, though?"
Sanders: "Do I consider myself part of the casino capitalist process by
which so few have so much and so many have so little, by which Wall Street's
greed and recklessness wrecked this economy? No, I don't. I believe in a
society where all people do well, not just a handful of billionaires."
Of course, Democrats don't have a monopoly on casino politics. Several days
before the Democratic debate, Republican candidate Marco Rubio made a
pilgrimage to another casino, The Venetian Las Vegas, to meet with its
owner, gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson. Republican candidates line up to
"kiss the ring" of this billionaire, said by Forbes to be the 18th-richest
person in the world. His largesse can make or break a candidacy, and
candidates flock to his casino, to compete in what has been dubbed "the
Adelson primary." Rubio is said to be leading the pack for Adelson's
support. In the 2012 campaign cycle, Adelson spent $100 million to support
the Republican cause.
And let's not forget the GOP front-runner, billionaire Donald Trump. He,
too, is a casino magnate in his own right, with a rocky career owning and
running numerous casinos from Atlantic City to Vegas to a riverboat on the
Mississippi, most of which have ended up in bankruptcy over the years.
Many suspect the slot machines and other gambling options in Vegas are
rigged. So, too, have critics long inveighed against the presidential
debates. The two major parties formed a private company in 1987, the
Commission on Presidential Debates, taking over control of the debates from
the independent League of Women Voters. Third parties have virtually no
chance of getting on the debate stage in the general election, under rules
set by this company. It is run by a Democrat and a Republican: Mike McCurry,
former White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, and former
Republican National Committee Chairman Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr.
Until 2013, Fahrenkopf also ran the American Gaming Association, the
gambling lobby. The AGA has just launched an initiative, "Gaming Votes!," to
support pro-gambling candidates in key swing states. The AGA doesn't like to
take chances, apparently, spreading its donations just about evenly between
Democrats and Republicans.
The world is on fire. The climate is changing, threatening irreversible and
catastrophic harm. Wars are raging, forcing millions to flee in desperation.
Inequality is at an all-time high here at home. The U.S. elections are
indeed high stakes, but it shouldn't be just high rollers who determine the
outcome. Our democracy, and the planet, deserve much more.
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio
news hour airing on more than 1,200 stations in North America. She is the
co-author of "The Silenced Majority," a New York Times best-seller.
(c) 2015 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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