By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

It’s been a ride on the tilt-a-whirl this week: up, down and spun all around. Eric’s warning early in the week not to believe anything you hear and only half of what you see was prescient. Blizzard was coming, then it didn’t (in New York, anyhow). Mitt was running, now he’s not (suggesting donor exhaustion, likely Koch inspired). Republicans win everything in sight in 2014 because they insist they “have a mandate from the people,” and less than two months later, Obama’s approval numbers are up 22 points.

It appears that we’ve been let off the leash, somehow, finally free to break the bonds of former decisions and agreements. We’re backing up, doing over, reconsidering. A pro-life Ohio Rep of the Dem persuasion has changed his mind and joined the pro-choice because he “talked to women.” Novel idea, eh? Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee proclaimed women who use profanity in the workplace “trashy,” which was a bridge too far for big-haired blonde FOX News hostess, Megyn Kelly, who doesn’t seem to realize she’s simply supposed to support all male commentary while looking hot. She suggested that swearing wasn’t the only thing real women were up to, much to the Huck’s horror.

Cranky old John McPoopyPants, traditionally a gentleman, protected a stolid and complacent Henry Kissinger from accusations of war crimes by a handful of fearless Code Pink women protestors, calling them ‘low-life scum’ as the Capital police hustled them away. While not a complete back-track, McCain is usually more solicitous with the ladies and patient with the process. Consider what he tolerated in Sarah Palin. I presume, given Pink’s liberal bona fides, Huckabee would approve that level of trash talk.

Do note that a couple of Baggers in Arizona are getting their mojo ready to challenge McCain in 2016 because he’s just so darned liberal. Maybe that’s what’s got him snippy. I mean, it’s not like Kissinger hasn’t heard accusations that he’s a war criminal on a regular basis for most of forty years. These things have a shelf life of their own. Jane Fonda had to apologize for that picture on a Viet Cong tank that earned her the handle Hanoi Jane again this week, and what’s politically correct on that issue has changed too many times to count.

In world news, the internal Saudi reconstruction has solidified into a more moderate configuration than under Abdullah, tumbling political camps like pawns on the board. The change signals problems for Egypt’s president who had counted on a cash infusion from the Saudi piggy bank, and a boon for relations with Turkey, which had been on the outs and looks to be back in. This has everyone scrambling for position internally, as well as internationally, although the ancient grievances against Iran remains unchanged.

And here at home, John Boehner remains unapologetic for having tread on Obama’s toes, inviting a Netanyahu speech to influence U.S. policy on Iran, endangering continued talks on securing nuclear materials. The dust-up that’s ensued in these last few days has everyone scrambling, except for our tight-lipped president, who has refused to meet with Bibi. The Israeli Ambassador had no qualms in quickly blaming any lack of protocol on the Speaker, and most everyone is taking a closer look at this breach to see if it was calculated or another of Boehner’s self-confessed “stumbles.” It’s an embarrassment for all parties and shouldn’t have happened, even if Netanyahu badly needed to shore up flagging support in the U.S.

Least surprising — but most distressing, this week, and thanks to eight Blue Dog Dem Senators (mine included) — the Keystone XL Pipeline vote passed through the Senate, readying a bill for veto on the President’s desk. This, despite a truly disturbing history of pipeline ruptures and leaks that is being ignored by those interested in seeing this Koch project put through. Obama’s veto is a sure thing, and ultimate disapproval for this project looks like a lock, but who knows. The proposal to create protections in ANWR early in the week was followed by a proposal to allow drilling in the Atlantic: one hand giveth, the other taketh away.

There’s a kind of ‘either/or,’ ‘maybe/maybe not’ quality in decision-making going on. Mercury slowed us down just in time to examine it this week in a kind of peculiar slow-mo fashion. Nowhere is this wobble more evident than in our long struggle with how we will deal with resources in this nation. Larry Summers told Charlie Rose this week that we’re poised on becoming the “new Saudi Arabia” in terms of natural gas production. He thinks the pipeline should be approved quickly, so that fuel products are no longer being hauled on trucks and trains, exploding, even killing, on a regular basis.

Better to just spill and contaminate via a pipeline that does not even enrich the American piggy bank, I presume, jeopardizing our water table and fouling the environment. The wheel is spinning: round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows. We take our eye off renewables at our own peril!

Attempting to achieve some balance, the Prez has decided that a stabilized economy should result in the end of sequestration, so his new budget proposal will include an $80 billion increase in discretionary spending, which has the Pubs, who thought they had the pesky liberals cornered, owl-eyed and perplexed. With an inordinate amount of good humor, Obama continues to act with the confidence those of us on the left love to see, especially in defiance of the myth that the last two “lame duck” years of a presidency come to little (historically disproven, by the way). This attitude is no doubt being carefully scrutinized by a couple of Libertarian brothers who — along with their friends, the Wal-Mart heirs — own the world.

The Kochs, David and Charles, have pledged most of a billion dollars to buy the next election, which makes them America’s third, and probably most persuasive, political party. If you’re having trouble figuring out how much a billion is, this graphic (thanks to Digby) will help. And if you don’t know who the Kochs are, Mark Morford’s description leaves little to the imagination:

“What would you get if you crossed a ruthless drug kingpin, a mafia crime lord, the willful blindness of the NRA, the combined CEO’s of Monsanto, Exxon and RJ Reynolds and a couple of scared old wolverines with God complex and a penchant for contaminating the world?”

Ah, yes. A Koch and a smile. Makes me wonder what Justice Kennedy — whose swing vote opened the Pandora’s Box that enabled the worst instincts of a resurrected Ayn Rand in the Citizens United ruling — thinks about it now. Just ‘free speech,’ is it? All that purchasing power, all that corrupting influence? It was Kennedy’s vote that tipped the balance in killing off the McCain-Feingold Act that established spending limits on political contribution. Does he ever think back on the dissenting opinion of Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote, “A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”

Bought and sold they are, of course, because influence peddling and politics are synonymous. In the last decade, somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four billion dollars each year has been spent on lobbying efforts, much of it by Big Pharma, the military industrial complex, pro-Israel groups including AIPAC, the NRA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This is money that can be tracked, following the trail of nearly 12,000 professional lobbyists who descend on our elected officials like a blight of locusts, offering perks and peddling their wares.

‘Dark money’ that is funneled into Political Action Committees by 501(c) non-profit groups can’t be broken down by donor or tracked so readily, which has made the Kochs’ life easier, since anything that beats back taxing and regulation is their primary goal. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, over the last three election cycles, “spending by organizations that do not disclose their donors has increased from less than $5.2 million in 2006 to well over $300 million in the 2012 election.” These organizations count as destination for at least part of the Kochs’ plan to triple that amount next year.

So many months out from the election, with only a speculative list of candidates, can the awareness that we’re facing an onslaught of influence from huge money impact the way we see our political future? The public is getting wake-ups on so many levels, some even subliminal, which is beginning to change the political equation, but we have yet to conclude that we are, collectively, powerful.

It’s all about money, of course, and the love of it. Money is simply an exchange medium for the energy put out to secure it. Money, of itself, is neutral but the NEED of it, for instance, can be the difference between life and death while the LOVE of it — which the Bible named the root of all evil — infamously creates personalities as elitist, insular, jaded. I remember a family member who got a pretty good job, pre-recession, telling me he was voting Republican because he wanted to keep his money. I presume he did vote to the right, at least once, but he didn’t keep his money OR his job for long.

Our relationship with money — as opposed to our relationship with Source — needs to be looked at carefully, especially at this point in history when everything either has a price, or threatens to be privatized because of some Randian wet dream that such a plan “lifts all boats.” Money must not be our master — or our god — if we are to create a new and ethical era.

We can’t stand by and watch as democracy is bought and sold without even a whimper. Not when over a million dollars a day is estimated to be spent securing America for the Libertarian cause — day in, day out — until the November AFTER next. That kind of complacency is madness.

The minimum we can do to inoculate ourselves from this pending glut of money is explain to everyone willing to listen that the vote is being hacked by buying influence as surely as if it were being converted in a Diebold machine.

Here’s an Annie Leonard YouTube to share with people who may not know about Citizens United, how it came about and what it means. Leonard is responsible for the (brilliant, imho) “Story of Stuff” from last decade. For other suggestions, check out Move to Amend, an activist group I like. Or visit over at Cenk Uyger’s Wolf PAC, both doing vital work to repeal Citizens United, and pass the information around.

We do not need to become zealots in the cause of liberty, breathing fire and defensive at every right-wing assault, in order to further the cause of equality and democracy. We must simply seize the day, as Robin suggested to his young men in “The Dead Poets Society,” whenever the opportunity presents. We can use our voice to educate, encourage and support those who are new to the idea that furthering democracy is part of their bundle.

Until the money issue is dealt with in this nation — until elections can no longer be bought or politicians compromised by the continual need for campaign funding — the average citizen has no voice that can shout louder than a greenback. Until then, that wheel is still in play and where she stops, nobody knows. It’s up to us to stop the game.