The grassroots beginning to reject corporate rule

Waves on the surface can come from winds, moving boats or forces from below. The Republican “wave” election may be more a conservative response to forces beneath the surface than a sign of actual strength. Midterm elections attract voters who tend to be whiter, better-off and more conservative than those voting in presidential elections.

These voters may have been prompted by a sea change emerging from below, a force that may not bode well for Republicans in the longer term. A political reality that favors a far more democratic challenge to the status quo is entering the American consciousness. Growing public awareness tilts toward rejecting BIG MONEY influence in our political system.

Unaccountable dark money flows unchecked into the political process at every level: local, state and national. Funds from unknown sources, domestic and even foreign, shape our politics on the national and global scale. Our sovereignty, democratic gains and citizen power are being methodically eroded in favor of oligarchic rule. Supreme Court rulings declaring money as speech and corporations as people are among the most egregious.

ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) has been exposed as a corporate-funded political action agenda of global corporations and conservative politicians to rewrite state laws for their further enrichment at public expense. Since the early 1970s, ALEC has worked to undermine every phase of our lives ranging from voter suppression, privatizing public schools, deregulating health and safety standards, stand-your-ground gun laws, denying climate change, and beyond.

Grassroots forces from beneath are beginning to organize to help raise awareness of a number of realities about our current system:

• Resource allocation is rigged in favor of wealth and privilege to an extreme.

• A regime of private corporate rulers dominate, even control public governance.

• Reality reveals climate chaos directly results from reckless extractive capitalism.

• Religious affiliation is outnumbered by no affiliation.

• Racial minorities become a majority in the not-so-distant future.

The midterm election results may be a conservative reaction to growing awareness that the common good is being undermined by global free market fundamentalism, climate deniers, top-down rule and corporate-driven ideology.

Harold Honkola

Lake Vermilion, Minn.