Written by Michael Pollok   

Over the next few days, the 99% Working Group, pursuant to the 99% Declaration, will be sending out 3 million ballots to registered voters to elect a new Continental Congress which will meet in Philadelphia the week of July 4, 2012. No one in the corporate-owned U.S. media, or PBS which gets its funding from corporations, is reporting the story.

Several people in the media promised to cover this story a nd have since reneged on that promise (or never really intended to cover it) most likely due to corporate pressure, threats from advertisers, competing political groups and financial conflicts of interest. This cowardice by the media is no different than the behavior of the skulking politicians purchased by unions, corporations and the wealthy to do their exclusive bidding regardless of the cost to the country. In partnership with the corporate media, the politicians have methodically sacrificed our republican-democracy to accumulate money and power for a tiny group of people on the left and right. Now that money is no longer merely property but protected speech, the accumulation of wealth and power for this handful of people has become completely unrestricted while remaining secret. Thus, not only can they legally bribe and purchase politicians, they are not required to disclose who is taking and receiving the bribes. A perfect storm of corruption.

Perhaps George Orwell was nearly correct in his novel "1984"; simply substitute his vision of English socialism with American corporatism and you have the current conundrum in the United States. Maybe Orwell was completely correct and the dystopian political system and society he described in "1984" was the successor to corporatism. Partially in response to changing demographics and massive wealth disparity, we are witnessing a transition in our political process from a weak central government, controlled by corporations and the wealthy, to something more oppressive, more desperate, with additional oligarchical traits and characteristics reigned by even fewer people.

Consequently, it is not an overstatement to say that the United States and Europe are one major natural disaster or financial crisis away from revolution or civil war. With over 150 million people living in poverty or on low incomes in the U.S., tens of millions of people unemployed, underemployed or unemployable, and trillions of dollars in personal debt owed to the very corporations that control the government, it will not take much to cause the population to revolt against those who economically oppress the majority to increase their own wealth, deplete natural resources and improve only their standard of living and security at the expense of everyone else on the planet. With the support of the military industrial complex, many civilian police departments have become paramilitary forces supplied with heavier and more lethal weaponry previously reserved for conventional military applications in warfare. This militarization of local law enforcement combined with new legislation, including several shocking provisions of the 2012 Nation Defense Authorization Act, restricting civil rights, undermining privacy, and labeling peaceful protest groups like Occupy Wall Street as "terrorists" reveal that this government views the American civilian population as the new enemy and a threat to their continued governance for the benefit of corporations, unions, a select group of special interests and the ultra wealthy.

As bad as these actors are, the members of the media and the communications monopolies they represent are squarely to blame for the demise of our democracy. They fail to report the truth because they are "part & parcel" of the story. Orwell called it "double-think" or the ability to hold and express two contradictory views at the same time by means of collective self-deception. You know "A" is false and I know "A" is false but we tell each other it is true so often that we begin to believe it. The media's attacks upon the PACS and SuperPACS that funnel money into their bank accounts; hypocritical and feigned denouncements of "Citizens United" and crony capitalism are all concepts that are embraced by the corporate media in reality. In this world: 2+2=5 and if repeated enough you will believe it. The unlimited money being channeled to and greedily accepted by the media to control political debate and power in this country is destroying the foundation of our nation. This money determines what stories will be covered and how the stories will be spinned. It's no longer only about ratings; it's about power, control of the national discussion and the sale of books, entertainment properties and other products owned by the media conglomerates. Ethics simply do not apply. Thus, you might ask, if the members of the media oppose PAC money as a corrupting influence on democracy, why do they readily accept it? Because the members of the media may say they are against PAC money and still take it as long as 2+2=5 and you believe it.

The 99% Working Group