If you seriously want to understand the role of money and corporations controlling American politics today check out the two books below. Mayer and Phillips-Fein give you the facts documented. But instead the right wing conservatives especially, will continue to be led in the wrong direction hurting themselves and working Americans too.
Read excerpts for a taste of reality.
"Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right" Jane Mayer
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27833494-dark-money
'Invisible Hands' Kim Phillips-Fein
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2751831-invisible-hands
And these too:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25437695-the-view-from-flyover-country
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28695425-strangers-in-their-own-land
"[The Great Depression, Pat] Robertson wrote, did "more to shape the existing framework of U.S. government policy than any other single event in recent history." The legacy of the Great Depression included "a powerful central government ... an anti-business bias in the country ... powerful unions," and, most important of all, "the belief in the economic policy of British scholar John Maynard Keynes, to the end that government spending and government 'fine tuning' would guarantee perpetual prosperity." Robertson conceded that such measures might have played a role in ending the Great Depression. But fifty years later they were responsible for the "sickness of the 70s" - the devaluation of the dollar, inflation, the decline in productivity. Robertson called for a "profound moral revival" to combat the economic weaknesses plaguing the United States. "Those who love God must get involved in the election of strong leaders," he insisted, and they should choose men and women who were "pledged to reduce the size of government, eliminate federal deficits, free our productive capacity, ensure sound currency." Kim Phillips-Fein (p225 'Invisible Hands')
"Early issues of the 'Journal-Champion' carried numerous articles calling the faithful to the fight to cleanse America of sexual sin: homosexuality, pornography, and abortion. But interwoven with this campaign were descriptions of the economic and political crisis facing the United States. 'The greatest threat to the average American's liberty does not come From Communistic aggression, crime in the decaying cities or any other external cause," read an article in the June 1978 issue. "It comes from the growing internal encroachments of government bureaucrats as they limit the freedom of Americans through distribution of rules and regulations, many times called guidelines." The newspaper criticized OSHA's "insulting or silly" regulations, and published an open letter to Congress denouncing the "faceless bureaucrats who sit in strategy meetings and formulate federal guidelines," saying that they "pinch our pocket books, restrict our work privileges, govern our spending habits, determine the 'safety' restrictions of our businesses and influence the type of homes we live in."" Kim Phillips-Fein (p229 'Invisible Hands')
"[Richard] Viguerie hoped that Ronald Reagan. the candidate of the economic right, fresh from his third term as governor of California and starting to look toward national polities, could somehow be persuaded to run for the presidency on the American Independent Party ticket with George Wallace, the candidate of the social right. At the time, Reagan was growing eager to pursue a broader role in national politics. As he wrote to Lemuel Boulware, his old friend from GE, "l promise you I'll be trying to stir up the business world, including the exhortation to fight back against government's increasing lust for power over free enterprise." He even told the aging GE executive that an article Boulware had written for Human Events (a conservative magazine) had been the basis for some of his own speeches. Boulware still had great hopes for Reagan. When the politician began a radio program in 1974, Boulware wrote to him, "You are the lone one with the knowledge, facility, zest and credibility needed to make the initially disillusioning facts be both economically understandable and humanly attractive." Kim Phillips-Fein (1979 p219 'Invisible Hands')
"I did create the phrase 'government takeover' of health care. And I believe it," Luntz maintained, noting too that "it gave the Republicans the weapon they needed to defeat Obama in 2010." But most experts found the pitch patently misleading because the Obama administration was proposing that Americans buy private health insurance from for-profit companies, not the government. In fact, progressives were incensed that rather than backing a "public option" for those who preferred a government insurance program, the Obama plan included a government mandate that individuals purchase health-care coverage, a conservative idea hatched by the Heritage Foundation to stave off nationalized health care. Luntz's phrase was so false that it was chosen as "the Lie of the Year" by the nonpartisan fact-checking group PolitiFact. Yet while a rear guard of administration officials tried lamely to correct the record, Luntz's deceptive message stuck, agitating increasingly fearful and angry voters, many of whom flocked to Tea Party protests.
Noble's strategy was carefully targeted. He aimed the attack ads especially at the states of members of the Senate Finance Committee, which was writing the health-care bill and whose support would be needed to vote it out of the committee...."
p 232,233
'Dark Money' by Jane Mayer
