November 8, 2013
As a Signer of this Petition I Believe Every American Has the Right to Know Who the Large Corporations and the Very Wealthy Americans Specifically Are who have been Allowed to Buy Unfair, Undue, and Corrupting Influence in Our Government by Making Very Large Secret Donations to Specific Political Candidates and Extremely Biased and Dishonest Political Organizations. These Wealthy People and Large Corporations want to continue to be able to keep Their Large Donations Secret in Order to avoid any and all Accountability for Their Actions from the American Public. These Corporations and Wealthy People Know the Special Treatment they Demand is Corrupted, Unfair, and in No Way Democratic. They want to Keep Their Very Large Corrupting Donations Designed to Buy Effective Control of Our Government Secret. They do not want to be exposed to or experience any type of Backlash from the Vast Majority of Americans for Their Efforts that are Corrupting Our Government to Their Increasingly Effective Control. This Backlash could occur by the Boycotting of the Products and/or Services they Sell, and Even Worse, this Backlash could be Expressed by Everyone Who Votes. These are the Same People who Scream about ending Social Programs because they claim they Cause People in Need to Depend on Government and thereby those in need do not take Responsibility for Their Own Lives. Yet they themselves are Secretly, Deliberately, and Intentionally Bribing Politicians and Demanding Special and Very Preferential Treatment for it from Our Government for Their Further Gain at the Expense of the Other 95% to 99% of Americans.
Through Large Secret Donations and Lobbyists the Very Wealthy and Large Corporations are and have been Able to do Nothing Less Than Buy an Increasing Large Level of Effective Control of Our Government for Their Own Extreme Benefit while Representing only a Very Small Minority of U.S. Citizens as they only number in the top one to five percent of Our Countries Population. These are the People, Large Corporations, and Organizations that Already Control a Massively Disproportionate and Growing Percentage of Our Countries Wealth and they are doing so at the Extreme Expense of the Continually Shrinking Number of Middle Class Americans. This is the Last Thing these People and Large Corporations Want Exposed Because They Know What They Are Doing Is Wrong, Corrupt, and In No Way Democratic. Secret Political Donations Allow Them To Avoid All Accountability for Their Corrupted Practices and the Massively Disproportionate Amount of Influence They Already Have. Yet this is still “Not Enough”, as Nothing Ever Is, for These Very Wealthy People and Large Corporations, who Will Not Stop Until They Have Complete Effective Control of Government by the Wealthiest 1% to 5% that They Constantly Continue to Strive For. They Want Rule by The Wealthy and if this means continuing the Ongoing Destruction of "The Middle Class" in America so be it.
In Fact the Enormous Disparity of Wealth in Our Country has been Caused and Created in large part by the Massive Wrongful Extraction of Middle Class Wealth By and For the Already Wealthy and Large Corporations. This Massive Extraction of Middle Class Wealth By and For the Already Wealthy has been in part Enabled by the Passing of Laws that Receive little if any Coverage by “The Mainstream (Corporate) News Media”. Many of these “Laws” are simply “Amended” to Other Laws up for Vote and they may seem Subtle, or even go Unnoticed, but in Truth they have Given Enormous and Unfair Advantage to Large Corporations and the Already Very Wealthy. If you deny this then explain how Large Corporations are able to “Legally Steal” All of the Money in Their Employee’s Pension/Retirement Plans Including Every Penny the Employee’s Themselves Put In. If you Deny this the explain the Recent Example of How Hostess Employee’s Have “Lost” All of the Money Already In Their Pension/Retirement Plan. They All Paid In at a Rate of $3 an hour as a Specific Deduction For Their Pension Plan from every Paycheck they received from Hostess for over a Decade or Decades. As Allowed By Law the Top Management at Hostess “Legally Stole” All of The Pension Plan Money, Gave Themselves Six Figures Bonus’s, and then Blamed the Collapse of Hostess Completely on “The Union” and Refused to Accept Any Responsibility for their Own Incompetence and Greed. To Avoid All Responsibility for Their Actions They Knew they Only had to use the Word “Union” and this would Cause Millions of Americans to Blame the Union For Everything and “Never Mind” the Millions of Dollars “Legally Stolen” from the Employee’s Pension Plan By the Top Management of Hostess. All of Us Already Know that there is a Separate Set of Rules for Enforcing the Law for the Wealthy as opposed to Every Other American and this just serves as Further Proof.
The Absolute Proof of All of This is the Enormous Disparity of Income in The United States. “The top 400 families in the US control as much wealth as the bottom 60%. The wealthiest 5% of Americans control 72% of America’s financial wealth. The bottom 80% control only 7% of the nation’s financial wealth. The richest 400 Americans have more combined wealth than the poorer HALF of all Americans. That means 400 people have more wealth than 150,000,000 people combined. American corporations saw record profits in 2010. Nearly 80% of all economic gains made in the past thirty years have gone to the richest 1%. In the 1970s, the average CEO made 30 times what an hourly worker made. Today, a CEO makes 300 times what an hourly worker makes.” This Is the Self Destructive Insanity of Unfettered Greed and Enormous Ego’s. The Problem Is That It Comes At The Expense of Almost All of the Other 95% of Americans. The Middle Class in America Is Being Destroyed by the Never Ending Greed for Wealth and Power by the Wealthiest 1% to 5% of All Americans and the Continuation of Secret Political Contributions Will Only Make This Worse. Keeping Large Financial Contributions from The Very Wealthy and Large Corporations Secret Only Serves Those Making Them and Does So at the Expense of All Other Americans. Ultimately Allowing the Very Wealthy and Large Corporations to Have Everything They Want Will Destroy Themselves As Well but They Are Too Blinded by Wealth and Power to See and Understand This. This Small Percentage of Americans Has No Right To Take the Other 95% of the Rest of Us Down With Them.
Rory Athearn
[email address redacted]
[address redacted]
I am writing to urge the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending – and to do so this year.
“Dark money” groups that accept contributions from corporations, but are not required to publicly identify their corporate donors, spent millions of dollars during the 2012 elections. It is a scandal that money from publicly traded corporations – which belongs to investors – can be secretly spent to distort our democracy.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission created the loophole that enables this secret spending, but the SEC has the authority to close it.
Both shareholders and the public must be fully informed as to how much corporations spend on politics and which candidates are being promoted or attacked. Disclosures should be posted promptly on the SEC’s web site.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Rory Athearn
Denver, CO