For Bruce Berlin, a former Greenfield lawyer who’s worked on social concerns throughout much of his life, the influence of big money on politics came home with the 2008 housing market collapse, when the equity he’d been counting on to pay for his daughter’s college education disintegrated.
Berlin, who’d worked for Western Massachusetts Legal Services in Greenfield from 1973 to 1981 and is a cousin of Greenfield lawyer Ed Berlin, was among those victims of the recession who became outraged that government wasn’t helping them but was bailing out Wall Street, saw the situation as part of a deeper crisis: the influence of major corporations and billionaires were having on U.S. government policies.
“As a lifelong political activist and student of American government and history, I have periodically been dismayed and, at times, even outraged by our nation’s increasingly anti-democratic political process,” Berlin writes in a new book, “Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America.” Instead of turning away from the overwhelming reality, the retired Santa Fe, N.M., attorney “decided to do what I could to reverse the takeover of the United States by Big Money and corporate power.”
Berlin plans a reading and book signing at Greenfield’s World Eye Bookshop Thursday at 5 p.m.
Unlike other tomes on the subject, Berlin’s self-published book offers a prescription for dealing with the problem he warns threatens our right to self-governance.
It’s a formidable, but not insurmountable challenge, says Berlin.
“America’s history holds the key to a solution” to political finance reform, he writes. “Time and again when vested interests have constructed seemingly insurmountable barriers to the people’s demands for a more equitable society, Americans have come together and overcome the obstacles to a more inclusive nation,” especially through mass movements such as the abolition, women’s suffrage and ending segregation.
“Right now,” said Berlin in a recent telephone interview, “we have a government run by the 1 percent, of, by and for the 1 percent and not the people. As long as lobbying is the way it is, surveys show, the average voter has almost no influence on government. Until we get money out of politics, we’ll have no say about how our government is run or who is in power, or what laws are passed or not and how they’re implemented.”
Berlin’s book outlines the rise of corporate political power in this country and details the ways in which lobbyists for pharmaceutical and health insurance companies, for the fossil-fuel industry, for Wall Street firms and for agri-business take their toll on our democracy.
The book also describes how The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), backed by billionaires Charles and David Koch and beermaking mogul Joseph Coors, exerts corporate influence over legislation around the country.
“Isn’t it time we demand that our members of Congress and state legislatures represent our interests rather than those of corporate America?” Berlin asks. Doing so would require rising above our feelings of separateness and together building what he calls “a democracy movement.”
That, he argues, requires elements common to all successful movements for change, including clear missions and goals, widespread support from members who want real change and are willing to work hard and raise money to make it happen.
An emerging democracy movement will meet strong resistance from wealthy interests, and must bring together people to realize that all of their individual interests are tied to its success and that it will affect them personally.
And yet, Berlin says, there will be obstacles, including difficulty in getting people to focus on an overriding issue that may seem irrelevant, and fear of getting involved.
Yet, he writes, “As people begin to understand the crisis of plutocracy, they will more clearly see how this national issue, like their local issues, affects them personally. A positive vision of democracy will inspire people to action.”
To spur grass-roots action, Berlin has begun organizing small groups in his home state, and hopes to continue doing so elsewhere, pointing them to resources where they can network with other people and with organizations that have been taking action.
Berlin calls for a big, nonpartisan, tent, moving beyond fractured politics as usual, and he believes a broad consensus already exists for getting money out of politics, and it means the people pushing parties, the media and corporate interests out of the way to create what he calls “political equity.”
“Consensus is key,” Berlin says. “Everybody has their turf, and it’s difficult to convince people to give up what they’ve been fighting for all their life, or all their organization’s life. But you can hopefully convince them that by joining together, we’re stronger than we are when we’re separate, so the (democracy) movement will help all the separate organizations or causes. When huge numbers of people come together, that’s the history of the United States. That’s how real change is made.”
On the Web: www.breakingbigmoneysgrip.com
You can reach Richie Davis at rdavis@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, Ext. 269