Even in our plutocracy, journalism still lives. Congratulations to Glenn Greenwald and Salon for today’s story!

Summary:  Journalism in a plutocracy is reporting of court news by courtiers.  Boot-licking of the powerful by the ambitious.  But there is always a remnant.  One such is Glenn Greenwald at Salon.  His recent reporting on the pre-attack-on-Iran propaganda has been essential reading for citizens.  Today he breaks another important story.  Salon supports him by going where traditional news media fears to look.

Please read this.  It foreshadows the kind of America we leave to our children if we allow inequality of income and wealth to grow.  “Billionaire Romney donor uses threats to silence critics“, Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 17 February 2012 — Opening:

Frank VanderSloot is an Idaho billionaire and the CEO of Melaleuca, Inc., a controversial billion-dollar-a-year company which peddles dietary supplements and cleaning products; back in 2004, Forbes, echoing complaints to government agencies, described the company as “a pyramid selling organization, built along the lines of Herbalife and Amway.” VanderSloot has long used his wealth to advance numerous right-wing political causes. Currently, he is the national finance co-chair of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, and his company has become one of the largest donors ($1 million) to the ostensibly “independent” pro-Romney SuperPAC, Restore Our Future. Melaleuca’s get-rich pitches have in the past caused Michigan regulators to take action, resulting in the company’s entering into a voluntary agreement to “not engage in the marketing and promotion of an illegal pyramid”‘; it entered into a separate voluntary agreement with the Idaho attorney general’s office, which found that “certain independent marketing executives of Melaleuca” had violated Idaho law; and the Food and Drug Administration previously accused Melaleuca of deceiving consumers about some of its supplements.

But it is VanderSloot’s chronic bullying threats to bring patently frivolous lawsuits against his political critics — magazines, journalists, and bloggers — that makes him particularly pernicious and worthy of more attention. In the last month alone, VanderSloot, using threats of expensive defamation actions, has successfully forced Forbes, Mother Jones and at least one local gay blogger in Idaho to remove articles that critically focused on his political and business practices. He has been using this abusive tactic in Idaho for years: suppressing legitimate political speech by threatening or even commencing lawsuits against even the most obscure critics (he has even sued local bloggers for “copyright infringement” after they published a threatening letter sent by his lawyers). This tactic almost always succeeds in silencing its targets, because even journalists and their employers who have done nothing wrong are afraid of the potentially ruinous costs they will incur when sued by a litigious billionaire.

Other posts about our plutocracy

• Origins of what may become the 3rd American Republic (a plutocracy), 8 April 2011

Posts about the driver of plutocracy:  growing inequality of wealth and income

1. A sad picture of America, but important for us to understand, 3 November 2008
2. Inequality in the USA, 7 January 2009
3. A great, brief analysis of problem with America’s society – a model to follow when looking at other problems, 4 June 2009
4. The latest figures on income inequality in the USA, 9 October 2009
5. An opportunity to look in the mirror, to more clearly see America, 10 November 2009
6. Graph of the decade, a hidden fracture in the American political regime, 7 March 2010
7. Modern America seen in pictures. Graphs, not photos. Facts, not impressions., 13 June 2010
8. A pity party for America’s rich and powerful, 8 September 2010