Captured

The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy

By: Sheldon Whitehouse, Melanie Wachtell Stinnett

Narrated by: Michael Bybee, Sheldon Whitehouse

In Captured, U.S. Senator and former federal prosecutor Sheldon Whitehouse offers an eye-opening take on what corporate influence looks like today from the Senate Floor, adding a first-hand perspective to Jane Mayer’s Dark Money.

Americans know something is wrong in their government. Senator Whitehouse combines history, legal scholarship, and personal experiences to provide the first hands-on, comprehensive explanation of what's gone wrong, exposing multiple avenues through which our government has been infiltrated and disabled by corporate powers. Captured reveals an original oversight by the Founders, and shows how and why corporate power has exploited that vulnerability: to strike fear in elected representatives who don’t “get right” by threatening million-dollar "dark money" election attacks (a threat more effective and less expensive than the actual attack); to stack the judiciary—even the Supreme Court—in "business-friendly" ways; to "capture” the administrative agencies meant to regulate corporate behavior; to undermine the civil jury, the Constitution's last bastion for ordinary citizens; and to create a corporate "alternate reality" on public health and safety issues like climate change.

Captured shows that in this centuries-long struggle between corporate power and individual liberty, we can and must take our American government back into our own hands.

Realistic view of todays SCOTUS

Articulates well the damage and dangers big, dark money has over some greedy and corruptible members of the Supreme Court!

He's correct with that which he addresses.

He's a good Senator and a decent guy all around from what I've listened to and seen, but you can't leave out the 2016 "Democratic" Primary while addressing this issue. it's what pushed most of us over the edge. I was not stupid enough to so much as consider Trump, but many were, if only to make a point. Those people didn't stop and ask themselves, "How many clever people will turn out to be fools should this go astray?"

It did. Why? Because the "Democrats" played along with the "News", rather than stand up for the honest Democratic option; Bernie Sanders. That this was not addressed in this book puts the rest of it to shame, along with the entire excuse for a democracy that we represent.

Dark Money is Diabolic

The SOLD sign on the cover pretty much says it all. This is a good compliment to Mayer's "Dark Money" and it gives historical perspective to the plutocratic takeover of the United States government.

I am in the same camp as a number of listeners regarding the narration. I am rarely critical of any book, much less the narrator, but I really did not care for Bybee at all. He lacked passion where it was needed and it came across as a grandfatherly, almost whisper-like fire chat at times. I just don't feel the narration fit the content. This is simply an editorial opinion and others might find it suits them just fine. My point being that, Whitehouse is describing a fire and, Bybee sounds like he's stuck at a long red light.

My only other criticism was the lengthy stuff on climate change. Yes, this is the one issue that is exclusively smoke-screened by dark monied interests...but I felt that, if he were going to take so much time to talk climate change, at the very least include some counter argument regarding anthropogenic influences. I personally do not believe those arguments, but there are scholarly discussions by those NOT bought and paid for by the Kochs and that side could have been represented.

The main points that really stood out to me and meant the most were the ones related to the founders and our Federalist papers...both from a legal as well as a moral standpoint. The fact that the founders foresaw a large swatch of potential corruption to this experiment of democracy but failed to foresee the influence of corporations is enlightening. The other key point is the trial by jury argument. This legal tenet has existed since our birth as a nation and allows us, as the plebs, to hold some control over our government. Diluting and destroying trial by jury has emboldened the plutocrats and helped them have unbridled power while they bask in obscene opulence.

We need a revolution in the country. We must take back our government. The past ten years since the economic collapse of 2007/2008 has allowed the plutocrats to gain fantastic wealth on the backs of the American citizens. These plutocrats are heavily exposed right now...the ratio of actual assets to derivatives is mind-boggling. If their house of cards blows up, their lives won't change that much....but it will devastate the lives of normal people around the globe. There is a black swan event just around the corner....might be Brexit or China or Iran or North Korea, but there is a global trigger that will go off and the house of cards is coming down. We need to pick up the pieces of our democracy and put laws in place that prevent this from ever happening again.

Great Insight

Highly informative, would love to see things from the POV of the other side of the aisle though.

Good book but ineffective narrator

Another good educational book about dark money in American democracy. Hopefully, the American people will wake up soon.