Feingold sez: "... in this case, the corporate underwriters wouldn't just be seeking publicity, they would be seeking laws and policies that the candidates have the power to provide."

***
"Would be"???

Words fail me.

News stories today are saying that the Citizens United v. FEC case may be decided as early as today. I'm watching closely for that, so I know what date to place on the tombstone of democracy in America. Special attention should go to the vote of Sonia Sotomayor. During her nomination procedure, I was a bit of a crier in the wilderness about the absolute necessity of examining her likely votes on issues involving any limitations of corporate power, and this may truly be her test case for answering a question that very few (and none of the Senators who questioned her) bothered to ask. If anyone is ready to cry bloody murder (or double-cross or disappointed or whatever terms "liberals" use to castigate political figures who turned out not to be as liberal as they promised or as they were imagined to be) please don't come to the crier in the wilderness for consolation.

removing duplicate post

I wish there would be a law to ban all non-individual contributions to campaigns AND band non-individual, corporate-tied lobbyists from contacting elected officials. Elected officials are there to represent citizens, not multinational corporations who ship thousands of jobs overseas at the expense of American citizens.

Only citizens and public interest groups should be able to lobby Congress. Corporations and private interest should not be able to do so.

public financing of congressional campaigns is the only way to level the playing field. of course, you have to remember that hugo chavez, in a country with folks far less formally educated than those in our own, won landslide victories even in the face of a hostile and wealthy opposition that outspent him and dominated the airways. there are two or three rupert murdochs in venzuela, and each of their media pounded hugo day and night with false and misleading ads. but, the voters turned out out en masse, unswayed by the elite media, and gave him anywhere between 56% and 57% of the vote. and, remember that the u.s. was compounding the chorus of manufactured catcalls against chavez by secretly and lavishly financing chevez opponents at every turn. who was the gringo's stooge? oh, i remember, the president of caracas' chamber of commerce! now, there's a real man of the people. he was even president for a week when the generals sent chavez home for a day or two. the u.s. government was elated, but the power of the venzuelan people prevailed. the difference is that in the u.s., there is no "us", so to speak, as "we" didn't even take to the streets when bush stole the 2000 election. in caracus, this simply wouldn't have happened. so, which country is the democracy, and which is the sleepy republic, so much in need of glasnot and perostroika? my ultimate point is that if there were an "us" in american politics, then there wouldn't even be an issue about how much money anyone spent, because the solidarity of "us" would make such an inquiry inconsequential.

Since money has been equated with speech, we don't need to spend it on ads, etc. Just put all the money to be designated as speech into an account for each candidate and then the candidate with the largest amount of money is declared the winner. All the time and effort spent on the campaign trail could be used doing something useful such as watching football games. All of the money that was deposited with each candidate could be used to party or whatever.

What next?

Will political parties have their own psuedo "News" Networks to shill for them with limitless corporate cash?

Oh right...Fox

"the fear is that there would be a quid pro quo."

We are so far beyond quid pro quo. Congress is an auction house. But it will be an important milestone to say that international corporations should have unlimited rights of purchase. I know sovereignty gets mixed reviews around here, but I believe that our nation is the organizing unit of a people's freedom. For that reason, I'm kind of attached to it. I don't see why a corporation out of France or Israel or Bejing or wherever should be able to pay for play while we peasants are shut out of representative government. It might be useful to recall that in the recent healthcare auction, our lobbyists not only could not afford to speak, let alone write legislation, but were arrested when they attempted to be heard.

To settle this will require a constitutional amendment. Contact Senator Feingold or your own representatives and let them know you want them to work on this. I already have.

Below I have pasted two proposed constitutional amendments from the web site, www.reclaimdemocracy.org. The first limits constitutional rights defined in the U.S. constitution to only living human beings. Currently, corporations are allowed to claim the same rights as people.

The second reverses the Buckley v. Valeo U.S. Supreme Court decision which defines campaign contributions as free speech.

It's a big job but it should be apparent that there is no other way.

An Amendment to Preclude Corporations from Claiming Bill of Rights Protections
SECTION 1. The U.S. Constitution protects only the rights of living human beings.

SECTION 2. Corporations and other institutions granted the privilege to exist shall be subordinate to any and all laws enacted by citizens and their elected governments.

SECTION 3. Corporations and other for-profit institutions are prohibited from attempting to influence the outcome of elections, legislation or government policy through the use of aggregate resources or by rewarding or repaying employees or directors to exert such influence.

SECTION 4. Congress shall have power to implement this article by appropriate legislation.

An Amendment to Reverse Buckley v. Valeo and Dominance of Wealth in Electoral Politics
SECTION 1. For the purposes of providing all citizens, regardless of wealth, a more equal opportunity to influence elections, public policy and run for public office; of furthering the principle of “one person, one vote” and preserving a participatory and democratic republic; as well as the purpose of limiting corruption and the appearance of corruption, we the people declare the unlimited use of money to influence elections incompatible with the principle of equal protection established under the Fourteenth Amendment.

SECTION 2. The Congress shall have the power to set limits on contributions and expenditures made to influence the outcome of any federal election.

SECTION 3. Each state shall have the power to set limits on contributions and expenditures made to influence the outcome of elections in that state.

SECTION 4. The power of each state to set limits on contributions and expenditures shall extend to all elections in that state, including initiative and referendum elections, as well as the power to lower any federal limits for the election of members of Congress to represent the people of that state.

SECTION 5. Congress shall have power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

"back to the era of the Robber Barrons in the 19th century"Gee Russ ya think?Maybe this will just be the last straw that wakes up the Serfs to the fact that there is no democracy,we have no representation.The corporate cabal that run this Bananna Republic don't want you limiting "free speech"with $limits next step would be public financing, equal ballot access,an end to the electoral college and real Democracy.So Senator how do you suggest that the NASCAR fans influence the court?

My totally unsolicited advice to Senator Feingold is to abandon the Democratic party. He can reregister tomorrow, hopefully along with millions of others.

Corporations are not Patriotic.

Ah yes, McCain/Feingold; the heads they win, tails we lose flipside coin of the realm for DEMiserepublican misrepresentatives of We, the people.

I have a file from June, 2009, about this case, scheduled to be rushed through by Chief Judge John Roberts, conveniently just after Congress left on vacation, and I made quite a few comments about it as the likely death knell of our democratic system.

When I read what this legal action was all about and that the testimonies, etc., would end in October, 2009, according to Justice Roberts, and then the Court's decision would be rendered at the end of December, 2009, or early in January, 2010, it was clear from Roberts' stealthy maneuverings and the silence of "The Press" that the decision would be in favor of unlimited corporate monies entering the political arena and this would be the final Exclamation Point on the PLANNED demise of our democratic process.

How convenient "The Press" has had a Christmas Underwear Bomber to get hysterical about which covers up horrible casualities of drone bombings, license to attack Yemen, and a a decision about a Court Case slithering through the Supreme Court

We will never again have a choice to vote for a true Man or Woman of the People, a true Champion for the People. There are a few out there, but you already know what happens to them in terms of zilch media coverage, since the same people who have PLANNED all of this own or control the Media as they do the financial institutions here and abroad, and thus, the Federal Reserve also.

If you think the wars we have been engaged in are an accident, you are quite wrong. They are meant to sap us, our monies and our economies. And so far with enormous on-going and new expenditures that even include LOST trillions of dollars in The Pentagon budget, as Donald Rumsfeld announced on a quickly forgotten newscast on September 10, 2001, things are going swimmingly. As planned, the West is now locked in confrontation and battles with the Islamic World, according to PLAN.

As I so often say lately to a few friends, "I was right, ... but, in this case, I hate being right."

I have also written about those who, it clearly seems, are responsible for the PLANNED demise of the prosperity and political system of the U.S. of A. and our reduction to a second-rate/third-rate country. Been in the works for decades and even longer than that. ... Try a couple of centuries.

The Most Rich and Powerful can be very patient and train and coach the male children of their dynasties in what it's all about and to be about, Alfie.

Dynasties of one kind or another and Monarchies and entrenched religious institutions with their controlling ideologies have always moved us inexorably toward Empire with the little guys always ending up holding the short end of the stick if they haven't died as cannon fodder. It's no different now.

With the "standard" resources of the Earth becoming more scarce or harder to get at, those who are in a position to do so will keep the various tragic and destructive "wars" going and help start new ones, because they are the ones who want to control everything. And besides there are big profits to be made even as the countries themselves where these wars are happening are sucked dry, not just of money, but the tangible and intangible assets and treasures of the societies and cultures that held everything together.

I've always liked Senator Russ Feingold. Haven't always agreed with him, but over-all I consider him one of the "good guys." But being a "good guy," as my poltical leanings and instincts assess him, still leaves him at this time just another "good guy" spitting into the prevailing wind that's blowing directly into his face.

++++++++++++++++++
tommy_slothrop proposes in a comment above getting behind a proposed Constitutional Amendment from www.reclaimdemocracy.org essentially eliminating the "personhood" recognition that Corporations have been awarded. This recognition was illegal back in the late 1800's simply because a former justice acting as clerk summarized the legal conclusions in an abstract in a particular case that way. He was in error ... plain wrong, but that summary he wrote has been used since then to give Corporations the rights [but not the responsibilities] of living persons.

There have been challenges, but they've gone nowhere.

I will be glad, however, to support this idea. Ya' never know.

/cm

"Our elections would become like NASCAR races - underwritten by companies," Feingold said. "Only in this case, the corporate underwriters wouldn't just be seeking publicity, they would be seeking laws and policies that the candidates have the power to provide."
_______________________________________

Goebbels sez nailed this at 11:28 am in the first comment on this thread. But since the same quote leaped out at me, I'll second his emotion.

Recently, I've written that I WANT to like and root for the handful of Elected Misrepresentatives like Feingold, Sanders, Kucinich, etc. Compared to their typically thuggish, narcissistic, bloated hive-mind kleptocrat colleagues, they seem actually decent and perceptive.

Feingold, unlike many of his colleagues, does not appear to be so stupid, benighted, complacent, or naïve that he really doesn't see that the "worst-case scenario" he describes is actually the status quo.

So Feingold is either consciously employing deceit and hypocrisy, or is truly in denial. Or both.

I do expect the Supreme Court to continue in its present 21st-Century role of stripping the ordinary citizen of the vestiges of its political power and transferring it to abstract capital-- wealth, money. Money is speech, money is freedom, money is liberty.

Still, the SCOTUS will merely be downsizing a cumbersome fig leaf to a G-string to streamline the assimilation process.

It's both depressing and irritating that Feingold is either truly deluded, or that he feels he needs to pretend that the "corporate underwriters" aren't already running the show.

· Yr Obd't Servant

Jeevee

To all readers that feel that all is lost but the squealing, it is suggested that you go onto the Internet and read RADIO SAI SCHEDULE, JANUARY 10, #9

We are already have a government run by $'s. To think otherwise is being naive. Just take a look at the $'s thrown at so-called Health Reform.

Yeah, it's probably a done deal, but where could there be a silver lining in this...?

Millions of people driven to Unions?

THE HUMAN UNION---HU ARE YOU.
Membership---Everybody is already in it. Call your Chamber of Commerce to opt out.
Rejoin at any time.
Dues---Pay it forward with solidarity, common sense and good will.*
Leadership---Apache nantan, talk it up, see what happens.
Tactics---Peaceful, Speaking Truth to Power, Resist, Occupy, Produce.
Goals---Fair pay, Fair play, Justice under the Law, Benefits to the Seventh Generation. No War.
One Planet, One People.
IF NOT NOW---WHEN?

*Pay it into an election fund...?

CORP IS BORG.

if we had a united class of working people, no amount of money could sway voters against their interests. look at venzuela, where the voters have far less money and education than ours; yet, they withstood wealthy opponents, financed by the national endowment for democracy and the c.i.a., who flooded the tv and radio airwaves 24/7 with anti-chavez propaganda. yet, chevez got somewhere between 56% and 58% of the vote every time that he ran, and several international bodies observed and audited each election. money does matter, but the courts will always be reluctant to stifle first amendment rights.

If corporate contributions could be stopped, we would still need to have real debates between candidates again. What would it take to get those run by a public organization again (like the League of Women Voters)? We need to have all candidates involved in those debates, and debating real issues. Require the corporate parties to honestly debate all the candidates (including independents). This could level some of the inequities in who gets more money for bogus ads. Ralph Nader would have easily schooled the corporate candidates in a true debate. And, if the corporations were not allowed to remove Kucinich from their faked-up "debate" in Nevada, old man Nader probably wouldn't have had to pick up the torch in the first place.

Let's try this for a change. Absolutely no corporate money in political campaigns at all. Next, candidates for federal office can not announce their candidacy until six months before the elections. No campaigning or ads allowed until three months before the election. Any violation of these rules would be grounds in the future for the removal of the candidate from office should they win the election! Any advocacy group would not be allowed to run ads until three months before the election and up to one week before the election. Any infraction of this regulation would lead to a massive fine for both the advocacy group (who would also be banned from running any more ads during the remainder of the current election cycle and the next election cycle) and the media outlet that ran the ads.

Who wants to raise me a bet that the Supreme Court will vote in favor of the corporate masters?

To paraphrase Abe:
government of the corporations,
by the corporations,
and for the corporations.