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The Excesses of the Monied Interests: What Can We Do After Citizens United?
The Supreme Court decision on Citizens United Thursday -- which greatly expanded the ability of corporations to spend money to influence elections -- sent a collective gasp across the public interest community.
If the last year has shown how easily vested interests can already shape -- some would say sabotage -- policy like health reform and consumer protection, Citizens United has created a new political environment even more vulnerable to what Thomas Jefferson called "the excesses of the monied interests."*
After Citizens United, what weapons are left in the public's arsenal to protect against corruption and the undue influence of the wealthy?
First, a quick recap: In 2008, a conservative group named Citizens United made a documentary attacking Hillary Clinton. The Federal Election Commission said it couldn't be aired on cable because it violated a ban on corporations spending money for "express advocacy" for or against a candidate.
Citizens United appealed, saying the ad represented "free speech." Law professor Rick Hasen argues that the Supremes could have narrowly ruled on the statute involved, but instead reached further to overturn previous decisions that had placed limits on corporate spending to influence elections. [Follow the case here.]
So what next? In the wake of the decision, advocates are regrouping and looking at new avenues to battle the growing influence of money in politics:
* NEW LIFE FOR "VOTER-OWNED" ELECTIONS? Trying to restrict campaign spending was often like pressing on a balloon -- push down in one place, and special interest money found a way to pop up somewhere else. Some advocates are saying it's time for a new paradigm: Leveling the playing field through publicly-financed elections.
As Bob Hall of Democracy North Carolina says that such efforts for such "voter-owned" elections are critical now, post-Citizens:
Regulation of private money in politics has gotten much more difficult. The decision ... points to the importance of creating an alternative stream of clean money through a public financing option for candidates who abide by a set of public-trust standards. Public financing gives candidates the ability to compete and encourages them to be accountable to voters, not wealthy narrow interests. As the regulation of large wealthy interests becomes more impossible, it becomes more necessary to boost the power of small donors and voters through voluntary Voter-Owned Election programs.Democracy NC was instrumental in passing such a program in North Carolina for judicial races -- which 78% of candidates used in the 2004 and 2008 races -- and piloted programs for other state and local offices.
* RESPECT THE LAW: One of the most dangerous prospects now is the influence wealthy interests will have to influence judicial elections and "buy" judges in their favor. In 39 states at least some judges are elected, and special interests spent over $200 million between 1999 and 2008 to influence those contests (double what was spent in the previous decade).
In fact, the Supreme Court recently heard a case just about this issue: Massey v. Caperton, a case involving the CEO of Massey Energy spending $3 million to elect a judge to West Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals; the judge went on to overturn a verdict against the coal conglomerate. The Supreme Court ruled against Massey in June, saying that judges had to recuse themselves when there's direct conflicts of interest.
Burt Brandenburg of Justice at Stake says the Supreme Court's latest decision will multiply the ability of wealthy interests to distort justice:
The U.S. Supreme Court forced the judge off the case, but it got a powerful sneak preview of what Citizens United could spawn. Remarkably, the money spent in the West Virginia election all came out of the executive's private finances. Now it's likely that he and other CEOs, as well as union chiefs, will ultimately turn business treasuries into personal election-campaign piggy banks.Brandenburg urges public interest groups to push for judicial campaigns to at least be excluded from Citizens United and a "special protective shield around elections involving the courts."
* LET THE SUN SHINE IN: One thing the court did affirm in the decision was the need for full and prompt disclosure of the special interests influencing elections. In the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy argued:
With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters.Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation says the decision is a clarion call for government to step-up rules and systems for disclosure of campaign financing:
Today's decision underscores the necessity of creating comprehensive real-time disclosure for all election spending - across the board -- from when and how often candidates, individuals and PACs report their contributions and expenditures to those involved in independent expenditures, issue ads or direct election advocacy.But Miller also says that the "rapid and informative" disclosure system Kennedy calls for "doesn't exist yet."
She also acknowledges that disclosure alone won't do any good if journalists, advocates and elected officials don't act on the information:
While we are supportive of Justice Kennedy's call for greater transparency, we still believe and take issue with his belief that modern technology and the ability to quickly release campaign finance data alone will solve the problem. It is utopian to believe that making it easier to track corporate electoral activity even comes close to solving the problem of money in politics.* ARE CORPORATIONS REALLY PEOPLE? For those who know about it, it's an infamous moment: In 1886, in the otherwise obscure case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite made the following passing remark, without any supporting argument:
The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.The astonishing statement was duly recorded by the court reporter (who likely misunderstood the scope of the justice's comments), and the rest is history: From that moment on, U.S. law has awarded the corporation, a legal fiction, the status of a living and breathing "person," including First Amendment free speech rights.
There are numerous problems with the idea that corporations are people. For example, as David Korten has pointed out, it creates an interesting legal contradiction: If a corporation is legally owned by its shareholders, and therefore considered their property, wouldn't that make corporations slaves, something prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment?
A campaign to change U.S. law and stop regarding corporations as people has lived on the fringes of political life for a while, but Citizens United -- one of the boldest decisions yet based on corporate personhood -- may revive interest in the idea.
A network of people and groups called Move to Amend is spearheading just such an effort now, their first demand being that Congress move to amend the constitution to "Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights."
Clearly, public interest advocates see no simple road to reasserting the power of everyday people versus those with more economic clout.
And now that Citizens United has opened the floodgates of corporate influence in politics, the ability to elect leaders and pass legislation that could reign in the "excesses of the monied interests" has likely become even more difficult.
* UPDATE: Not many have mentioned it, but in the Citizens United decision [PDF], the Supreme Court justices included a little back-and-forth on what the founding fathers thought about corporations and their influence in the political process.
For example, Justice Stevens noted in his dissent (p. 123) that "Thomas Jefferson famously fretted that corporations would subvert the republic," with a reference to this footnote:
See Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Tom Logan (Nov. 12, 1816), in 12 The Works of Thomas Jefferson 42, 44 (P. Ford ed. 1905) ("I hope we shall . . . crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country").Justice Scalia, on the other hand, downplays these sentiments -- even dismissing Thomas Jefferson's comments thusly (pp. 81-82):
Even if we thought it proper to apply the dissent's approach of excluding from First Amendment coverage what the Founders disliked, and even if we agreed that the Founders disliked founding-era corporations; modern corporations might not qualify for exclusion. Most of the Founders' resentment towards corporations was directed at the state-granted monopoly privileges that individually chartered corporations enjoyed. Modern corporations do not have such privileges, and would probably have been favored by most of our enterprising Founders-- excluding, perhaps, Thomas Jefferson and others favoring perpetuation of an agrarian society.Did Scalia just call Jefferson a backwards hick?
49 Comments so far
Show AllYep, Scalia did label Thomas Jefferson a boob.
Here is some of what Jefferson wrote about corporations:
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." (1812)
Gary
There currently exists, until the Congressional elections this fall, a very narrow window to assert the power of government over corporations. The quickest and simplest way to do this is to raise corporate taxes. The Federal government is currently running the largest deficits in the history of the nation. The real wages of the middle class and the working poor are falling, raising additional government revenue from America’s workers in the current economic environment is, simply stated, a political impossibility.
Given this economic and political reality passing a very substantial increase in corporate income taxes is a slam dunk.
In addition to an increase in corporate taxes it is also an excellent opportunity to reform corporate accounting laws restricting off book accounting practices, regulating financial interments that are defacto insurance services and requiring insurance providers to hold significant assets to back their liabilities.
While adopting accounting practices that reflect current business practices Congress could also place into law regulations covering corporate political donations including requiring a vote by the corporate board of directors approving the quantity of donations, the purpose of donations and that corporate donations also be approved by stockholders.
Regulations need to be put in place stating that corporate donations can only be funded by corporate profits and that corporate donations are not tax deductible.
Finally stating a quid pro qou expected from the recipient of corporate donations must be a felony punished by imprisonment of both the corporate officers making a donation and the politician receiving the donation.
I wish I could believe that getting the corrupt Congress to pass tax increases for corporations is a slam dunk Madhoosier.
Did you happen to see the Republican Senator (don't know his name) lambaste Ohbummer for the prez's toothless proposals to reign in the banks? This repug (grinning from ear to ear) crowed that touching the banks at this time would furhter jeapordize our "recovery."
It's a slam dunk that the majority of Americans favor it, just not so sure that basket will be made in the halls of Congress. Not being critical of your post... just speculating.
Yep, I should have put a footnote behind slam dunk. If our politicians would simply exist in the world where there is an observable reality for two damned minutes the obvious need to both raise government revenues (1) and stand against corporate power, could be seen by all but the most corrupt of our elected officials (2), who would then address the problems.
(1) (to bail us out of the persistent economic trough we are currently mired in)
(2) (Another footnote, hopefully “the most corrupt of our elected officials” is still somewhat less that 50%)
Framing the issue so that those who would support the status quo would be seen as the political equivalent of being a turd in a punch bowl should be child’s play; unfortunately we don’t elect children to political office.
Will the path I have suggested be the path taken by our elected officials? Probably not.
Noting the several posts in this thread (and on this forum) calling for revolution, each time our government acts in the behalf of the special interests, and at the cost of the greater good, those calls become more powerful. Will our elected officials remove their heads from their asses in time to avoid political conflict beyond the bounds of civil discourse? Once again, probably not.
One more step towards bloody insurrection in the streets. It takes a lot to wake americans up from their TV stupor, but each step the oligarchy takes to lock down power is one more loud knock on the door for the sleeping sheeple. At some point it will be enough, and the people running the big corporations, behind their locked gates, will face angry mobs. There will be blood and fire and it will be ugly, and then of course the oligarchs will call in "their" troops, disenfranchised poor american kids who have been brainwashed and drugged into being the US version of the ton ton macoute.
So to those 5 "justices" who made this ruling, know that your day is coming. It is inevitable.
Personally I am a nonviolent person. I am not advocating for armed revolution, but the powers that be are squeezing hard, bleeding the american people, and history shows us that eventually the tables do turn.
What you said baruchzed is what I see also. I posted a fictitious letter to the prez that I think may have been misinterpreted here. I don't advocate violent insurrection, but I see it on the horizon.
"Modern corporations do not have such privileges, and would probably have been favored by most of our enterprising Founders..."
wtf? Scalia is either a liar or a fool. Or both.
Those shocked by the recent SCOTUS "Citizens United" decision may be interested to know that the AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION filed an amicus brief with the court that endorsed what became the majority decision. Moreover, it challenged a Vermont attempt at electoral finance reform in 2003. Enough! Those like myself who have supported ACLU in the past may wish to reconsider that support.
Tony Vodvarka
abvodvarka@yahoo.com January 24th, 2010 11:26 am -- I too was troubled by the ACLU's position, stated in their amicus brief for Citizens United. However, at http://bit.ly/4CNazc, former very high ACLU officials stated in an amicus brief for neither side, a brief little noted in the media, that they opposed throwing out the limits on corporate spending. As these former officials are undoubtedly current ACLU members, it's clear there are major differences within the ACLU about McCain-Feingold. The magnitude of this split and how it came about does not appear to have been disclosed (does anyone know the details?), not even on the ACLU website.
Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog notes that the Supreme Court didn't overturn the ban in effect for corporations since 1907, and for labor unions since 1947, on donations directly to a federal candidate or campaign organization. Everyone seems to be assuming that the Supreme Court opened the spigots for all kinds of spending, not just spending for "electioneering communication."
Finally, an interesting note from the MSM: today on "This Week," Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina squirmed uncomfortably when asked by substitute moderator, Terry Moran, if he approved the logical implication of the Citizens United decision that foreign corporations could not constitutionally be prohibited from spending unlimited amounts of money on U.S. election campaigns. DeMint said he'd have to do more study on that. No one else on the program, as far as I could tell, paid any attention to this remarkable exchange.
Thanks, Manning120 for the clarification. However, both the ACLU's ambiguity (the most charitable interpitation, as you have noted) toward the illogical premise that unlimited corporate electoral funding is freedom of speech and their destructive challenging of the Vermont attempt in 2003, has convinced me that, although the ACLU has occasionally had an illustrious past, it has lived long past its usefulness. How in the world did this once decent organization find themselves lined up with the SCOTUS dirty five? BOYCOTT!
Tony Vodvarka
abvodvarka@yahoo.com January 25th, 2010 8:50 am -- The organization has done tremendous good for decades, and now more than ever. No way would I quit over this.
I feel certain there will be some changes as a result of this case. We should all be concerned. The fact that the dispute within the organization has been kept out of public view is disturbing.
Impeach the Roberts Court 5 for treason! They have subverted the basis of our democracy and must be removed from office. The other palliative measures discussed in this article will do nothing until this occurs. You must cut off the head of the snake if you want to kill the snake (metaphorically speaking, of course).
Someone here on CD referred to the SCOTUS 5 as the RATS (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia) plus Kennedy. What a totally appropriate acronym!
I prefer SCROTUS.
I find it ridiculous that individuals are actually bothering to ask what needs to be done.
I cannot help considering that the posing of such inane questions is possibly merely a tool to keep fools talking when the wise are long since walking...
The answers as well as the root cause of our global predicament are obvious;
1. Remove the appr. 6,000 known sociopath criminals that
temporarily control our planet. By the most expedient
means available at the moment of capture.
2. Form the first government of the peoples of planet Earth.
Nationstates are nothing more than outdated and
barbarian social tools being used to maintain the tyranny
of the criminal few against the entirety of the planet
and its peoples.
Cultural regions yes. Fake "nations" no.
3. There is no valid reason for the lack of resources of all
types for all peoples other than the criminally arranged
distribution system which can only be seen for
what it truly is; theft for personal material gorge at
any cost to others. A single rational entity engaged in
the structuring and operation of global logistical
systems can easily manage equitable distribution to all.
4. It is a cruel myth that humans are not capable of
creative and constructive endeavour without something as
ridiculous as a "tokens" based value system to drive
them, regardless whether one uses saltblocks or
worthless scraps of poor quality paper. Money is a
weapon of the tyrants and is entirely irrelevant. There
are in fact precious few genuine morons incapable of any
form of activity to sustain themselves as equal partners
of planet Earth.
Now of course many of you are sighing or laughing and claiming that it cannot be done, it is utopian. Whose words are those? It is simple. At the same time, across the planet in all capitols and major cities, a preplanned daylong sitdown strike. One single day of your life. The most important day of your life. The day the facts of our existence are presented and accepted for what they are:
1. There is only one nation: The planet
2. There is only one race: Homo Supericus
3. There is only one currency: Sharing between equals
You will get a lot of BUTS on your list:
1) BUT the means of capture are controlled by the sociopaths.
2) BUT divide and conquer has worked so well...
3) BUT resources are so easily exploitable for so much profit how do you regain control?
4) BUT is barter an efficient system of a marketplace?
To which you might answer:
1) All the police and military and private armies are still no match for 6 billion pissed off people.
2) Look how the Internet, and NGOs, and aid organizations treat the world as one, and how Gaia as a concept is gaining acceptance (if under differing guises).
3) Resources are part of the commons that got illegally (except the rich usuallly WERE the judges) fenced off from communal control. And people CAN take back what was stolen from them -- if they push hard enough.
4) Barter worked fine before money came along as a tool to allow banking to go international. A fair Market does not REQUIRE money to function. And in the modern world money is largely just data bits in a computer network anyway.
Of course the world is but one; of course there is but one race (at least since Neanderthals shuffled off-stage) of homo sapiens sapiens as biology proves; and of course money is the root of most if not quite all evil.
Doesn't everybody see that?
If only...
Gary
"They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is."
-- Sir Thomas More, Utopia (1516)
Revolution is no longer a question of if in America, but when
"With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters."
This is a simple solution. And pushing Congress to pass a law requiring just that would be simple. But watch everyone go in ten different directions instead of saying ...OK lets start with this. Its simple and no one can find a way to hide their resons for opposing such a law.
Greetings, Caligula and others!
Yes, and beyond what you say, direct communications via the internet gives us the immediately viable step of allowing ALL citizens of the planet to be directly and
personally engaged in the management of same, instead of rah rah rah ad nauseum for this or that bogus "party" platform every 3 or 4 yrs.
A pathetic travesty at best, mass murder at worst.
Politics, or liars for hire in the interests of the criminal few, is no alternative to direct, as opposed to (mis)representative democracy, and this fact is obvious thanks partly to history and partly to such information tools as books, AV media, and of course the internet.
Congress, or paid liars for hire in the interests of the criminal few, is not "pushable" as it´s mandate has nothing to do with representing the will, or needs, of the peoples, and everything to do with maintaining criminal subterfuge and barbarian feudal concepts. Even as we speak the so called congress is engaged in maintaining:
1. The crimes against humanity that are the completely illegal occupation of the albeit contrived "state" of Iraq, the attempted subversion of Iranian society,the
deliberate terrorization of the peoples of Afghanistan, and obviously it's open support of the Nazi activities of the entirely lawless occupiers of Palestine .
2. The crime against the peoples of the United States which the bogus "laws" extinguishing such social foundations as The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, Habeus Corpus, truly and quite obviously are.
3. The deliberate and premeditated crimes against the Geneva Convention which the
wrongful abduction, rendition, incarceration, and torture of innocent (until proven guilty by a jury of their peers) victims across the planet.
4. The deliberate complicity in the theft of the homes, property, assets, and savings of millions of Americn citizens of the planet in order to maintain the
material gorge of their true masters, the so called corporate "elite".
There is in fact no congress extant within the land of my birth. There are only con artists. Were there a congress of, by, and for the peoples, there would most assuredly have been no points 1,2,3, and 4 above.
Sigh. I don't speak much, or get out much, beyond my farm anymore, for obvious reasons. Sorry if I seem overly communicative, it is just that the issues before us practically force me to speak sometimes, if only to maintain a sense of my sanity.
Yeah, a farm keeps one busy alright. I am amazed at the sh!t I used to do, without thinking about it, every day of the week, just to keep a small farm going. Before my back went south. But the Internet now allows one to explore the world and find like-thinking individuals one would otherwise have never talked to in "real life."
Please, speak up more. Maybe pointing out how the largest private corporations in the world -- the food giants like Cargill -- have formed a vast cartel that fixes world food prices and is directly responsible for crushing small farms here and aboard.
Gary
"I grew up on a farm, and we didn't have cable and only limited radio stations, so I wasn't inundated with culture the way people in other parts of the country were. But I was really interested in it."
-- Chuck Klosterman
Hi Gary and others,
Thanks for the comments relating to farms and farming, probably one of the most rewarding as well as backbreaking activities known to humanity.
Those entities you speak of, the industrial "food" giants and their willing dupes on industrial "farms" are a part of the group under active consideration, naturally.
While I do dearly love my old place, I cannot claim to be more than an amateur attempting to alter the balance of my own life as I speak of altering others. It is by far more rewarding than any hotshot corporate marketing ace position I ever had the woeful ignorance to lend myself to, that is certain.
The best way to end the cartel is to eliminate the buyer as well as remove the criminal itself. Eliminate in the sense that the buyer readily and happily chooses a new "brand". We should perhaps talk about such things on a separate thread.
Character, or should i say judicial "person" assassination is relatively simple to perform; Seen any fabulous things on such sites as Youtube lately? What was the hit count on that site yesterday by the way as an example of my meaning...
It is not whether or not something is "true" that matters, it is whether or not you "believe" it that initiates a change in ones perception. Truly. no human can ever definitely define something as relative as "truth" yet we, all of us, are prepared to live/die in accordance with our "beliefs".
marketing made simple, group manipulation for dummies, Communications 101. Perhaps.
If one chooses to engage the enemy of human brotherhood for control of the planet, one must first recognize that we are all engaged in a life/death struggle against known psychopaths. So there will be a lot more casualties along the route to redemption, so to speak.
As Camus so aptly stated.....I for one on both a personal and public level am convinced that it is better to die trying than to live lying. IF one must, due to circumstances not yet under rational control.
Death is a small price to pay for justice. It is of no consequence, the issues before us and how we choose to act is the topic of the day, if you will.
I do hope everyone understands that my vision is of a planet called the "United Peoples of Earth", as opposed to other repugnantly redundant earlier forms of regional attempts at equitable governance of the consenting.
I appreciated the comments relating to my earlier submission, and would clarify one point; there is no change if one merely "barters". The idea is that we are one and therefore all contribute and all receive in accordance with proven to be legitimate precepts.
On a planet of equals, all are equally sustained, and all are equally responsible.
There is simply no rational need to bother "bartering" what you already in effect "own" or are able to rationally share to put it in less outdated forms of expression.
Will there be a "run" on all manner of objects? Probably, temporarily. I think that sort of ludicrous, mindless aping after more bananas than one can gorge will soon fizzle out for most Homo Supericus for the simple reason that it will prove itself to be pathetically and profoundly foolish behavior, in their own minds.
Most people have a hard time stealing from themselves, no?
To sum for the moment for the sake of others, as I said earlier there will no opportunity given for an alternative to the suppression of the known criminals at large in order to effect constructive change, as many have pointed out repeatedly.
The concepts are hardly "utopian" or "impossible to achieve" as was so much more eloquently pointed out by such fabulous individuals as Thomas More a long, long time ago.
To close at the root, the internet will be the undoing of Homo Sapiens. Or just plain saps if you like.
Cheers all!
A mass demonstration in front of the SCOTUS bldg. might help.
I would go.
That is a true comfort to hear. Naturally the project needs a great deal of preparation, and while SCOTUS is certainly a viable...location..., as was mentioned earlier, one needs to keep the importance of scope, breadth, and timing in focus in order for such a social event to take place in a potent manner.
One of the steps envisioned is a panel of globally respected, admired, and believable individuals that cannot, (thanks to the efforts of the enemy of human brotherhood which as usual will be their own undoing), be smeared, maligned, or "character assassinated" for having the courage to step up and speak to all our people concerning the critical necessity of altering the balance immediately.
(you know of whom I speak as well as I do, you can readily think of their names for yourselves, right?)
This group will develop a social frame of reference platform for immediate change on a genuinely global level; this will be presented across the planet at the same time through the global internet network as well as through media channels.
The day before the social event takes place across the planet.
Partly due to the internet, partly due to the readily acceptable message delivered simultaneously.
I appreciate what you say for it represents what you are willing to do to instill immediate change for the better.
However, one large demo in front of ANY single institution of the enemy of human brotherhood will not effect credible change due to the fact (as an example) that the corporate tool will not cover it in an appropriate manner, for rather obvious reasons.
Do all of you know that all those heartrending and truly laudable efforts that resulted in mass demonstrations across the land of my birth receiv(ed) ZERO coverage by the so called "free" press here? Now, why do you think that such events, demonstrating the open revulsion of the American peoples for the criminals that temporarily gained control of society would not be of more interest in these times? Considering that the USA is the "leader" of the western world or so they claim.
We must always remember, (imho) the enemy of human brotherhood is ORGANIZED. It is a global institution and it has developed itself quietly for decades now. Therefore, while ANY public display of the peoples will is a blessing, a TRANSGLOBAL DEMONSTRATION has yet to be tried...
Come on. You know we can do this, I know you can feel it already. Like most solutions, it is elementary once you see it, dear Watson.
This lawsuit was an obvious setup/colusion between the conservative group who placed it and The "Conservative" Supreme Court. Watch for more of this crap to happen in the coming days. They are totally in power now and will stop till the very last of our country is destroyed.
Note also that Jefferson hoped that political parties would not arise under the new Constitution. That lasted about fifteen minutes.
I still maintain the only way to prevent the problem is to eliminate the offices themselves; no campaigns, no contributions. Shaw had it right: The cure for the problems of democracy is not less democracy, but more of it.
Gorse is good.
Hear, hear! I couldn´t agree with you more.
In a society of equals there is precious little need for paid liars for hire, is there?
camus13
Since the Supreme Court told us that Free Speech is not to be hindered by government this could be trouble for who............yes the government.
The one that makes protesters go behind barbwire miles from out so called leaders. Stop the goons called cops and tell them to start dressing like policemen not storm troopers and to handle traffic and let the protester alone.........period.
Unblock Washington so that citizens can vent their free speech rights on the front lawn of the White House and the streets in front of our so call Representatives.
And it can be a great weapon for business......protest protest protest at all the banks insurance companies hospitals pharm and everyone else that need to be brought to heel.
Rise up and free yourself from your chains you have now a weapon....FREE SPEECH....given to us by the idiots on the Supreme Court.
"In 1886, in the otherwise obscure case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite made the following passing remark, without any supporting argument:
The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.
The astonishing statement was duly recorded by the court reporter (who likely misunderstood the scope of the justice's comments), and the rest is history: From that moment on, U.S. law has awarded the corporation, a legal fiction, the status of a living and breathing "person," including First Amendment free speech rights."
According to Thom Hartman, this is not true. He says he examined the original court record and there is nothing in it to justify this conclusion. The clerk made it up.
There was an important, erroneous omission in this article:
>>First, a quick recap: In 2008, a conservative group named Citizens United made a documentary attacking Hillary Clinton. The Federal Election Commission said it couldn't be aired on cable because it violated a ban on corporations spending money for "express advocacy" for or against a candidate.>>
FEC's ruling was much more narrow than that. The FEC's ruling said the film could not be aired in the 30 days immediately prior to the election. Otherwise there was no FEC restriction. Justice Strvens pointed this out in his dissent.
Nope, unjustly and disingenuously denied the existence of modern corporate monopoly. What doublethink!
"What can we do after Citizens' United?"
Why don't you ask the Green Party your question:
The answer (which has not been discussed in this article nor in these comments)
"The same as we did BEFORE Citizens' United and before Feingold/McCain and before every act of Congress and SCOTUS decision: the Green Party takes no contributions from corporations. The Citizens United decision won't change anything for us."
If that's the answer you'd get, I would beg to differ a bit. I (a member of that party) believe that things can change for us and can change dramatically for the better if we use a policy that was adopted on principle (quaint idea, huh?) which can be a powerful tool in actual electoral success. With the popular anger against the power of corporations---to run our government and to run our economy into the ground---the Green position can and should become the position of the main line parties as well IF we are willing to make the corporate campaign chests of our opponents a central issue of every campaign, diligently exposing how our opponents' campaigns are being funded by special interests which are not by definition the interests of the people. Although the principle is right, I'm not advocating it on moral grounds but on pragmatic grounds of campaign effectiveness.
If you protest that this has never worked, that the Greens have had limited electoral success at best, I would respond that the party has been somewhat the victim of its own genteel nature, its reluctance to attack its opponents in the area of campaign finance when it has every right and obligation to do just that. Other than this reticence to take off the gloves, we have not (til now) reached that tipping point of public outrage against corporate abuses that could convert a candidate's or party's loaded campaign coffers into a distinct political LIABILITY: that is, if you account liabilities and assets in terms of votes and not of dollars in your treasury. A true grassroots rebellion is coming on this issue, and those bold and principled enough to adopt this strategy may have discovered the royal road to taking money out of its dominant role in our politics. (If you're still skeptical about what I am proposing, look at recent elections like that in NJ in which the Wall Street connected candidate with a ton of campaign money was defeated by his under-funded opponent.)
YES, Phoenix, 'hopefully' Obama will see it your way, the 'Green way', the 'people's way', if he really means the claim that he said 22 times in Ohio, that he will "fight for the American people".
Frank Rich’s analysis (in NYT today) is pretty good --- that Obama’s trajectory is unchanged, unpromising, and will lead to no good end for him or the country, as the politics of “anger and frustration” from the ‘right and left’ deteriorate.
“Neither in action nor in message is he in front of the anger roiling a country where high unemployment remains unchecked and spiraling foreclosures are demolishing the bedrock American dream of home ownership. The president is no longer seen as a savior but as a captive of the interests who ginned up the mess and still profit, hugely, from it.”
Then Rich uses an analogy that I posted on CD last week, saying, “There’s a reason why the otherwise antithetical Leno and Conan camps are united in their derision of NBC’s titans. A TV network has become a handy proxy for every mismanaged, greedy, disloyal and unaccountable corporation in our dysfunctional economy. It’s a business culture where the rich and well-connected get richer while the employees, shareholders and customers get the shaft.”
Rich, being employed by the Times, is much milder in his analogy than I was, in that he thinks the heart of Obama’s (and our) problem is merely “greedy unaccountable corporations”, whereas I have long tagged this as the ruling-elite corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE --- which has been (until Thursday) controlling ‘our’ country by hiding behind the façade of its two-party ‘Vichy’ sham of democracy (and aided by its equally ‘Vichy’ corporatist media). Certainly the “anger and frustration” that Rich, Obama, the right, the left, and I all agree on is a combined corporatist structure that dwarfs NBC, and is a monolith Empire of hundreds of corporations, banks, insurance, hedge fund whores, and private equity pirates --- which care not a wit for any of us (or the U.S.).
Until Thursday, confrontation with this corporatist Empire was opaque, disguised, and not likely to come to a head soon ---- but then the supreme court’s overreach for the moneyed elitist Empire crossed a ‘bridge too far’, and much like the catalyst of monopoly ‘tea prices’ in Boston Harbor by the British EMPIRE this disguised and occupying Empire in our own land became an easy target for a Second American Revolution.
The “anger and frustration” will not die down. The crimes of the Empire will not disappear. The storm of populist rage and revolutionary spirits will only grow higher and wider in a general conflagration of the people vs, the Empire, and so, Obama can either let the arc of history bend him, or he can get in front of it --- if he is really going to do as he said dozens of times in one speech and “fight for the people” (against this corporatist Empire).
Here’s the deal. We can give Obama a little test of his bonafides (some might say, of his balls). Since the supreme court has presented us with the accelerated call to arms by allowing the economically and politically oppressive Empire to totally dominate all spheres of our lives with its unlimited bribery of all corrupt politicians (of both the existing corporate Parties/Party), Obama can prove his real metal by announcing, in his ‘State of the Union’ that he is changing his party affiliation to Green Independent, since that party will not allow any candidate to accept the new unlimited corrupting bribery of the corporatist Empire --- and that he expects all honest Senators and Congressmen to do the same if they are to truly represent the people rather than the corporatist Empire.
Obama can essentially call everyone’s bluff (on the angry right and left) and “call-out’ the corporatist Empire’s supreme court enabled money control of our American democracy for the fascist take-over of the country that it is. He can point out to the frustrated average American people viewing on their cheap TV’s (from both the left and right), and to his Congressional audience (of both Republicans and Democrats that are willing to listen) that since there is no legislative or other means to reverse or wipe-out the supreme court’s ‘sell-out’ of our democracy to the corporatist Empire, that he is willing to solve this unsolvable problem ---- along with solving our health care problem, our economic tyranny problem, our imperialist war problems, and all our other common problems that have been created by the cancer of this moneyed elite corporatist Empire upon our country, by voting for democracy against Empire and moving to essentially a new ‘Peoples Party’ in the form of the Green Independent Party, which does not take money from the Empire which oppresses us. [Cheer, cheer, cheer]
Obama can issue a challenge those in Congress who want to “represent the people in stead of the corporatist Empire, to meet me in the new ‘Peoples Party’ in November, which the whole country and all honest citizens now will know is the only sign of non-moneyed, non-corrupt, and non Empire choice --- and we will use their contributions and public funding only to overturn any who stay behind in the Empire’s lair of the corrupted Republican and Democratic Party!”
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
amacd: Delicious dream, that Obama would do something like join the Green Party because it doesn't allow corporate campaign contributions. I'm not this "hopeful," but maybe just the slightest bit more hopeful that he would move to restrain his own Democratic Party to exercise some restraint on the amount of funding it would accept. I'm putting more of my "money" though, on the likelihood that more local campaigns around the country, whether Green or not, will disdain corporate funding. I'm even planning an independent campaign for a local office of my own on that principle, and maybe, if we do this thing successfully at this level, the idea will percolate its way upward through the hierarchy of political offices until it finally reaches the presidency. Of course I'd rather "start at the top" and let the example trickle down to the local level, but maybe the best we can hope for is some kind of upward osmosis in electoral reform. Anyway, Alan, thanks for your thoughtful response.
I have to say, that I would religiously vote for any candidate that accepted no corporate contributions. This is the accepted strength of the publicly financed elections scheme. (As an aside: is this another trap now embedded in our system: that, any major societal organization that could contribute any organized funds to such a candidate, would most likely be a corporation? So nobody I liked could accept organized funds from groups I liked?)
I think this effect, where I (and others) would religiously vote for no-strings-attached-candidates, might actually totally negate the volume effect which is so much a problem of the CU decision; i.e. the deluge of corporate influenced propaganda would not matter to me as long as I had in view a candidate who did not accept corporate contributions.
And yet, as I write this, I realize that I (as well as all others that think that publicly financed elections will solve the CU problem) am wrong. Because with the CU ruling, a candidate wouldn't have to accept corporate contributions from a corp to benefit from their free speech choice to advertise for or against my candidates (or me). So really this ruling also reduces the effect of public financing of campaiagns in a way that I haven't seen acknowledged yet, because I can't guarentee that my publicly financed candidate did not also make backdoor deals with corporate advertisers in order to win the election. Nor can I guarentee that he was not personally threatened with the exercise of such corporate free speech to ruin his campaign.
Then again, I could just do as phoenix suggests (and as I alreadt plan to do): vote Green. Most minimally, I pledge to never vote Democrat again (it goes w/o saying that applies to Republican as well).
The mixing of money and free speech, as the First Ammendment says, is an insult to our sense of Constitutional Government.
It's called collusion.
When corporate entities start walking and talking I can except the decission by our SCOTUS justices.
Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick,
The poor (that's us now) sell their children for the Rich Man's table.....
If money=free speech, then maybe we can pay for rent, food, etc. by just "speaking," no?
I think I'll just mosey on down to the IRS and use speech to pay my taxes.
The Supreme Court has basically said that we can't tell people how to spend their money (speech) on an election, even if the 'person' in question is actually a corporation.
A corporation is owned by shareholders and bondholders. If any ONE of these disagrees with the board of directors decision to spend money on politics, it seems to me that, by the SCOTUS's own logic, the corporation is TELLING that person, in this case a minority owner, how to spend their money (speech) in politics, and is hence breaking the 1st Amendment. The SCOTUS has said, plainly, that the freedom of political speech overrides even the absurdity of a corporation being treated as a person. Fine: the preeminence of this SAME freedom should now be the tool by which any minority owner of any corporation can prevent it from spending money on political advocacy the owner disagrees with, as it is their freedom that is now being denied.
The retort is: well, sell your stock/bond. This is not so easy: people buy these things as investments, NOT political statements. They aggregate their capital for its investment value toward design/production, very often over the long-term horizon; its unfair to ask them to be so mobile with their capital every 2 or 4 years of the election cycle: it breaks the basic division between economics and politics. Yet, by allowing corporations to 'go political' the very real potential exists for investors to end up supporting candidates they don't personally support and vice versa: the corporation's judgement rules over the owner. This clearly breaks the 1st Amendment. If I buy McDonalds stock it should be for the burgers. If I end up funding the recall of Barbara Boxer, its appropriate for me to feel that my rights to free political speech were muzzled by McDonalds, and I should be able to sue. And I'm quite sure that, by his OWN arguments, Justice Kennedy would support me on that.
I guess what I'm saying is: you have a right to free political speech. By setting up a conflict within yourself between your right to free political speech, and your right to invest in a good company that (outside politics) is making good, solid, business decisions, the Supremes are now IMPEDING that right. No such conflict should be countenanced, none should be allowed and, hence, corporations should be apolitical. As the saying goes, 'the business of America is business'. While obviously this is no longer true, it is still true that the business of our corporations should be business, and not politics.
Asking individuals to balance their right to free political speech against their right to seek profits in the corporate world, shackles both rights. SCOTUS is impeding BOTH your right to free political speech AND your right to make profits in the corporate world by setting up a false conflict for your investment dollars. The logical way to rid ourselves of this conflict is to stop corporations from going political. At the very least, they must stop if any one of their owners can show that their political advocacy has resulted in this conflict between the owners right to a good investment, and their right to free political speech. The right of any American to a good investment is unassailable in this Republic. And the Supreme's have just said that the right to free political speech is ALSO just as unassailable. By allowing corporations to go political, BOTH RIGHTS of their owners are being assailed. Hence, the Supreme's must accept that corporations cannot go political without impeding the 1st Amendment rights of their owners.
Good point. I think some of the dissenting justices felt like you, that the decision was impeding free speech (take THAT ACLU). Another point, if one has a mutual fund investment then one cannot even object as a direct shareholder.
Gary
"No one can deny that much of our modern advertising is essentially dishonest; and it can be maintained that to lie freely and all the time for private profit is not to abuse the right of free speech, whether it is a violation of the law or not. But again the practical question is, how much lying for private profit is to be permitted by law?"
-- Carl L. Becker
ubrew12 January 24th, 2010 11:08 pm -- Good comment.
Saying corporations have a right to free speech protected by the First Amendment is like saying they have a right to run for office or vote in an election. Ridiculous!
By the way, those of you critical of the ACLU, I belong to the ACLU, and I believe the "official" position of the ACLU isn't shared by many of the members. (See comments made earlier.)
Sioux Rose
UBREW: Excellently argued! Your points should be published in "Letters to the Editor" of the NY Times, but the larger-circulation "organs" will be the least likely to allow the slightest evidence of the truth in terms of the latest heist underway. Alas, dying legends of a free press!
...the America we celebrate is an illusion. It does not exist. Our government and judiciary have no real sovereignty. Our press provides diversion, not information. Our organs of security and power keep us as domesticated and as fearful as most Iraqis. Capitalism, as Karl Marx understood, when it emasculates government, becomes a revolutionary force. And this revolutionary force, best described as inverted totalitarianism, is plunging us into a state of neo-feudalism, perpetual war and severe repression. The Supreme Court decision is part of our transformation by the corporate state from citizens to prisoners.
-from the latest article by chris hedges
anothe other pertinent quote:
The fiction of democracy remains useful, not only for corporations, but for our bankrupt liberal class. If the fiction is seriously challenged, liberals will be forced to consider actual resistance, which will be neither pleasant nor easy.
Thank you.
Sioux Rose
GUERNICA: Powerful encapsulation of the relevant truths of our times.
"I have come to terms with,...I am ok with, death,"---The hero Diego in Camus' play State of Siege, explaining why The Plague, absolute dictatorship, has no power over him and he is able to lead an insurgency...
So Rollerball wasn't a fantasy it was a prediction
The first thing you can do is end your liberal fantasy that there is any such things as a progressive movement in the USA. There isn't. If the Obama election hasn't confirmed that to you, you are a hopeless romantic.
With no progressive movement, there is no progressive action possible. Well, that ought to be clear enough, but maybe not. So, let's flesh it out. The 535 members of Congress are already owned by corporate lobbies. Oh sure, maybe there is a Kucinich here and there, but with no power, no voice and no standing to even get on the evening news. And, while speaking of the evening news, you'll get no help there. They don't even recognize demonstrations by the left, which are held well out of camera range now thanks to the new increased local policing initiatives to "fight terrorism."
Progressives are out of gas, out of ideas and out of money. Air America even closed its pathetic little operation. Note: Limbaugh is earning $40M a year though!
This SCOTUS verdict is not new or unexpected. The corporatists have been building toward this climax since Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were elected. It's the final move, not an initial one.
Thank you Bill and Hillary Clinton. Now the progressives have to fight both the Republican AND Democratic party. Green party? You gotta be kidding me. My local green party has 5 people who show up for the whole county. They pass a hat around and collect $2 or $3 for a meeting. Our Town's Boss Hog probably spent $2M or $3M in the 2008 election cycle getting his slate of wishes and candidates passed! There's no money for progressives because progressives are still stupidly supporting the Democratic Party. Need proof - look over Obama's campaign finances. The most Conservative Democrat ever elected - including Bill Clinton - and he managed to snag 99.9% of the money out there.
You have no way to communicate with people because you don't own 1200 radio stations like Clear Channel. You don't own any newspapers or TV stations like the NYT and FOX. But it doesn't matter anyway, progressive people still fell for the Democratic Party candidate. Just go hang out at KOS to see how deep was that infatuation with a Conservative Wall Street whore in "cool" clothing.
Let's be blunt. We're screwed. We lost. We had a slim, tiny chance back in 1992, but Mr. Clinton became a traitor in a long line of progressive traitors. he set the ball on the "T" for Mr. Bush to knock out of the park, and now Mr. Obama is the caretaker until the next Bush can be elected. Game Over.
Unless you are willing to pull out a gun and rush Washington DC, you better just bend over and grab your ankles. Nothing is going to happen to the establishment - the status quo. So, you have one choice left, which is to stop recognizing it, stop participating in it, stop legitimizing it and go your OWN way. Believe it or not, that's the one door wide open - to simply STOP pretending you are an "American" because your feet happen to be on this soil. Get naked and look in the mirror. I don't know about you, but there's no tattooed flag on my arse, and no electrical socket for anyone to plug in a control module. I reject the Washington Premise entirely. Join the community of the World, find like minded people. Make a new world. Be happy.