Activist U.S. Supreme Court Makes It Official, We're Now 'The Corporate States of America'
'We the People' lose, 'You the Corporations' Win...
"The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissenting opinion on today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, which will overturn decades of established campaign finance law.
[...] This would be 'Game Over,' folks, for those who believe in "We the People," rather than "We the Corporations," unless a movement like the one launched today at MoveToAmend.org (on which we are an original signer) can gain traction. You can (and must) join the call by signing on at FreeSpeechForPeople.org as well.
Some key quotes from today's ruling, which pretty much encapsulate the entire horrifying story:
In the majority opinion of the court, Justice Kennedy writes: "The Court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations."
Concurring, Chief Justice Roberts wrote of his fear that if the decision had gone the other way, "First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy."
...And Justice Scalia, equating corporate money with free speech wrote "We should celebrate rather than condemn the addition of this speech to the public debate."
In dissent, Justice Stevens wrote "While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."
Well, disagree with the earlier three of the quotes if you care to, but nobody can disagree with Stevens. The Bradblog post concluded:
In the meantime, we're sure the "grass roots" Tea Baggers, outraged by corporate money special interests, will be infuriated by this decision, light up new protests in every town in every state in the union, and demand that our country be returned to "We the People" as the founders envisioned.
While he was being sarcastic, Brad Friedman might be right.
If these obviously disgruntled and dissatisfied Tea Party people are aware of what it means to regular people to have this decision as law and to let it be unchanged, and they are sufficiently bright [the sticking point], so they are not falsely channeled away from awareness of that truth by GOP and corporate-press-propaganda miscreants; then they could put their disgruntled energies behind a reform that could be advanced and sustained by them and people of beliefs across the political spectrum (beyond the few but powerful cynics among us who believe, "Money talks and all else walks," and those more numerous among us within the corporate, Neocon and GOP embracing the version of the golden rule, "We got the gold, we rule," or those in that triumverate giving blessing to old J.P. Morgan himself saying, "Why should I care about the law, ain't I got the power?"
This could be grassroot and this could be precedent shattering.
The majority of our top court have pointed out an ambiguity in our Constitution with many contending the ambiguity and present judicial resolution of it is an impediment to ongoing freedom of real, actual and not fictional "corporate" people.
So, fix it. Wording of a proposed Constitutional Amendment would be easy:
Money is not speech, and human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
Amend the thing so the dunderheads in black robes will have no leeway to screw any more with the overarching rights of We the People. Corporations are fictional creations of law, and although judges cannot opine unicorns into existence and give them votes and human rights, they have done it with a different fictional creation.
The five GOP appointees who created this awful hoax of law should be ashamed of themselves for what they did.
To be a part of fixing that, go to the websites Brad Friedman linked to:
http://freespeechforpeople.org/
http://movetoamend.org/
________UPDATE_________
The sentiment that alteration of the Constitution itself to be unambiguous is being seen on several fronts, a friend sending this link, at this comment, stating:
Any argument that corporations spending money to get officials elected will be immediately discarded by the courts. Money is speech. That was clearly stated by the SCOTUS this week.
The only recourse we have is to amend the US Constitution and clearly state that rights belong to individuals and nothing else:
"Rights, as enumerated in the Constitution and retained by The People, are reserved to individual, living human beings."
That is one prong of the suggested language given in the post itself. My belief is it is important to insert the limitation by negative definition, "Money is not speech."
While only an ass would argue otherwise, five did.
NOTE: Who sponsors these newer websites, and what affiliations and backgrounds underlie them is not clear, but Brad Friedman seems allied with at least one and his progressive credentials are well established.
________FURTHER UPDATE________
More language, less terse but showing there's more than a single way to skin five rats. HufPo, this link. Also, this Google, and this Bing.
Many in diverse places are appearing to believe that amending, or attempting to amend the Constitution is the best direction to take rather than lesser more timid strategies.
_________FURTHER UPDATE_________
Ralph Nader's Public Citizen reaction, here, is clear from this exended excerpt:
Because today’s decision is made on First Amendment constitutional grounds, the impact will be felt not only at the federal level, but in the states and localities, including in state judicial elections.
In one sense, today’s decision was a long time in coming. Over the past 30 years, the Supreme Court has created and steadily expanded the First Amendment protections that it has afforded for-profit corporations.
But in another sense, the decision is a startling break from Supreme Court tradition. Even as it has mistakenly equated money with speech in the political context, the court has long upheld regulations on corporate spending in the electoral context. The Citizens United decision is also an astonishing overreach by the court. No one thought the issue of corporations’ purported right to spend money to influence election outcomes was at stake in this case until the Supreme Court so decreed. The case had been argued in lower courts, and was originally argued before the Supreme Court, on narrow grounds related to application of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.
The court has invented the idea that corporations have First Amendment rights to influence election outcomes out of whole cloth. There is surely no originalist interpretation to support this outcome, since the court created the rights only in recent decades. Nor can the outcome be justified in light of the underlying purpose and spirit of the First Amendment. Corporations are state-created entities, not real people. They do not have expressive interests like humans; and, unlike humans, they are uniquely motivated by a singular focus on their economic bottom line. Corporate spending on elections defeats rather than advances the democratic thrust of the First Amendment.
We, the People cannot allow this decision to go unchallenged. We, the People cannot allow corporations to take control of our democracy.
Public Citizen is going to do everything we can to mitigate the damage from today’s decision, and to overturn this misguided ruling.
First, we must have public financing of elections. Public financing will give independent candidates a base from which they may be able to compete against candidates benefiting from corporate expenditures. We will intensify our efforts to win rapid passage of the Fair Elections Now Act, which would provide congressional candidates with an alternative to corporate-funded campaigns before fundraising for the 2010 election is in full swing. Sponsored by Sen. Richard Durbin (D.-Ill.) and Rep. John Larson (D.-Conn.), the bill would encourage unlimited small-dollar donations from individuals and provide candidates with public funding in exchange for refusing corporate contributions or private contributions in amounts of more than $100. The proposal has broad support, including more than 110 co-sponsors in the House.
In the wake of the court’s decision, it is also essential that the presidential public financing system be made viable again. Cities and states will also need to enact public financing of elections.
Second, we will urge Congress to ensure that corporate CEOs do not use corporate funds for political purposes, against the wishes of shareholders. We will support legislation requiring an absolute majority of shares to be voted in favor, before any corporate political expenditure is permitted.
These mitigating measures will not be enough to offset today’s decision, however. The decision itself must be overturned.
Public Citizen will aggressively work in support of a constitutional amendment specifying that for-profit corporations are not entitled to First Amendment protections, except for freedom of the press. We do not lightly call for a constitutional amendment. But today’s decision so imperils our democratic well-being, and so severely distorts the rightful purpose of the First Amendment, that a constitutional corrective is demanded.
We are formulating language for possible amendments, asking members of the public to sign a petition to affirm their support for the idea of constitutional change, and planning to convene leading thinkers in the areas of constitutional law and corporate accountability to begin a series of in-depth conversations about winning a constitutional amendment.
The Supreme Court has lost its way today. Democracy is rule of the people – real, live humans, not artificial entity corporations. Now it’s time for the people to reassert their rights.
Public Citizen also has an "action.citizen.org" site adding more fuel to their fire, attempting to generate a petition drive groundswell, here.
A weak suggestion out of Iowa, reported here, proposes a congressional "joint resolution" arguably only splitting hairs rather than strongly reversing the bad decision making in a way that is decisive and unequivocal.
Interim measures can be tried, but it is a band-aid effort and the same five Justices stand ready to review whatever legislation ensues. For the time between now and election day, a new bill should be passed to curb excesses while time might favor it's judicial review being stalled until after election day.
However, stalling is offensive, even though it worked for the GOP and complicit Dems on healthcare. Going for a fast, rapid, and strongly decisive amendment would better energize the bulk of the electorate in opposition to the corporate purchase of elections as well as against any politicians daring to say the decision should stand and the Constitution, ripped asunder by activist judges from the far right wing, should be anything but promptly and unequivocally repaired by amending it to directly say what all decent men and women should want it to have been interpreted to say.
This judicial assault on the Constitution simply must be turned back. An organized effort must be started and sustained toward that end.
Final thought - where will Ron Paul as a strict Constitutionalist stand, about this decision and amendment efforts, and how will that ripple through the GOP? That will be answered only over time. I have seen no online indication of Rep. Paul being eager to define his Constitutionalism in the sense that people are human beings and corporations are a legal fiction.
My belief is no sane and sensible man or woman would say human rights apply to non-human inventions.
I expect a sagacious and non-evasive response from Ron Paul. I hope I am not disappointed. His opposition to the Fed is a populist thing, contending central banking via a bank coalition in power over fiat money and credit was not being Constitutionally envisioned at the Union's founding nor justified as being good economics for the people of the nation. How that squares with more lax rules in buying influence, in the mind of Ron Paul, will be interesting to see.
Sometimes, when Ron Paul speaks, in your heart you know he is right. Yet regarding the SCOTUS decision, all I have seen online is Ron Paul's name used in a hypothetical at FireDogLake, as one in a rather sobering string of hypotheticals:
Despite our high-minded ideals about the process, elections are decided on television. The candidate who spends the most on advertisements is usually the candidate who wins. With this ruling, corporations can now easily buy members of Congress by pouring millions of dollars into election campaigns. They can fund the ads of their chosen candidates and directly buy ads themselves to attack their opponents. Any candidate who plans to work for the people, rather than the corporatocracy, can expect to lose as their opponents are flush with cash, and countless expensive attack ads are aired against them. Imagine a Goldman Sachs or Citigroup sponsored smear campaign against Ron Paul. It could even be paid for with bailout money!
The most disturbing part of this ruling is in the understanding that corporations are not citizens of any given country, but businesses with offices in different places. What is to stop Russia’s Gazprom or a Chinese lead mining/toy manufacturing conglomerate from buying a P.O. Box in Delaware, and then showering an obscure candidate from a small state with millions of dollars for their election campaign?