Supreme Court hands America to corporations

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A bitterly divided Supreme Court vastly increased the power of big business and unions to influence government decisions Thursday by freeing them to spend their millions directly to sway elections for president and Congress.

The ruling reversed a century-long trend to limit the political muscle of corporations, organized labor and their massive war chests. It also recast the political landscape just as crucial midterm election campaigns are getting under way.

Years ago, a guest lecturer in a history class warned us that one day the U.S. would not be run by the people, but by the corporations. We didn't believe him then. Damned if he wasn't right, though.

Now, if corporations and organized labor actually had equal amounts of money to spend, this might be semi-fair (maybe). But they don't. In spite of the whining from conservatives, organized labor (about the only real protection working people have) has been badly weakened. The corporations, on the other hand, are rich and, if they don't have the money, they'll just ask for a bailout.

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While the full consequences of the decision were hard to measure, politicians made clear whom they believed benefited. Democrats, led by President Barack Obama, condemned the decision while Republicans cheered it.

Of course the Republicans cheered it. Corporations are their specialest friends.

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The justices weighed two fundamental political forces — the power of the central government and the concentration of corporate wealth — and tilted decidedly in favor of the latter.

We the people don't mean jackshit. They the corporations (in spite of not actually being, you know, humans) are all that matters.

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Obama called the decision a victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests.

And he's right.

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But Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader who filed the first lawsuit challenging the McCain-Feingold law, praised the court for "restoring the First Amendment rights" of corporations and unions. "By previously denying this right, the government was picking winners and losers," McConnell said.

Bawww...my corporate buddies didn't enough power!

And as we make our way back in time to the Gilded Age, I leave you with this statement:

I pledge allegiance
To the flag
Of the Corporate States of America
And to Big Business
For which it stands
One nation
Divided
With liberty and justice for the rich.

Let the wank begin!

What kills me is that the case itself had almost nothing to do with what the decision ultimately ended up talking about.

The original case, Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, had to do with an anti-Hillary Clinton movie that the group Citizens United, Not Timid (later renamed Citizens United for very obvious reasons) wanted to air during the 2008 election. The FEC, applying the law as written, said basically "if it looks like an election ad and sounds like an election ad, then we'll regulate it as an election ad".

The Roberts Court decided that a narrow ruling wasn't enough, and decided to reverse over 60 years of precedent and statue to say that any corporation anywhere (even ones that are foreign-owned) can pour as much money as they want into "issue ads" and direct mailings to influence an election.

As one blogger put it, quite tongue-in-cheek, if "money=speech" and corporations have the same First Amendment rights as an individual person, what is to stop a corporation such as General Motors from sending someone down to the Michigan Registrar of Voters and demanding that the corporation be allowed to cast a ballot? After all, other Supreme Court rulings have stated that a person's vote is a form of First Amendment speech.

Hey, Bamshalam, isn't this about the point where you interject to inform us how the Common Law system protects us from the evil tyranny of the majority?

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I enjoy it, when the forces of Evil triumph. One step closer a better world.

Also, Gaijinguy, that blue, very cheap looking plastic chair in your avatar annoys me.

Holy shit, as if the corporations didn't have enough power as it was to buy votes.

This means that:

1: You can say goodbye to any kind of NHS for the US of A.
2: You can say goodbye to any attempt to keep oil companies even slightly regulated with regards to poisoning the world.
3: You can say goodbye to your vote actually mattering.

Why don't they just say, "The company with the most money now gets to run America" and be done with it?

What I'm not clear on is how much power this is actually going to give entities with large amounts of money. I mean they can run whatever ads they want, but if the ads aren't factual then there are plenty of news organizations on the right and the left dedicated to debunking false information from the opposing side. For all the flack Newsbusters and Media Matters receive, they do serve a purpose.

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but if the ads aren't factual then there are plenty of news
organizations on the right and the left dedicated to debunking false
information from the opposing side.

You mean the news agencies that are supported with corporate money with certain advertisers to please?

I don't think the ideologues are so strapped for cash that they're going to abandon their ideology that easily. Olbermann and O'reilly already make millions of dollars a year.

Chaltab wrote:

I mean they can run whatever ads they want, but if the ads aren't factual then there are plenty of news organizations on the right and the left dedicated to debunking false information from the opposing side.

How cute. You think the American people actually care about whether the shit they hear from political ads is true. If the system worked as you supposed Reagan would be known as a colossal douchebag instead of the GREATEST PRESIDENT EVAR, the "death panels" nonsense from last year would have never happened, and the evening news would not uncritically report right-wing talking points. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Why don't they just say, "The company with the most money now gets to run America" and be done with it?

Probably cause that would cause nation wide panic, as well as riots breaking out in every major city in the US.

TheHermit wrote:

Chaltab wrote:

I mean they can run whatever ads they want, but if the ads aren't factual then there are plenty of news organizations on the right and the left dedicated to debunking false information from the opposing side.

How cute. You think the American people actually care about whether the shit they hear from political ads is true. If the system worked as you supposed Reagan would be known as a colossal douchebag instead of the GREATEST PRESIDENT EVAR, the "death panels" nonsense from last year would have never happened, and the evening news would not uncritically report right-wing talking points. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

I guess left-wing cynicism is the new black. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

No, just humanitarian idealism is so fifth grade.

When do we reach the point where another revolution becomes necessary?

*sigh*

America's so apathetic. If this had been decided in almost any other democracy/republic in the world, there'd be massive street protests.

I bet nothing changes.

Chaltab wrote:

I don't think the ideologues are so strapped for cash that they're going to abandon their ideology that easily. Olbermann and O'reilly already make millions of dollars a year.

It's not that at all.

I took a class on Political Campaigns and Elections, and the thing is that people will "remember the lie", even after they have been told repeatedly that it is a lie. Especially if the lie is presented in a shocking way.

The example in the class was a focus group that met to discuss the 1988 election between Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush. Not a single person in the group could remember a single thing that Dukakis stood for in terms of policy, but all of them recalled the infamous "Willie Horton" ad (Horton was a prisoner in Massachusetts who, while on furlough, escaped and was later convicted of raping a woman in Maryland).

The ad listed several falsehoods that were recalled by the group: Dukakis instituted the furlough program (it was instituted by a Republican governor in the 1970s), that Horton had not been eligible for furlough (under the law, which Dukakis later abolished, he was), and that Horton had killed a woman after escaping (he had not).

On the other side is the also-infamous "Daisy" advertisement that ran in the 1964 election between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. The ad, which ran just once, was designed to depict Goldwater as a psychotic who would ignite nuclear war if given the opportunity. The "logic" of the attack was a comment Goldwater made about the possibility of using nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

Nobody remembers the logic. Everyone remembers the ad.

Knorg wrote:

I bet nothing changes.

Aaaaand, honestly, this is what I'm thinking at this point in time. You can all rub it in if I'm proven wrong.

InkWeaver wrote:

Knorg wrote:

I bet nothing changes.

Aaaaand, honestly, this is what I'm thinking at this point in time. You can all rub it in if I'm proven wrong.

Agreed; the word of the Supreme Court is essentially the word of God, so. . .

InkWeaver wrote:

Knorg wrote:

I bet nothing changes.

Aaaaand, honestly, this is what I'm thinking at this point in time. You can all rub it in if I'm proven wrong.

If anything, it's official now.

Spotts1701 wrote:

It's not that at all.

I took a class on Political Campaigns and Elections, and the thing is that people will "remember the lie", even after they have been told repeatedly that it is a lie. Especially if the lie is presented in a shocking way.

Oh yeah, I know that from my own politics studies. It's rather that, if you make your votes based on a campaign ad, taking the ad's 'logic' or argument at face value without taking into account actual facts and reading up on candidates before hand, it's hard for me to sympathies with your 'plight' of having been deceived by the corporations or unions. After this many years, we should have learned our lesson about trusting the content of political ads.

It's not that I trust corps and unions not to abuse the privilege, but that at this point to be persistently fooled is on some level a choice made by the deceived.

Edit: None of this to say I agree with the Supreme Court decision, but that I don't think it will sway politics that strongly.

Nothing will change. This just makes paying politicians to support your company America's OFFICIAL policy, instead of its UNOFFICIAL policy.

Chaltab wrote:

It's rather that, if you make your votes based on a campaign ad, taking the ad's 'logic' or argument at face value without taking into account actual facts and reading up on candidates before hand, it's hard for me to sympathies with your 'plight' of having been deceived by the corporations or unions.

It's not about rather or not you sympathize with them. This is a democracy. You can't just dismiss a huge voting block because you think they are idiots. They have a say in our national policy, and our nation could destroy every living person on the face of the Earth if the wrong people are elected.

Lysander wrote:

rather or not

FFFFFFF

IT'S MY POST DON'T LIKE DON'T REEEEEED!

Nihilist wrote:

If anything, it's official now.

But what will become the new unofficial policy?

Psy-4 wrote:

Nihilist wrote:

If anything, it's official now.

But what will become the new unofficial policy?

Raising fuel efficiency standards by making all motor vehicles run on the blood of non-christian children.

Just wait until the Republicans are back in the White House. You'll see.