by Jim Hightower
A year from now, Americans will be caught in an unprecedented blizzard of campaign ads.
Most of this ad blizzard will not come from the candidates, but from ads secretly-funded by huge corporations. This is because a five-man cabal on the Supreme Court issued an edict that perverts nature itself. In a case titled Citizens United, the five decreed that – shazam! – lifeless corporate elites are henceforth “persons” with more electioneering rights than us real life persons. In a black-robed coup against our democracy, the Supremes ruled that a corporation’s money is “speech” and that CEOs may dump unlimited sums of it into their own ad campaigns to elect or defeat any candidates they choose.
Of course, it’s a grotesque, Kafkaesque lie to say that Wal-Mart, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, and the rest are people with political rights equal to – much less superior to – human beings. As a friend of mine puts it: “A corporation is not a person until Texas executes one!”
The good news is that real citizens of our country are united against Citizens United. In a January Hart Research poll, 87 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of Independents, and even 68 percent of Republicans favor passing a Constitutional amendment to overule the Court’s bizarre decision and make clear that only people are people.
Sadly (though not surprisingly) our national elected officials – including Republicans, Democrats and tea partiers – are too hooked on corporate money to stand up for us… for America’s democracy. So, do we just have to surrender to the corporados? Of course not – we’re Americans!
Rebel! A new “We the People Campaign” is rallying grassroots folks to sign a “Declaration of Independence From Corporate Power.” To sign the declaration and join the action, go to .WeThePeopleCampaign.org.
Related articles
- Montana Supreme Court Brushes Aside ‘Citizens United’ (huffingtonpost.com)
- Occupy Wall Street Makes Official Call To Amend Constitution (huffingtonpost.com)
- A look at the Citizens United decision (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- My Country tis of thee? (dannys365thoughts.wordpress.com)
Lord lantern Jesus! You guys are seriously fucked.
And I thought your Scopes trial had thought you something.
But clearly not.
Good post. One way we can deal with this awful Supreme decision while it still stands is to volunteer for the candidates we support. A flood of money for a lousy candidate = high price per vote. I plan to have some parties this election season.
I’ve always thought that corporate personhood is the worst decision by the Supreme Court that still stands. Moreover, the decision as I understand it was pretty weak, interpreted into ‘corporate personhood’ when it didn’t have to be taken that far (I can’t recall the specifics, but I got that from someone who teaches Con Law). Maybe now is the time to strike for a constitutional amendment, that’s definitely something I would support!
Until you get the money out there will be no change certainly for the better . One only needs to look to Parsons , Kansas to see how the corporate controlled governments work – definately not in the best interests of the citizens .
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Occupy Providence continues, even in sudden cold and our first snow.