This is the blogwork for this week. It's due next Thursday 10pm.
This month The Supreme Court ruled that corporations are protected by "free speech" rights and can contribute enormous sums of money to influence elections is a de jure endorsement of the de facto dominance of corporations over our lives. As William J. Astore of Truhout puts it, corporations are the new citizens, and ordinary Americans, the old "citizens," have become consumers.
It's all about 5-4...
What's at stake? Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. The 5-to-4 decision was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said that allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace would corrupt democracy.
The case: A documentary called "Hillary: The Movie," a 90-minute stew of caustic political commentary and advocacy journalism. It was produced by Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit corporation, and was released during the Democratic presidential primaries in 2008. Citizens United lost a suit that year against the Federal Election Commission, and scuttled plans to show the film on a cable video-on-demand service and to broadcast television advertisements for it. But the film was shown in theaters in six cities, and it remains available on DVD and the Internet.
Precedent: The 2002 law, usually called McCain-Feingold, banned the broadcast, cable or satellite transmission of "electioneering communications" paid for by corporations or labor unions from their general funds in the 30 days before a presidential primary and in the 60 days before the general elections.
One would think this is good enough: Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.
I know we tend to consider corporations as individuals in a legal sense, but the comparison stops there. Are corporations really individuals when it comes to the power they yield in contemporary society? Ask yourself if Adam Smith ever would've envisioned the giants of today he would've defined his invisible hand in the same manner.
What the court ruled in favor of is campaign money. And if campaign money cannot be restricted because that would restrict "speech," the court has definitively decided that money equals speech. Since that is now the legal precedent, the court should have likewise ruled that you cannot have equal speech without equal money — i.e., equal protection under the law.
This is my take, but you can have your own and defend it. Go ahead. All points of view are respected and welcome.
7 comments:
This is waay out of control in terms of reading into the constitution too literally. I am a firm believer of supporting and instilling the Amendments so that we don't get lost in Politics, however this seems to do just that!! In my opinion it is supporting and funding the unfortunate reality that money makes the world go round. It's disturbing that now it's almost protected by government who should be there to stop such devious political tatics and protect and inform the people of such doings. If it is so hands off, then the people should be well informed of this!! I mean inquiring minds know, but all of the blind folk out there voting because theior pastor or fox news told them so NEED THE TRUTH!! Very tricky indeed. If Adam Smith were Alive and well, I believe he would rewrite his "invisible hand" statement to fit this catastrophe accordingly..
I think this decision shows the ever-growing power our capitalistic society has given to these corporations. I try not to be a pessimist, but when we see our national debt growing larger every day, and the economic balance shifting towards other countries like China, one must wonder...Maybe Marx had the right idea?
I think this decision shows the ever-growing power our capitalistic society has given to these corporations. I try not to be a pessimist, but when we see our national debt growing larger every day, and the economic balance shifting towards other countries like China, one must wonder...Maybe Marx had the right idea?
Money equals control. Democracy was ruined from the moment they invented it, but what they just preceded was very much Republican, higher people who would rather decide than the little people. I'm no one to judge this report because its been this way for the longest so why is it that until now we are coming to realize this? Are we now recognizing that every citizens rights are being violated? Really who are we to speak now when we've been quiet for so long? =)
Money seems to be controlling the world more everyday, maybe it has been like that for a while but we just now found out about it. I believe that the world is getting the way it is because of the economy which makes a fight for survival.These politics are all a mafia. We can see these things happening even in a smaller environment, in which is our work places. There is always that difference of trust of a manager and an employee. The manager always gets all the control of the money and for some weird reason there is always a shortage of money in some areas of the company. It is getting harder and harder to trust where exactly our money goes. I thank does people that go out of their comfort zones into the investigation of money and politics.In Brazil they are now putting cameras in unexpected places where politics meet and they are finding out where all the missing money goes.It goes write into the pocket of the governors themselves.
Its a pretty scary decision by the supreme court... one taken by conservative judges who supposedly believe in "small government". But one could see this coming from a mile away, corporations havebeean amassing power over the electoral process for a long time now (although the reagan era was particularly generous to "big business") and this to me is just one of the final steps in securing their absolute power to manipulate the electoral and legislative processes to accomodate their needs.
Its sad really how a nation with such great potential has fallen so hard... but those are the dangers of unregulated capitalism... dog eat dog world haha.
We now live in an oligarchy.
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