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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Jan 23, 2010 - 10:37am PT
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JL wrote: The hysteria of the Left over this decision merely shows their true nature. They have no commitment to free speech, nor to the free exchange of ideas. Anyone who has been on a typical college campus over the last 45 years knows that. I guess it must really suck when those they denounce get to talk back.
They are buying speech...it is far from being free. Money talks with you John...you follow the dollar...plain and simple.
The republicans are so full of sh#t they can't even see straight..."Contract for America", "term limits and so forth"...talking out of their asses while being one of the most corrupt congresses in history.
Pelosi and Reid are like Mother Theresa and Gandhi compared to "the Newt" and Tom Delay.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 23, 2010 - 12:39pm PT
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Funny thing...Media corporations regularly refuse to run political speech that somebody wants to pay for advertising space to communicate. "Too controversial" and stuff like that. Was it the Last superbowl when something like that happened?
Those who wish to join the sheepwagon and claim that corporate business is like a poor person who is suffering because they are politically underrepresented are unwitting traitors to the people and the country. Any clear headed person can see business is heavily favored. We can get no health care reform done, we can't cut back military spending, and the banks just gang-raped us without consequence. We're messed up and this is just the anal rogering to finish the job.
This cannot stand
peace
Karl
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Jan 23, 2010 - 12:46pm PT
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What's your plan?
What would you have the Government do address this?
Remember, it's gotta pass Constitutional muster, or else the Supereme Court'll just shitcan like they did with this last one.
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WandaFuca
Social climber
From the gettin place
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Jan 23, 2010 - 01:20pm PT
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We the people are human beings with an inalienable right to self-expression.
Democracy cannot be sustained in a society that confuses who we are with the money or other forms of property we may possess.
money ≠ speech
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Jan 23, 2010 - 01:29pm PT
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"And you worry about having to register guns?"
of course! personal gun ownership is the last line of defense against a tyrannical government...that's why hitler, mussolini, stalin, etc. outlawed private gun ownership
"it was the real end of power for a hard working voter."
where's the outrage over unions using dues for political purposes?
"I believe in crazy militia organizations. They keep the pols worried."
really? where was your outrage when barry's homeland security sec released a report identifying domestic "militia organizations" as the greatest threat to our security, even greater than "overseas contingency operations" that result in "man-caused disasters"?
man, you libs are entertaining...how many of you have made phone calls to your reps to get to work on another bill that addresses scotus' specific issues? see, that's the process...you ask your reps to write a bill, the prez signs it into law, somebody protests, scotus reviews and either says 'no problem' or says 'you need to fix it'
but here's the problem, who gets to define "free speech"? nbc is owned by ge, about as big a corporation as you can find...mccain-feingold included exemptions for "media organizations"...so ge gets to spend as much cash as it wants on politics because it owns a media organization? really? you see no problem with that?
i agree with mccain-feingold in spirit; the intentions are good...but the road to hell is paved with good intentions...hence, the creation of the 527s that dominated the last three elections...yes, i prefer that "free speech" refer to EVERYONE regardless of how much money they have...
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Jan 23, 2010 - 02:14pm PT
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Lincoln was wrong:
" and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
It just died.
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The Constitution makes fairly clear that it is established to protect the rights of PEOPLE.
The Preamble:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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This action elevates the rights of Corporations above the rights of States of the Union.
Re: States:
"No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility."
"No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."
Corporations can do all that, PLUS they now have the rights of individual citizens.
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There are a number of things that will now change, as a matter of law. When Corporations want to do something, can they be stopped by passage of a law?
The 10th Amendment will now effectively read:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, or to Corporations."
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consider this: Can an electoral college elector to a presidential election now be a Corp?
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Jan 23, 2010 - 02:34pm PT
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I'm not sure if people understand why unlimited money can and will affect elections. In TV and Radio, there is a finite amount of airtime on any station. With unlimited money, you can buy up all the airtime, and your opponent can not buy any. In newspapers, there is only one front page, if you buy ads there, your opponent cannot.
On the internet, you can buy the services of thousands of people whose job it is, is to place statements by the hundreds in various blogs. If, for example, for every post I made, 100 posts went up in opposition, I, like any sane person, would quit posting.
If Supertopo were to be contacted, and told that they'd had a suit filed against them because of defamatory posts by a group of (liberal) posters, how would they respond? How would the ISP respond, if such a suit were filed? How about 20 suits? How would they respond, if it was known that this tactic had been used against, say, one hundred sites, and all hundred had had their owners declare banruptcy? It is one thing to expect people to be fair, it is another to expect them to give up their lives for issues they don't particularly care about.
Unlimited money creates all sorts of trouble.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Jan 23, 2010 - 02:51pm PT
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In a society like ours that values Liberty, the answer to a percieved problem with free speech is more free speech, not supression of speech.
Beats banning movies, which is what sparked this case.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Jan 23, 2010 - 03:00pm PT
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from hotair:
"Barack Obama’s first major step on the campaign trail — in December 2006 — was to Wall Street, where he snagged the backing of convicted inside trader George Soros and investment banker Robert Wolf, who became CEO of UBS Americas. Before the Wall Street meltdown got into full swing, Swiss banking giant UBS had written off more debt from the subprime mortgage crisis than any other bank; a number of Obama’s top bundlers came from with firms mired in that mess. Such bundlers raised at least 22 percent of Obama’s money during the first half of 2007, and got perks from the Obama campaign. Indeed, Obama’s national campaign-finance chairwoman, Penny Pritzker, helped run Superior Bank — which was at the forefront of securitizing of subprime mortgages, until it collapsed in 2001.
When Wall Street went into meltdown mode, the establishment media ignored that Obama got big donations from associates of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and was one of the all-time recipents of political cash from Lehman Brothers. Before the election Obama voted for TARP. After the election, Obama twisted arms to get the second half of the TARP money, and packed the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place."
keep in mind, this all occured while mccain-feingold was still in place, but i don't recall anybody warning about the corporate takeover of america during the campaign
"This action elevates the rights of Corporations above the rights of States of the Union."
huh?
"The 10th Amendment will now effectively read:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, or to Corporations."
this would require an amendment
"Can an electoral college elector to a presidential election now be a Corp?"
NO
seriously, your ignorance of the government is astounding
i'll ask one more time:
mccain-feingold became law in 2002...ok, what about the preceding 214 years? if the "corporate fascists" weren't able to takeover the government in 200+ years, do you really think they can do it now when the public's access to information and opinion via the internet and other media is unprecedented? it costs NOTHING to post a political ad on youtube, which can be set literally around the world in seconds via an ever-growing system of personal communication (ironically brought to us by some of those eeeeeeeeeeeevvvvvuuuuuullllll corporations)
ironically, nobody seems concerned about barry's attempts to silence certain voices and gain greater governmental control of the internet...that's probably because you trust the government more than you do corporations even though no corporation has ever started a war (don't bore me with your conspiracy theories), enacted a tax, incarcerated a citizen, etc.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Jan 23, 2010 - 03:08pm PT
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"This action elevates the rights of Corporations above the rights of States of the Union."
huh?
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Corporation are not bound by the Constitutional limits on States, and further NOW have the constitutional powers of persons.
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"The 10th Amendment will now effectively read:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, or to Corporations."
this would require an amendment
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Or a Supreme Court Decision, weren't you aware of this decision?
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"Can an electoral college elector to a presidential election now be a Corp?"
NO
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Please cite me the provision in the Constitution. Since Corps now have the rights of "persons", and Corps now have rights of persons, why would they not?
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Jan 23, 2010 - 03:24pm PT
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This is just another nail in the coffin for Democracy and the survival of our once great country. The Supreme Court is stacked with Conservative Neo-con Rethugs that are Hell bent on an agenda.
Shrub said, "They hate us for our freedoms."
So true. He wanted everyone to think that he was talking about foreign "Terrorists," but in truth he was letting us see into his dark soul. He was speaking the truth. The Ultra Conservative Neo-con Rethugs are Hell bent on their agenda of a NWO. They indeed do hate us for our freedoms. Our freedoms are a major road bloke to their plans of World Dominance and corrupt power.
The first thing that has to go are our freedoms, for them to acheive their evil GOD-less agenda.
When Corporate America fully owns our Government, there will be no Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The Value of Freedom
(four of the following great men were assassinated for their conviction of truth and their love of freedom)
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves”
-- Abraham Lincoln
“Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” -- Benjamin Franklin
“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”
-- Edward R. Murrow
“One thing I can tell you is you’ve got to be FREE!”
-- John Lennon
“You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” -- Malcolm X
“White man and black man, jew and gentile, protestant and catholic, will be able to hold hands and sing in the words of the ancient negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, free at last. Thank GOD almighty! We are free at last!’” -- Martin Luther King Jr.
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” -- Martin Luther King Jr.
“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” -- Noam Chomsky
“If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.”
--William Somerset Maugham
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 23, 2010 - 03:53pm PT
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Should have voted for McCain, forget about what he had to say during the campaign, his SCOTUS nominees would not have made a ruling like this.
And black is white, and up is down. So far McCain would have been able to nominate only one justice, to replace Souter. That is, someone in place of Sotomayor. It most likely would have been another corporatist right-wing judge, so changing the vote in this case to 6-3, instead of 5-4, and making no difference whatsoever to the result.
As with what happened at the end of the gilded age, around 1900, the corporations may find once again that there's a poison pill in their seeming victory, and that the backlash wasn't worth it. For example, they may now find that they're forced to fully disclose all political campaign and support - which isn't likely to endear them to the public. Likewise the recipients of such support.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Jan 23, 2010 - 03:57pm PT
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" For example, they may now find that they're forced to fully disclose all political campaign and support"
Ah, but then you will find embraced the "right to privacy", that Alito and Roberts have both said they believe is in the Constitution. And if people have the right to privacy, and Corps have the same rights as people, then they will have the right to privacy, too. So much for disclosure. Note the Court ruling on the secret meetings between Cheney and energy corporations (although decided on other grounds.)
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apogee
climber
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Jan 23, 2010 - 04:10pm PT
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"Anti-corporatists are going crazy because they would love to use the elctoral process to tax, take over, or otherwise cause grief for the corporations they so despise."
John, this statement (and the paragraph that contained it) reflects a strong belief that anyone who supports campaign finance limits is an anti-corparatist, wealth-distributing socialist. There may be a few of those running around, but I don't think it is fair or accurate to lump all people who support the idea of campaign finance limitations, or who are upset about the SCOTUS decision, as a 'raving anti-corporatist'.
bookworm, you made a good point (as did someone else upthread) about this SCOTUS decision, which is the they did not strike down the concept of limiting the ability of corporations to monetarily influence elections; they struck down McCain-Feingold. M-F had intrinsic weaknesses in the way it was written, and was perhaps doomed to be eventually reconsidered this way.
While M-F was problematic, it was a giant step towards dealing with a very real problem in the democratic system. As difficult as it was to enact in the first place, the likelihood that anything similar, or hopefully stronger and more lasting, will ever come up in our political system seems remote and virtually impossible. As we have witnessed in the healthcare reform process, the role of special interests is truly in control of our political process, and they are not going to be interested in any kind of law that limits their ability to grow and profit. The future of our democratic system looks quite bleak to me right now.
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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Jan 23, 2010 - 05:41pm PT
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Interesting analysis by David Brooks on the newshour last night. Easy enough to find on the Newshour website.
His main objection to the ruling was to its potential effects on the operation of the free market. Essentailly crafting legislation to stifle competition.
Its not like this doesn't go on already, but its a good point.
A great example is the constantly fluctuating level of support for alternative energy. At low levels of support companies adapt and survive, at high levels of support, companies thrive. When the level of support is in constant flux companies die. If you've ever wondered why congress seems a bit schizophrenic in its support of alternative energy, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars that pour in from the energy status quo industries, then this is your answer.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Jan 23, 2010 - 06:16pm PT
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questions:
does anyone seriously believe mccain-feingold limited corporate influence since it was passed? why do you ignore references to barry's corporate support? you remember, barry, right, the guy who spent more money than anyone else EVAH after he promised to use only public funds to finance his campaign? i don't remember, was that the first promise he broke? and do you think mccain's decision to use only public funds hurt his campaign? if so, that must mean you think barry won unfairly and that it wasn't your votes that elected him but the influence of those eeeevvvvuuuulllll corporations that lined his coffers
and how about this? evil corporations (you know, big oil big pharma, big whatever) can spend BILLIONS AND BILLIONS making political ads, but NOBODY has to buy them...what are the chances the msm will simply refuse to run all political ads? hey, there's an idea...since the airwaves are public, why don't we pass a law that prohibits all political ads on network television and radio...in fact, let's say that no network can air any political content whatsoever...no ads, no news stories, no references in programming, no jokes in late night monologues, etc...how about no political content anywhere in the public domain? no billboards, no posters, no newspapers, no magazines, no political speech anywhere except in the privacy of your own home
and let's not forget those unions...no union money in politics...no special interest money in politics (i.e. planned parenthood, now, nea, greenpeace, nra, etc.)
how about this...let's say you invent a solar panel that is 100x more efficient than any other; you patent your design, start a company, and are raking in a cool 10 mil a year...the next election features one guy who promises to promote "alternative energy" and another who promises to drill, baby, drill...oops, you can't say anything because you're now a corporation
you want government "by the people" then get out there and spread the word person to person...don't think it can work? well, tea parties aren't just for little girls anymore
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Jan 23, 2010 - 06:18pm PT
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money = speech
i gotta say buying ad time on tv sounds a helluva lot more like 'speech' than burning a flag
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noshoesnoshirt
climber
Arkansas, I suppose
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Jan 23, 2010 - 07:23pm PT
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Bookworm,
Good points
edit;
but what about the invisible hand driving the market? Won't you're word get out due to the popularity of your product
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 23, 2010 - 08:04pm PT
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As with what happened at the end of the gilded age, around 1900, the corporations may find once again that there's a poison pill in their seeming victory, and that the backlash wasn't worth it. For example, they may now find that they're forced to fully disclose all political campaign and support - which isn't likely to endear them to the public. Likewise the recipients of such support.
First of all, the corporations don't support direct. They establish some other organization like "Porn Video veterans for Chastity".
Second, they support both sides, hedging their bets. Creating a fog around the issues, whether it be the health of tobacco smokers or climate change.
The public just goes back to sleep. As long as the government prints enough money to keep us from sharp pain, we'll take anything. The time when the fan gets stinky is, sadly, soon at hand though
Peace
Karl
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