Q. Can you talk a bit about the drive to amend the Constitution as it relates to corporations and money in financial campaigns?
Citizens United will not stand the test of time. The U.S. Supreme Court once ruled in the Dred Scott case that people can be property. In Citizens United the court ruled that property can be a person and that property has even greater free speech rights than living, breathing, flesh-and-blood persons. They effectively took the "r" out of free speech. They aim to make speech no longer a right but rather a privilege that has to be purchased at great expense. They will fail in the long run. Citizens United will one day go the way of Dred Scott. It will happen in one of two ways -- either through an eventual change in the makeup of the Supreme Court, with the new majority overturning the Roberts court, or by constitutional amendment. Amending the constitution is devilishly difficult, as it should be. But it has been done 27 times before, and it can be done again.
Q. What's your best advice when people ask you, "But what can I do in the face of all of this?"
You can exercise all five rights granted to all of us by the First Amendment. Those rights are worth a thimble full of spit unless they are used. So you can speak up. Enemies of democracy are seeking to commercialize speech and make political participation prohibitively expensive for all but a few, making it more important than ever for us to be creative and find ways to make our voices heard. [IMG21]]
Maybe you can't afford to buy television air time, but you can text and you can tweet and you can blog. At the same time, it's important to remember the First Amendment doesn't only guarantee the right to free speech. It guarantees freedom of the press. With newspapers dying and other traditional media increasingly falling under the control of a handful of plutocratic masters, it is essential that we create our own means of spreading the word. The right to assemble and petition your government is guaranteed. We've seen a lot of that lately here in Wisconsin. Freedom of religion is guaranteed. You can worship as you see fit, or you can reject worship altogether. As the forces of theocracy assert themselves in our government, it is all the more important that we exercise freedom of religion, which includes fighting against any state establishment of religion.
More than anything, you can do what Cesar Chavez advised: Talk to one person. We're all taught at a young age not to discuss two things in polite company -- religion and politics. We need to talk politics with one another. That takes courage. But it is where real change begins.
Q. You've been working on a true progressive agenda for so long? Do you sense that people's views of what can be described as "people's issues" have changed over the years? If so, how?
Problems come and go, and issues appear to morph over time. But they don't really change very much at all. At the root of them all are the same human failings. Selfishness. Greed. Fear. Hatred. These need to be replaced by a sense of common good and shared purpose. And an enlightened understanding of self interest that leads us to see that we are all in this together and inspires us to think we first instead of me first.
There are always forces of good and bad pushing against each other. What matters most is which side you are on, which way you are pushing. We are living through a new Gilded Age, and this moment in time will be remembered as a dark period in our political history. For the moment, the forces of evil may appear to have gained the upper hand. But current conditions are producing an awakening and will eventually usher in a new progressive era.
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