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 2011 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.
