Two paragraphs later, Greenwald turns to the question of outcomes, which he had previously dismissed, and writes:
"I'm also quite skeptical of the apocalyptic claims about how this decision will radically transform and subvert our democracy by empowering corporate control over the political process. My skepticism is due to one principal fact: I really don't see how things can get much worse in that regard."
Can't get worse? There's a key lesson from the Bush era: It can always get even worse! Corporations want Social Security gone. If they get a bit more influence it will be gone. They just got a boatload of more influence. This shouldn't be hard to see. Why the sudden lack of any imagination whatsoever? Why the it-can't-happen-hear tranquility? It will happen here if we fail to imagine each additional step until it's happened and we've accepted it. Greenwald supports public financing as an alternative solution (as do we all), but corporations will always render optional public financing impotent unless we limit private financing. And Greenwald concludes his first blog on this topic with this absurdity:
"There are few features that are still extremely healthy and vibrant in the American political system; the First Amendment is one of them."
Ignoring the theocratic trends in our government (remind me to post an unintroduced article of impeachment on that one) and the deficiency of press freedom in our country, are free speech zones and the privatization and militarization of public space now healthy signs for freedom of speech? We need to strengthen the First Amendment in many ways, just as we need to weaken it, if that's what restricting it to human beings amounts to. The people who wrote the thing would be shocked at the silly reverence with which we treat our momentary notions of what the First Amendment is or is not, even though their intention was to provide rights for real people.
Greenwald and other defenders of corporate spending as speech argue in terms of the rights of good non-profit groups and labor unions, but such groups are and will be monstrously outspent by corporations. So they are not gaining effective rights in this bargain.
If these entities are really "collections of people" and that's what gives them personal rights, then why wasn't it good enough to have ways of funding election spending (through PACs) that involved the people? Why the need to allow corporations or unions to ignore their members?
Greenwald also defends allowing Lockheed Martin to buy elections on the grounds that we allow GE to do so as a media outlet. But NBC gets its funding from the ad buys made by the other corporations, and -- to a lesser extent -- from the ad buys made by good progressive groups and the candidates they fund. I'd love to see that money channeled into creating other media outlets. I'd also love to see serious investment in independent public media and community media, and free air time for candidates. Lots of reforms are needed, but our media being dominated by international mega-corporations ought not to serve as an excuse for our elections to be put up for sale in toto. I can't imagine why the one thing must follow from the other.
Greenwald argues elsewhere that anyone who believes money is not speech,
"would have to say that there's no First Amendment problem with any law that restricts the spending of money for political purposes, such as: 'It shall be illegal for anyone to spend money to criticize laws enacted by the Congress; all citizens shall still be free to express their views on such laws, provided no money is spent'; or 'It shall be illegal for anyone to spend money advocating Constitutional rights for accused terrorists; all citizens shall still be free to express their views on such matters, provided no money is spent'; or 'It shall be illegal for anyone to spend money promoting a candidate not registered with either the Democratic or Republican Party; all citizens shall still be free to advocate for such candidates, provided no money is spent.' Anyone who actually believes that "money is not speech" would have to believe that such laws are necessarily permitted by the First Amendment (since they merely restrict the expenditure of money, which is not speech)."
But no one argues that money and speech don't overlap and interact. The problem is that they are not identical, and are in fact different in a very fundamental way. Everybody has roughly the same power to speak, until barriers are erected and advantages claimed (and work is needed there). But a very small group of people has most of the money. We pass laws, other than the Constitution, for a reason. They serve useful purposes. And laws can quite coherently, constitutionally, and beneficially bar corporations from eliminating all impact of real persons in elections without banning new political parties or forbidding certain political views. The point of arguing that money is not speech is that not all spending of money must be free of restriction. (Indeed, for some of us, the same goes for some other forms of speech as well.) That is different from claiming that all spending of money must be subject to severe restriction. Nobody has argued that, and logic cannot compel them to.
Similarly, Greenwald argues:
"[A]nyone who claims that since corporations are not persons, they have no rights under the Constitution [should answer]: Do you believe the FBI has the right to enter and search the offices of the ACLU without probable cause or warrants, and seize whatever they want? Do they have the right to do that to the offices of labor unions? How about your local business on the corner which is incorporated? The only thing stopping them from doing this is the Fourth Amendment. If you believe that corporations have no constitutional rights because they're not persons, what possible objections could you voice if Congress empowered the FBI to do these things? Can they seize the property (the buildings and cars and bank accounts) of those entities without due process or just compensation? If you believe that corporations have no Constitutional rights, what possible constitutional objections could you have to such laws and actions? Could Congress pass a law tomorrow providing that any corporation - including non-profit advocacy groups -- which criticize American wars shall be fined $100,000 for each criticism? What possible constitutional objection could you have to that?"
But I haven't seen anyone argue that corporations should have no rights, although many specific corporations should lose their charters, and many should be criminally investigated. The argument is that they should have the rights that states choose to give them when creating them. Those might overlap with our personal rights in the Constitution, but they need not be identical. For example, they need not contain the same right to freedom of speech. And it is that right that this amendment would deny them.
So am I in favor of amending the Constitution or seceding from the union? That depends on whether we can force Congress to behave sufficiently independently of corporate rule, and that begins with defunding the wars in order to fund all the things that wealthy nations have that don't fund militaries and wars the way we do: healthcare, clean transportation, paid paternal leave, vacations, pensions, free education from preschool through grad school. If we can't get Congress to make that shift, I'd support any state that chose to try and withdraw its support from the corporate war machine. Infact, like many in the other 49 states, I'd want to move there.
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