With the Supreme Court now hearing arguments on campaign finance, and possibly on the verge of clearing the way for corporations to be freed of all campaign restraints, it is more important than ever that the Justices consider the current economic, political and media context - into which their decisions actuate and serve to hamstring Congress and the people.
Indeed, what is the current context into which their decisions reverberate? As things stand in "our" land, we have six men who own and control corporate mass media, tv, and radio. We have a private central bank owned by big banks with complete control over money and credit and whose wallets are filled, and ever refreshed, with money made "out of thin air."
We have a capitol city drowning in corporate money and their foundations and think tanks overwhelming any advocacy dedicated to the great mass of working Americans. Further, we do not have a National Initiative process by which the people might overrule "their" congress and the courts.
In addition, we do not elect our trade representative, our Attorney General, Chairmen of the Federal Reserve, or Chief Justice of The Supreme Court. We, the people, have been made "independent' of any real power and influence in our own country à ‚¬" largely via the corporate-influenced appointment processleading to administration after administration in which corporate power and profit consolidates and prevails against the people.
In short, what we already have is a virulent plutocracy and corporate domination writ large à ‚¬" a dismal condition greatly propelled by the Buckley v. Valeo decision in which money was defined as free speech rather than power. This figment of the court's imagination is surely the most dangerous construct of all à ‚¬" and Mussolini would be proud.
Chief Justice Roberts has stated that "the First Amendment requires us to err on the side of protecting political speech rather than suppressing it." With money defined as speech, we are then to error on the side of protecting money, meaning big money.
Such a sentiment would be fine if political speech were not defined as money and overpowered by corporate forces in society - whose money power and influence greatly overwhelm the people's voice. It would be fine if the oligarchic conditons cited above did not exist. It would be fine except for the fact so many good people are unwilling to run for office due precisely to the lack of public campaign financing and the need to be obedient to corporate and media concerns.
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