Big News Month; Is Any of it Good? [ by James Linkin] [News You Can Abuse]
January 31, 2010One of the refrains from the days of the Bush Regime was that the Bush White House was so incredibly assiduous in rending the fabric of our republic to unrecognizable tatters that it was physically impossible to keep abreast of it all. Every person of conscience suffered from chronic outrage fatigue.
While the Obama Administration has done an unexpectedly credible job of repairing some of the damage (contrary to public perception), the pace of developments has not slowed. Let’s hope this month is an exceptional example, but I fear it will not be.
Which is the story of the month? Is it the Republicans regaining their 41-59 “majority” in the US Senate, enabling them to block any meaningful initiative or reform under the current Kafkaësque rules of the chamber (you probably know someone who will die prematurely for lack of healthcare reform; I do)? Or is it Great Britain raising the current threat level to “severe”? The succession of suicide attacks in Iraq? The demonstrated nonviability of the Internet as a secure commercial or communications vehicle by the (presumably Chinese government) hack attacks on our nation’s most savvy Internet companies (blame Microsoft)? The proposed “purity test” for Republican candidates that spells the final death knell for functional moderation in our political system? NBC (and by extension, broadcast TV) throwing away its future by kissing off Conan O’Brien (and paying $44 million just in severance for the privilege)? An all-white basketball league (even if it is a hoax)?
My vote goes to what amounts to nothing short of a fundamental rewrite of our Constitution, issued by our right-wing Supreme Court, in an act of unprecedented judicial activism (even more so than Bush v Gore), that provides unbridled First Amendment protections for corporations, an artificial construct of the state that was never mentioned or even conceived by our nation’s founders, and whose sole purpose is to make money. Hereafter, lobbyists will be able to look any political officeholder in the eye and credibly claim that they will spend any amount of money necessary to defeat him or her. As one cartoonist put it, the Supreme Court has now ruled that corporations can now own as many politicians as they can afford. What representative democracy can possibly survive that? Hint: none. Think about it: who would even want to be a political officeholder in such an environment? Answer: amoral sock puppets and retarded celebrity hounds.
The Bay State’s new Senator, Scott Brown, fits neatly into both categories. How much of a misogynist do you have to be to announce in your very first appearance on national television that your daughters, who are standing right behind you on camera, are “available”? I’m half surprised he didn’t set a price. Evidently, he intends to negotiate the dowry. How shrewd. And this after he trotted them out to defend his indefensible record proposing “conscience” exemptions for dispensing emergency contraception to rape victims. That’s right. Rape victims. But I digress.
Clearly, the motive for the ruling in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission is to create an insuperable advantage for the forces of reaction and darkness. Even John McCain is appalled. The list of concerns is too long to enumerate here. I’ll start with a few that should raise alarms across the political spectrum. Most corporations, and all large corporations, are owned at least in part by people who are not US citizens, and most large corporations have operations abroad. Should these foreigners be able to influence our political system in this way, even indirectly through their equity? Justice Samuel Alito shook his head and mouthed, “Not true,” when Obama raised this very point in his State of the Union address, but Alito himself affirmed this problem in oral argument before the court. He doesn’t think it’s a problem, clearly, but that’s different from “not true.” Or how about the legions of corporations whose management views are in obvious and direct opposition to the opinions and interests of their employees, to say nothing of the communities in which they operate (think Enron, which helped propel Bush to the presidency and before that to the governorship of Texas)?
Here’s a tip for the right-wingers: money is not speech, and corporations are not people, and I’m sure I’m not the first to say this. The reason I ended my membership with the ACLU decades ago is because up to now they have been wrong on this critical point, defending the First Amendment for any and all entities. Belatedly, they are now seeing the evil of this view and may change their policy. That small and likely pyrrhic gesture will be a welcome development, perhaps the only one since the new year.
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