The recent Citizens United case freed corporations to spend as much money as they want to elect or defeat political candidates. Since corporations control much of the financial resources in our society, and since whichever candidate can marshall the most money usually wins, this is potentially one of the most influential decisions in U.S. history. Some people think this is great news for Republicans, because they often are considered the party of business. I don’t think so. Republicans, although it may shock some here to hear it said, are people too, and the interests of individuals, as a general rule, are not the same as those of corporations. I’d say the decision is great news for corporations, but not very good news for real people. In any event, the always interesting Michael Moore had this to say today on Democracy Now! about the decision:
I just got a phone call from a freshman congressman in Michigan, a good guy, who beat the incumbent Republican in ’08, asking me for a donation for his reelection this year. And I just felt like, why? Because I have-whatever amount of money I could give you, or everybody else in here or people we know could give you, will never ever match what corporate America has. If that’s really the new-if that’s the new rule now, then we’ve already lost. We’ve already lost.
So how do we fight this now? Because their propaganda machine that’s funded now with-will have billions of dollars behind this to manipulate an uneducated American public-when I say “uneducated,” I’m talking about an American public, as you know, where we rank in the world, in math and science and literacy, all these things-we’re so far behind so many other countries. We have 40 million functional illiterates in this country, 40 million adults who can’t read and write above a fourth grade level. If you create a country where the education system sucks so bad, where you make it your lowest priority, and then you want to create some propaganda to easily lead them down the path you want to lead them down, it’s a cakewalk at that point, when you have this enforced ignorance, the illiteracy that’s encouraged, the C-minus president who was so proud of himself and encouraging others that that was cool, it was cool to be dumb. And that’s what we’ve just lived through, through this first decade of this century. And now they’re going to have billions of dollars to manipulate our fellow Americans? What are we going to do, Amy? Seriously. I mean, as I sit here, I don’t have the answer.
What do you think. Is there any point in donating to politicians or raising money for them any more? Is this the end for retail politics — Democratic and Republican — in all but name.
trickle-up says
We’re going to have to create a kind of uncoopted enganged counterculture.
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p>(No, I’m not sure what I mean by that or if it’s even possible.)
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p>But I think some model will emerge in which some amount of financial backing will be important. Just not as important.
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p>I think it will be an asymmetrical model that does not rely on us matching them dollar for dollar, in which there is a steeper downward curve of diminishing returns for spending money for us than for them.
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p>It’s already like that, a little.
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p>So maybe there is a point, or will be once we figure it out.
bob-neer says
With respect, do you have any basis for saying that other than wishful thinking?
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p>McCain 368. Obama 745.
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p>Now how about McCain 3,500 (say). Obama 745.
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p>Pretty much all you need to know.
ryepower12 says
I think you just hurt your point. McCain still didn’t get crushed in the popular vote, even though he got crushed in the electoral (and financial). If the financial edge were that huge, Obama would have won the popular vote by an even larger margin. There were giant chunks of America which voted against Obama by fairly wide margins. After a certain fundraising point in a political campaign, money becomes less and less useful. I could point to local examples…
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p>The problem with this new amendment, though, is as the money is able to change perception, laws and policy bit by bit, we, as a movement, will be working from that much further back — our policies and standpoints will look less politically viable and more like the fringe. The longer this stays, the worse it’ll be and the harder it’ll be to change things. That’s why I wrote my other reply in this thread on how we need to move fast. We must work on getting a Constitutional Amendment today — so it won’t take more than a couple of years to accomplish… instead of decades (which will almost certainly mean never).
trickle-up says
but also by a history of grass-roots power against money power. That is the well to which we must return.
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p>More’s vision of “enforced ignorance” and manipulation has some truth, though I would characterize it as an anomic dystopia: millions of sedated Americans bowling alone in their solipsistic iMonads.
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p>What do YOU think is the answer to that? I think it is civil society, the web of relationships unmediated by government and corporations.
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p>We’ve had a pretty good run with this netroots thing, and surely there is still a role to play. But when things change we’d better stay on top of that.
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p>We can’t expect to outspend these guys any more. Certainly the BMG PAC just got less important, though my answer to your question is that it’s importance has not dropped to zero. But it is time to seek more fundamental sources of power: different allies and different strategies.
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p>If we can’t do that, others will. So yeah, I think another model will emerge.
liveandletlive says
it’s scary, but also curious. Exactly how much power can corporate America have? They already have too much, but they must know that they need the citizens of the country to sustain them. Unless they are going to get all of their profit globally (which is entirely possible), and let the American people fall down to a place where the majority of us are poor and completely reliant on them for a few crumbs of bread and glass of milk.
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p>Overall, it’s pretty frightening.
bob-neer says
Big multi-nationals like Citibank are American in name only (and evidently in government connections!). Substantial fractions of their revenue come from outside the US and even if they were shut down entirely here they likely could continue in some probably quite powerful form. But most corporations are small, and relatively weak compared to government.
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p>As to your question, conceivably they can have complete power if they can manage to control the people through the kind of manipulation Moore is talking about. That’s what I meant about the differences between individual Democrats and Republicans being less, in many cases, than the differences between real people and corporations.
liveandletlive says
I would imagine. Once corporations can send their own message, they will no longer need to support a candidate via campaign contributions. Corporations will shape the message, and the candidates will have to accept that message if they want to win.
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p>Media groups will receive a great amount of power from this finding, because they will decide what will air and what won’t.
sue-kennedy says
Wikipedia:
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p>
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p>The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to protect Ebenezer’s individual rights, not those of Ebenezer’s multi-national Tavern.
mannygoldstein says
And here we are.
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p>17 years of far-right behavior by elected Democrats is coming home to roost.
stomv says
but the five in the majority (and correct me if I’m wrong) are:
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p>Roberts (W. Bush [R])
Thomas (Bush [R])
Alito (W. Bush [R])
Scalia (Reagan [R])
Kennedy (Reagan [R])
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p>So… !?!?!?!
opus123 says
The Dems in the Senate had a chance with each of these five to block their confirmation. But in typical fashion they rolled over and capitulated to the Republicans.
hubspoke says
I am having hallucinations of The Machines in future locked combat with Humankind for free human existence as in the Matrix and Terminator film series. Except in my hallucination, it’s The Corporate Machines. Sleep well tonight, everyone.
ryepower12 says
we must strike fast at a constituional amendment. The longer we wait, the more nefarious the grasp the corporations will have with this newfound “freedom,” and the more likely Moore’s vision comes true.
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p>We must strike fast. This is the Death Star above the moon on Endor. GO!!
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p>Shame on Obama for not making this the main point of the SOTU speech — and going off the deep end on his counter effective and gimmicky “freeze” that’s now sucking up the political winds. What a wasted opportunity — he could have set the nation on the path of changing the constitution, taking on the corporations (real populism) and educating the public when they’re actually paying attention. More evidence that Obama just doesn’t get it.
mike-from-norwell says
cannot ever, ever be described as “fast” (remember ERA?).
stomv says
For a brief period we were averaging over two amendments a year.
mike-from-norwell says
as ERA is the last major push I recall back to ’72, and it still isn’t law.
christopher says
Besides the Bill of Rights package adopted in 1791? Their have been spurts such as the Civil War amendments, but also a lot of lulls, but I’m pretty sure the average never got as high as you suggest.
dcsohl says
Gotta say, I gotta go with Christopher and say, “Huh?” I don’t see it, if you stick strictly with 1792 to the present (thus excluding the Bill of Rights). Did you mean to say “averaging over two amendments a decade”?
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p>The year 1913 and the year 1933 both saw the ratifications of two amendments. 1919-1920 was the only other two year period to have multiple amendments ratified.
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p>1913-1933 saw 6 amendments ratified in 21 years, and 1951-1971 saw 5 amendments ratified in 21 years. And there were 3 amendments in the 6 year period of 1865-1870.
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p>Those were the busiest Constitutional periods in our history, and we certainly never had over two amendments a year. Once or twice we had two amendments in one year, but never over.
ryepower12 says
2-3 years would be “fast” and doable, and would also allow us to get it done before this decision fully settles in and becomes immovable.
mike-from-norwell says
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p>Think about that off the cuff stat from Mr. Moore. Some backup for this “fact” please (because it sounds like some Jack Black/School of Rock or John Belushi/Animal House raving than legitimate research). We have a population of around 375 million in the US and most legitimate estimates have our literacy rate at 99 percent (you do the Google work). Guess Moore is devolving into pure aluminum hat status here.
sco says
Check out the Stats here.
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p>Seems like Moore is including those with below basic prose literacy in his definition of “functionally illiterate”.
mike-from-norwell says
(thanks BTW) and figure out how many are susceptible to the republican/corporate message.
christopher says
Most corporations wouldn’t have all that money if people didn’t buy their products or services. It would take a lot of organizational effort, but maybe there can be a rapid-response mechanism where the call goes out to boycott a certain company as soon as they air an ad we don’t like.
trickle-up says
I’m not sure I’d say “ultimate power,” but maybe a return to this kind of activism is part of the solution.
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p>There are whole sectors of the economy, though, that operate as lobbying cartels, represented by a single trade group. You might be able to boycott your bank in favor of a credit union, but kind of hard to boycott your health insurer or your electric utility.
sue-kennedy says
wrote a separate opinion, suggesting that reporting requirements were also unconstitutional. His belief that anonymous speech is necessary to protect from retaliation.
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p>Their decision basically said the government has no right to restrict free speech and we may expect to see additional cases that strike down all forms of regulation of campaign finance.
christopher says
If all you were going to do is cast your own vote you can keep that secret, but if you’re going to try to influence MY vote then I want to know who you are.
dcsohl says
I’m not completely convinced that Citizens United is wrong, per se. It is dangerous, but only because of a prior ruling that, IMHO, is wrong.
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p>Where the Court went wrong was in declaring that money is speech, Buckley v. Valeo. That’s just dead wrong, and that is what we need to fix. Money is not speech; money is a megaphone. Speech is speech, period.
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p>It’s really that ruling that makes Citizens United so dangerous, and it’s that ruling that has formed the underpinnings of our broken system today.
christopher says
…prohibits Congress from abridging speech, which means if it costs money to get my message out and you say I can’t spend money, you are in effect also muzzling my speech.
dcsohl says
First of all, nobody’s saying that a person “can’t spend money”. Campaign finance reform generally relies on setting limits on how much one can spend. That’s not muzzling speech any more than waiting periods and gun licenses muzzle muzzles.
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p>There is a compelling governmental interest in getting this right, getting politics to be by the people. Just as courts have favored compelling governmental interests in gun licensing, outlawing threats to POTUS, and yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater, I think there ought to be a compelling governmental interest to not turning this country into a corporate oligarchy, too.
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p>It’s too bad the Supremes don’t seem to agree, either in 1975 or 2009.
christopher says
…”muzzle muzzles”:)
sue-kennedy says
the SOC was incorrect. Money may buy speech… and influence and favors. This has sometimes been called bribery or extortion.
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p>If all citizens have equal rights, than spending limits are appropriate to ensure an individuals free speech is not drowning out another’s equal right to free speech or that legislators are not tempted to sell out to the highest bidder.
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p>If I am speaking and you shout over me and obstruct what I have to say. Are you exercising your right to free speech or denying my rights?
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p>In any case, corporations are not people and were not included in the Bill of Rights.