the Big Mattress - Freeform Interactive Radio on the Net

So Charles, your silence was deafening over the years as the unions poured 600 million into Obama's campaign. You have no problem with special interest groups like unions, Media Matters and Move on (hit groups run and funded by George Soros) and all the SO called 503c non profit, non tax paying groups pouring money into the DNC? But when a Tax paying corporation wants to speak up and exercise their free speech to counter these groups its a problem?
Let's see ....if you perceive the funds will go to the RNC than it's unconstitutional. The double standard on the left is such a joke. Looks like your unions and ACORN now are not the only ones who can give in large blocks. Imagine that? Fair free speech for all. Why is the left always against this? I say, do away with all campaign laws and allow any corporations, unions and individuals to give as much as they want as long as every name is printed in the paper and every cent lines up with that contributor. This way the people would not wonder why George Soros is the number one guest at the White House next to the drug companies and ACORN and the SEIU. We the people could follow the money. Maybe Obama could put it on C-SPAN after they fix the cameras.

The double standard on the left is such a joke.? The double standard on the right is serious? Look at Bush's "health" Care reform and tell me he wasn't in the pocket of the insurance companies. This ruling only helps muddle democracy regardless of party affiliation- if you don't see that then you're the one who's blind.

Robbie: For simplicity, I pulled this from the Wikipedia article about McCain-Feingold, which this decision essentially made moot:

"Specifically, Citizens struck down campaign financing laws related to corporations and unions; law previously banned the broadcast, cable or satellite transmission of “electioneering communications” paid for by corporations in the 30 days before a presidential primary and in the 60 days before the general election. The minority said the court was making a mistake treating the voices of corporations as similar to those of people."

The decision effects both sides of your argument, corporations and unions. The difference is that corporations are so vastly more wealthy than unions that the court has virtually guaranteed a large imbalance of ads in the weeks prior to elections that will be strongly weighted on the corporate side.

The real problem is that the in 1886 the Supreme Court ruled in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad that corporations are equal to individual persons under the Fourteenth Amendment. This ruling has been used for the past 124 years to justify all sorts of preferential treatment given to corporations.

Common sense will tell you that corporations aren't really people. Yes, they pay taxes but they also have vast resources, legal staffs, that they can use to avoid paying taxes that are not available to you and me. Also, for example, Apple Inc. has $50 billion in assets. That is roughly equal to a person who owns 200,000 houses.

Corporations are able to behave in a way that removes the actual people behind them from having the sort of conscience and morality that individuals develop through interactions with family and each other. They exist solely to maximize their own profitability, without motive to support and respect other "individuals" other than to keep them alive so they will continue to buy the corporations services and products. In effect, if they are persons, they are persons without a soul.

If people worry about a day when robots rule the earth, they should realize that under Santa Clara, inanimate "beings", corporations, already have a huge influence on society. The decision last week removes a common sense restriction, McCain-Feingold, of that influence over elections. It will only serve to increase, rather that reduce, the influence of lobbyists and special interests over laws made by politicians. The minority side in the 5-4 ruling was concerned with controlling corruption, something that is a greater public concern than the "right" of corporations to "free speech". Just as certain other common sense restrictions against free speech prohibit people from using the right to incite violence and "yell fire in a crowded theater", McCain-Feingold restricted corporate power in influencing elections in order to gain undue influence, i.e. corruption of the political process via money. Charles is right, the Roberts court has made a very cynical but monumental decision that reduces the voice of individual humans in favor of inanimate, soulless and very powerful entities.

As a person who works for a large and "global" corporation, the minute the Supreme Court ruling was announced, I turned to my housemate and said, "this is huge mistake and a gross injustice to the american people." Not only for all the very valid reasons stated by Robbie above, but also for ones that may not have even come to mind when the ruling was handed down in the first place.

My first and foremost concern is that huge corporations ARE now very global (my company is offshoring at the speed of light to China, India, Costa Rica and Brazil), and what does this spell out for future elections?

If we cannnot put in place a law that those running for office cannot take contributions from SIGs or Corporations, then this ruling opens a door that allows foreign or domestic corporations who have a global presence to purchase and place elected officials into positions of power that will further their corporate interests in our country and it's legislation. I don't think I am naive and I do know that to a degree this is happening now, but by opening the floodgate we are giving these entities the green light to spend as much as they want to make sure their interests are protected. This is tantamount to unregulated banking and look where that got us......we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. This ruling is leading us down a slippery slope that will ultimately be our undoing as a nation.

At this rate, why don't we just elect Walmart to be the president. Or should I say CHINA!

Robbie is channeling Limbaugh and if I thought for a moment that Robbie
actually was putting up a cognitive thought of his own I'd be more likely to
place some blame on him for what he writes.

So. Karl Rove no longer has to launder and channel corporate money into
bogus fronts like the Swift Boats group. Something he's done to assinate
the character of his opponents since his Texas days.
Now any and all corporations can spend outrageous sums of money to
sway elections the neo-con "way" - "fear, smear and anti-queer"

Well I don't think it'll be long before these corporations decide they do not
need a Republican (or Democrat) “puppet” to foster their own aims. They will soon enough decide to push their self serving agenda through candidates of their own choosing. Not that they didn’t already own a big stake in most politicians these days but they no longer have to settle for a piece of them.
Bet you they let the Republican party wither and die by 2012. As a party
it’s pretty much a shadow of it’s former self. Wouldn’t take much to get it
to kick the bucket. Corporations may as well promote a new puppet of their
and with no spending limit it’s a cinch they'll get their candidates into
elections – riding on the shoulders of the talk radio bozos, Faux news lackies such as Beck and those nutjobs who are this new Tea Bag party to boot.

Robbie: I was secretly hoping we weren't on opposite sides on this one. I guess I can deal with that. (After all, my children are already mature adults-, and you have no kids- so the horrrific results of this decision wlll not matter to you-at least not for next thirty years.)
I really thought you would see the implications of what this means for Democracy, you being such a patriot and all. Okay-
Let the fun begin- whoever has the most money wins.

Excellent rebuttal Steve S. Not only are the corportations pockets much deeper than the unions, they are expanding in scope and number while the unions are shrinking. Add to that the fact that the unions only represent the interests of labor while the corporate world encompasses everything from drug, to arms, to insurance etc. etc. The fact that the number of interests that can be served by this change is exponentially larger than the singular one of labor. It is lobbying at the ballot box.
Add to this the fact that we will now have a 60 second anti abortion Superbowl ad featuring Tim Tebow and his mother saying how she almost considered the procedure. We can see that the religious right will now be able finance campaigns to overturn RvW etc. turning back the clock on a broadcast moratorium on cultural/moral issues (women's rights, PETA etc.)
This is a sad development and Justice John Paul Stevens has it right in his dissent.

Al-QaedAmerica has now incorporated in the USofA....
Can't wait to see their election ads!

Looks like you’re in the minority on this one Robbie. I do not like the thought of a CEO or Board of Directors spending large sums of corporate funds to influence an election.

By the same token I do not believe unions or federally funded organizations like Acorn should be allowed to pour money into campaigns. Charles – I’m sure you remember in the 80’s when the issue of the Prevailing Wage Law came up in Boston, how the unions bought up billboards and media spots to get the law enacted. As I was in daily contact with many union construction workers at the time, I realized that a lot of them really were not sure what the law was all about but they spread the word to vote for it because their union told them to do so.

Even though comparing unions to corporations is like comparing 6th grade flagtag to NFL football, I will swallow this one and state unequivocally that I would gladly deny unions the ability to contribute if corporations were also denied. I would only like the playing field to be leveled, keep moneys regulated or balanced- and am shocked that this ruling was allowed to happen without an incredible backlash from both sides of the aisle and from the grassroots section of all America. If anyone thinks I am being overly dramatic, please keep this post and all its comments and let's see the fallout in days to come.

Charles, I think you are right to have this level of concern. I, too, am surprised at the collective shrug of the shoulders. I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 (thus giving NH to Bush, but who knew?) and one of the main reasons was that he was the only voice I heard warning about the dangers of too much influence and control of politicians by corporations. I am still stunned from my 10th grade political science class when the teacher explained lobbying, that people are paid to sway elected officials to vote a certain way. How naive of me to grow up thinking, as was taught, that the people you elect are there to represent your community's interests. It was just another chapter of "How Life Really Works". I found this article from March of 1998 and Nader addresses the dangers of too much corporate power, especially concerning globalization. He even mentions bailouts to big banks to cover their bad loans but won't lend that taxpayer money to small businesses. 1998, not 2010. I know some of you reading this are snickering at my 2000 vote but that election helped me realize that whether they are Democrat or Republican, they are all pigs at the same trough, and they only care that the trough is kept full and there is a place for them.

http://www.globalvision.org/program/globalization/nader.html

Charles is definitely right on this issue. Robbie means well in that dems have their special interest groups, yet to turn a blind eye towards repugs is not something I would do. Overall, i see this as bigger than the two parties, which I have seen as apposames at the top of the pyramid. Maybe now, we can look past the partisan left-right professional wrestling level divide and rule in order to come together. It is almost too late. By the way, it takes hard work on a consciousness level. people have to change on an individual level, every aspect of life needs to be examined in order to truly awaken. Let's not put our energy into the next puppet. We need to be the change we wish to see. We hold up this decrepit and unjust system. Thanks Charles. Not that you need my praise or anything. Remember this poli=many/ tics=blood sucking creatures. We are allowing this to happen. We are complicit in this. We can be better than this. It hurts my heart just the same.

Wow didn't the Supreme Court look pissed last night when somebody actually held them accountable for their actions.

Next thing you know we'll be electing IBM president of the country!