Unfortunately, even when the MSM does its job, plutocratic dollars flood the public consciousness. This is the legacy of Citizens United.
I’ve been struck by the baldness of Romney’s repetitive lies about Obama — that Obama ended the work requirement under welfare, for example, or that Obama’s Affordable Care Act cuts $716 billion from Medicare benefits.
The mainstream media along with a half-dozen independent fact-checking…
This is a welcome development in our reeling from this ridiculous ruling.
On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) decided to take the next step toward realizing this goal by introducing a constitutional amendment to the U.S. Senate that would overturn the ruling which classified multi-national corporations as people and therefore entitled to the same rights as living, breathing, human individuals.
The Saving American Democracy Amendment states:
- Corporations are not persons with constitutional rights equal to real people.
- Corporations are subject to regulation by the people.
- Corporations may not make campaign contributions.
- Congress and states have the power to regulate campaign finances.
“There comes a time when an issue is so important that the only way to address it is by a constitutional amendment,” Sanders said. He had previously described the Citizen United ruling as “basically insane. Nobody that I know thinks that Exxon Mobil is a person,” Sanders said in November.
Sanders is accompanied in his endeavor to restore fiscal sanity to the political system by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), who has introduced a companion measure in the U.S. House.
Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Michael Bennet of (D-CO) have also introduced a similar constitutional amendment that would essentially defeat Citizens United by granting Congress and the states the authority to regulate the campaign finance system. Udall and Bennet hope that by emphasizing states’ rights, they’ll gain the support of a few Republicans. [emphasis added]
Rock ‘n’ Roll, people!
By SCOTT BAUER and TODD RICHMOND, Associated Press –1 hr 1 min ago
MADISON, Wis. – Wisconsin’s law taking away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most public workers was struck down Thursday by a circuit court judge but the ruling will not be the final say in the union fight that brought tens of thousands of protesters to the Capitol earlier this year.
The state Supreme Court has scheduled arguments for June 6 to decide whether it will take the case. Republicans who control the Legislature also could pass the law a second time to avoid the open meeting violations that led to the judge’s voiding the law Thursday.
Brave New Foundation’s campaign to produce a new documentary on the Koch Brothers corruption of our democracy.
Right now Wisconsin is serving as the prototype for United States 2.0, a newly reconstituted nation where corporations have all rights of personhood without any of the responsibilities - and people have all the duties of personhood without any of the rights.
Welcome to your future. They’re preparing it for you right now in America’s heartland.
| — | RIchard (RJ) Eskow, “MadisonWorld: A Future Where Corporations Have Human Rights … And Humans Don’t” | OurFuture.org 3/11/11 |
Contrast for a moment the styles of right-wing and left-wing activists. The latter have their facts in order, properly identify the sources of corruption in the body politic, and protest nonviolently. I bet their posters had words that were spelled properly. How’s that for afflicting the comfortable?
Sunday’s protest against the Koch brothers’ right-wing pow-wow in Rancho Mirage demonstrated a growing boldness by progressive causes and activists.January 31, 2011 |
Petitions by Change.org|Get Widget|Start a Petition�Note: The article below reprinted from FireDogLake by David Dayen recounts the events of Sunday’s protest against the Koch brothers in Rancho Mirage, CA. The demonstration signals a series of promising developments for progressive groups and activists. Notably, the event was marked by an impressive coalition effort by the participating organizations, positive energy and activism by the attendants, and the wide-held understanding that it is the Koch’s ill-gotten, obscene wealth that has made the Tea Party and hundreds of right-wing abuses of our democratic system possible. Author Jim Hightower said it well in the kick-off event in a packed large movie theater before the protest; the problem the Kochs represent is what the 19th century populists used to call “the money power,” and our right to speak out against it is rooted in our “democratic authority” as citizens concerned with the general welfare of the country.
So many problems we face today are denied resolution as long as Citizens United stands, and corporate money is allowed to influence the outcome of elections.
January 23, 2011 Leave a comment
by Brett Wilkins
“Of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations.”
It’s been one year since the US Supreme Court decidedthat corporations are people and money is free speech. The disastrous Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission rulingdestroyed over a century of restrictions on corporate influence of our nation’s electoral process, accelerating the already alarming corporate takeover of American politics. The consequences of Citizens United were almost immediately felt in the form of a $290,000,000 special interest spending orgy in the 2010 midterm elections. Much of this money represented foreign corporate interests, and it played a significant role in the conservative resurgence that saw Republicans re-gain control of the House of Representatives.
Justice John Paul Stevens’ stirring dissenting opinion argued that “the Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation. It will undoubtedly cripple the ability of ordinary citizens, Congress, and the states to adopt even limited measures to protect against corporate domination of the electoral process.” Stevens also wrote: “Corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their ‘personhood’ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.”
Senator Lyons.
In that spirit, Vermont state senator Virginia Lyons has introduced an anti-corporate personhood resolution in the state legislature. JRS 11 is a “joint resolution urging the United States Congress to propose an amendment to the United States Constitution for the states’ consideration which provides that corporations are not persons under the laws of the United States or any of its jurisdictional subdivisions.”
…That fraction of one percent of Americans who now earn as much as the bottom 120 million Americans includes the top executives of giant corporations and those Wall Street hedge funds and private equity managers who constitute Citigroup’s “plutonomy” are buying our democracy and they’re doing it in secret.
That’s because early this year the five reactionary members of the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are “persons” with the right to speak during elections by funding ads like those now flooding the airwaves. It was the work of legal fabulists. Corporations are not people; they are legal fictions, creatures of the state, born not of the womb, not of flesh and blood. They’re not permitted to vote. They don’t bear arms (except for the nuclear bombs they can now drop on a congressional race without anyone knowing where it came from.) Yet thanks to five activist conservative judges they have the privilege of “personhood” to “speak” – and not in their own voice, mind you, but as ventriloquists, through hired puppets.
| — |
t r u t h o u t | Bill Moyers: “Welcome to the Plutocracy!” You know, I wondered why Moyers’s show on the Petroleum Broadcasting Service was cancelled. |
…of corporate money, not voter anger, into this victory, outspending Democrats by seven times. Just as in Bush v. Gore in 2000, a 5-4 SCOTUS decision (and judicial activism), in this case Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, is the wind that fills their tattered sails. It’s all the more impetus to Move to Amend.
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Commemorate Constitution Day • Friday, September 17
Celebrate We the People • Condemn We the Corporations • Connect to Move to Amend
The US Constitution says “We the People,” not “We the Corporations.” Nowhere in the Constitution are corporations even mentioned let alone protected and anointed with human rights to do virtually what they want, where they want, whenever they want politically, economically, socially or environmentally.Constitution Day, September 17, is a terrific opportunity to take this message to your school, your neighborhood, city or town, or your elected officials. Start now to do something: educate, advocate or organize on that date to say and proclaim that constitutional rights belong to human beings, not corporations.
Did you know … publicly funded schools and colleges must set aside time on September 17 for lessons or programs on the Constitution and its history. This makes Constitution Day a prime opportunity for students or teachers to do some educating on behalf of ending corporate personhood.
But there’s no reason to stop at the schoolyard. Everyone should know how our rights have been handed over by the courts to the corporate elite, and that we all need to be part of the movement to get those rights back for people alone. The recent Citizens United v FEC Supreme Court decision granting corporations greater First Amendment free speech rights is just the latest example of the decline of real democracy and self-governance.
How can you celebrate and agitate on Constitution Day?The Move to Amend website has many different suggestions for individuals or groups who want to raise the issue of corporate personhood—from model letters to the editor, to street theater, to fliers and other resources for tabling events or house parties. Take a look at the list at the end of this “Take Action” update, and at the Organizing Resources pages on our website. And start planning!
As always, thanks for what you’re doing for democracy. Happy Constitution Day!
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