America Has Made an Official Deal with the Devil - Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
This is one political post I will make no apologies for. In all of our distraction with the very good cause of Haiti, somehow this law got passed by the Supreme Court right under our noses, with so few mentions in the press as to be suspiciously negligible, and…well, just watch Keith Olbermann explain exactly what this means for us. This is the most important thing I’ve shared with you, my readers, since the start of this blog. Please pass it on.
For more background, start here.
Olbermann is right. The passing of this law has just monumentally, and possibly irrevocably, changed politics in this country. It’s not like there wasn’t already collusion between big corporate money and politics, but until two days ago, such things were at least still seen as unlawful and corrupt. Today, thanks to this new law, corporations can now legally pour as much money as they want into a candidate.
Think about that.
And it’s not just Liberals like Olbermann that are stunned and dismayed. Conservatives too. The Senior Editor of Veterans Today has called for the arrest of the 5 Supreme Court Justices that passed this law.
This is not the kind of news that you swallow, feel a little angry about, and then simply move on to the next distracting thing. This is a historical moment, and left unchecked, will radically alter the political trajectory of this country. This is the kind of news that requires action.
So, as Keith Olbermann asks, “What are you going to do about it?”
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When I heard it on NPR yesterday, I had to check my calendar and make sure it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke gone very, very wrong.
My god. There’s a reason that Sandra O’Connor wrote the dissenting opinion AGAINST this madness every time her cohorts brought it up previously. Even as a conservative, she had time in service as a legislator and knew first hand just how detrimental buying elections could be.
All we have to do is look at Haiti, actually. Nicaragua, anyone? Tehran… what would Neda say now?
People have given their lives, both literally and metaphorically, to stop this sort of thing from happening. But now it has. And as you said so eloquently, what are we going to do about it?
If we’ve made a deal with the devil, our country is in serious trouble (just ask Pat Robertson).
What can one person do?
This is disastrous. Just disastrous.
It’s not that no one was looking, and the timing was a mere coincidence. It’s not like you can call and sway the Justices of the SCOTUS the way you can your elected leaders.
The very topic made my reader explode, but I’m involved in politics.
The decision is heinous regardless of whether or not people were paying attention before.
Have you heard of changecongress.com? They are starting an entire campaign to get corporations out of congress. It’s run by Larry Lessig - the guy who brought us the creative commons license.
Check it out - there is something we can do.
DraftQueen, point taken on the issue of attention, but I still think attention to the matter didn’t really explode until today, and that was a source of concern for me.
Claudia - no haven’t heard of them, but I’m gathering resources for people and sharing on Twitter, Facebook, and will here as well. Thank you for that.
This is indeed worrying. As has been said many times and so easily forgotten, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I’m not a citizen of the United States but what happens in your country eventually affects the rest of the world and particularly my own country, Britain.
Out of curiosity, was it not already like this? Did the wealthy not already contribute to politicians in an unchecked manner?
The only thing that can be said is this: The american economy is driven at least 2/3 by consumer spending. That’s you. Want to keep this in check, Americans as a whole will be required to contribute.
So forgo your coffee for a week and send the money to whomever you back. With a note reading what you want done. Don’t forget to tell them you are forgoing coffee, or X, or Y.
And do more. Voting is not the democratic process. Standing up for what you believe in. Writing your representative, making sure they write back, organizing people to your ideology is what democracy is about. Speaking with them. While slimy, they do for the most part want to do some good. Even it is just for their own personal motivation. After all, you are trying to do some good for your self as well. So do more than voting.
Voting is probably the simplest and most ineffective metric a person can use to gauge their personal engagement in democracy.