Sometimes it seems like politicians couldn't be more corrupt anyway, so will it make a big difference if corporations get to pump even more money into their campaigns? Probably yes; it will be interesting to see how that turns out.

Politically, it's one step further away from public campaign financing, which could produce a backlash sooner or later. Almost all significant actions provoke a reaction, so this decision is terrible, but it might at some point push reluctant idealists over the edge to reform campaign financing in a decisive way, in order to return to democracy as opposed to plutocracy.

by OldGerman on 01/21/2010 11:59:24 AM EST

The united states is dead. The constitution is dead. We live in a fascist dictatorship.

by hazmat on 01/21/2010 12:11:57 PM EST

this is the setting of the real fight for America. Corporate interests always get their way in Washington because they can spread around so much money. Look at the results we have gotten this year alone. No expanded oversight of the financial industry(#1 in lobbying $) no healthcare reform(#2). What other result could there have been under this campaign finance system. None that I can see. This issue is so much more important than lib/conserv. Remember, the corporations pay off both sides.

by finerbiner on 01/21/2010 12:13:08 PM EST

citizenship in the USA now that multinational corporations were given the same rights as US citizens by two supreme court justices that promised during their confirmation hearings to follow all past precedence and not be "activist jurists."  Roberts and Ailito lied to all human citizens of the USA.
From Robert Weismann, President of Public Citizen:

Dear gatekeeper50:
Just hours ago, the Supreme Court gave Corporate America a green light to use its immense wealth to buy elected officials.

The court's shocking decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission struck down 60 years of legal precedent prohibiting corporations from making campaign expenditures to attack or support political candidates.

The court ruled that the First Amendment - designed to protect the speech of real, live humans - guarantees for-profit corporations the right to influence elections.

This is nothing short of a massive assault on the very foundation of American democracy.

Please watch this special video on what Public Citizen is doing in response to the Supreme Court's decision. Then sign our Citizen's Free Speech Petition calling for a constitutional amendment ensuring corporate power doesn't overwhelm our democracy. And forward my email to your family and friends so they can join our campaign, too.

We must fight back. The lines are clearly drawn. People v. corporations.

That's why Public Citizen is launching a historic campaign to pass a constitutional amendment on behalf of human beings. To restore human beings to the center of the political process. To say no to unfettered corporate power. And we need your help.

In the wake of the court's decision, corporations can pour virtually unlimited amounts of cash into political campaigns. If candidates challenge the corporate agenda, they will be buried under mountains of corporate cash. If candidates do the bidding of a corporation, they will be rewarded from corporate America's bottomless treasury.

The only surefire solution to a corporate takeover of American democracy is a constitutional amendment re-establishing that First Amendment protections (except for freedom of the press) do not apply to for-profit corporations.

Corporations are not human beings. Corporations should not be free to use their massive concentrations of financial power to drown out the voices of real people.

Please watch this special video on what Public Citizen is doing in response to the Supreme Court's decision.

After watching the short video, you can take immediate action by signing the Citizen's Free Speech Petition and stand with your fellow humans against corporate power.

And I need you to forward my email to your friends and family. Urge them to watch the video and sign the Citizen's Free Speech Petition, too.

In the coming weeks and months, you will be hearing more about Public Citizen's nationwide mobilization to protect the speech of human beings. You will be asked to participate, agitate and organize. The framers of the Constitution did not intend for the First Amendment to apply to for-profit corporations, and it shouldn't. We are not now going to surrender our democratic institutions to the control of powerful corporations.

Help us fight back.

Please watch this special video on what Public Citizen is doing in response to the Supreme Court's decision. Then sign the petition and forward this email to all your friends and family members.

Join Public Citizen's grassroots mobilization. Help us take back our democracy.

Join the campaign!

Robert Weissman, President

P.S. Please watch this special video on how you can take action. Then sign our Citizen's Free Speech Petition and urge your friends to do the same. Together, we can restore citizens' control to our political system and ensure corporate power doesn't overwhelm our democracy by amending our constitution to protect the free speech rights of citizens.

by gatekeeper50 on 01/21/2010 12:22:14 PM EST

I think in our current system before this Supreme Court ruling, corporations have an out-sized influence on our political system and their money corrupts the process.  But many people are unaware of this influence because in many cases it's subtle and hidden from view.  This ruling will bring corporate financial influence out into the open. I prefer a system in which things are open for all to see, then over time, if it turns out the public doesn't like the new system, the country can react and reverse the effect of the ruling.  So I'm fine with the ruling. I don't think it will actually increase corporate influence to a level much greater than it is already, but more people will become aware of who and what makes our political decisions.

by davidk on 01/21/2010 12:29:09 PM EST

When the  Dems rolled over for Roberts and Alieto...this is the result.

The USA, signed sealed and delivered to corporate America.

by MRFred on 01/21/2010 12:30:58 PM EST

This is no good at all, and this might be the spark that Progressives/Independents/C razy Motherfuckers like me have to see before we arm up and start taking these bastards down.

Obviously, the legal system in this country is not on our side.

The politicians are nothing but whores for corporate spending, and are labeled rightfully so by this decision.

This goes beyond Conservative/Liberal differences. This could unify the knowing on both sides to begin the process of real reform of our government...

Russ, Star, Ken, Hubble - I think this is an issue we can all agree on.

I thought Armegeddon would start when a Republican won Kennedy's seat in Mass.

It has to start somewhere - why not here?

:)

by bobo1 on 01/21/2010 02:37:55 PM EST

Were Fucked!    Thats what.

by rolodex on 01/21/2010 03:09:07 PM EST

Fucked, they going to kick it into overdrive now and really get everything they want.

But the fun part is going to see people trying to solve it through politics.

I'm moving out of here soon anyway :P Feel bad you guys.

by Alloy on 01/21/2010 04:28:16 PM EST

...is not the Supreme Court's ruling, or corporate money.  The root problems are 1) that so many people don't vote, 2) that the press does a shit job of covering the facts, and 3) that people actually vote based on ads they see instead of actually researching the candidates and choosing based on their policies and track record.  So while I don't necessarily agree with the SCOTUS ruling in light of our current political situation, I don't think it matters so much because I don't even think it would matter if we had public finance reform.  Until we have a press that does its job, a populace that is more engaged, and voters who think a little deeper than "I saw that guy's ad on TV 4 times this week, so I think he's the best candidate", we're still in a world of trouble regardless.  Such a high percentage of the guys in Washington are obviously bought already, I'm inclined to agree with Dave that I don't see how this ruling is going to be the apocalypse people are predicting.  I think we're already living any apocalypse there is going to be vis-a-vis corporate interests controlling the government.  The fact is, this ruling would be almost completely irrelevant if we didn't have a voting public that was so easily influenced by the things that campaign money can buy, and so robotically voting in huge blocks for candidates from either one of the ruling parties.

by mdavidboyd on 01/21/2010 08:15:18 PM EST

"Robert wrote that restrictions on corporate campaign spending threatens 'the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy.'"

 

- What is he, like 5 years old? What kind of reasoning is this? It's like he's lived under water for his entire life. As a chief justice and an adult, isn't he supposed to know something about DEMOCRACY?

-By the way, where are the protests going to be located against the ruling- if there are any in the Chicago, I'm in.

by jjr5 on 01/21/2010 09:07:54 PM EST

It's time to be the heroes we're waiting for.  Plain and simple.   There's not going to be a populist Superman, it's going to take everyone doing a small something and start making some noise.  Remember, starting the car takes more gas than getting it rolling. 

by Rockulus on 01/21/2010 09:37:25 PM EST

it's much more interesting to live as it already has happened.

In this case this would be true.

You people really thought you were living in a democracy?

Newsflash:

Corporations are ruling the entire western world. Nothing you can do against that. The only way to influence politics is with the right amount of money.

Voting or not doesn't matter. You are living in a meritocracy and the only merits that matter are money and media attention.

The Fox is mightier than the people.

Learn to live with it.

"The first thing Fascists usually try to do is silencing the opposition."

by opposition on 01/22/2010 12:32:33 AM EST

All these posts and not a single "Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1984!!"

You KNOW that Eric Arthur Blair is jumping up and down somewhere screaming "I Told You So!"

by MedfordTim on 01/22/2010 06:31:49 AM EST

I
There is a growing interest in new techniques of mind-control. It has been suggested that Sirhan Sirhan was the subject of post-hypnotic suggestion, as he sat shaking violently on the steam table in the kitch of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles while the as-yet unidentified woman held him and whispered in his ear. It has been alleged that behavior-modification techniques are used on troublesome prisoners and inmates, often without their consent. Dr. Delgado, who once stopped a charging bull by remote control of electrodes in the bull's brain, left the U.S. to pursue his studies on human subjects in Spain. Brainwashing, psychotropic drugs, lobotomy and other, more subtle forms of psychosurgery; the technocratic control apparatus of the United States has at its fingertips new techniques which if fully exploited could make Orwell's 1984 seem like a benevolent utopia.

II
But words are still the principal instruments of control. Suggestions are words. Persuasions are words. Orders are words. No control machine so far devised can operate without words, and any control machine which attempts to do so relying entirely on external force or entirely on physical control of the mind will soon encounter the limits of control.

III
A basic impasse of all control machines is this: Control needs time in which to exercise control. Because control also needs opposition or acquiescence; otherwise, it ceases to be control. I control a hypnotized subject (at least partially); I control a slave, a dog, a worker; but if I establish complete control somehow, as by implanting electrodes in the brain, then my subject is little more than a tape recorder, a camera, a robot. You don't control a tape recorder - you use it. Consider the distinction, and the impasse implicit here. All control systems try to make control as tight as possible, but at the same time, if they succeeded completely there would be nothing left to control. Suppose for example a control system installed electrodes in the brains of all prospective workers at birth. Control is now complete. Even the thought of rebellion is neurologically impossible. No police force is necessary. No psychological control is necessary, other than pressing buttons to achieve certain activations and operations.

IV
When there is no more opposition, control becomes a meaningless proposition. It is highly questionable whether a human organism could survive complete control. There would be nothing there. No persons there. Life is will (motivation) and the workers would no longer be alive, perhaps literally. The concept of suggestion as a complete technique presupposes that control is partial and not complete. You do not have to give suggestions to your tape recorder nor subject it to pain and coercion or persuasion.

V
In the Mayan control system, where the priests kept the all-important Books of seasons and gods, the calendar was predicated on the universal illiteracy since they operate through the mass media - a very two-edged control instrument, as Watergate has shown. Control systems are vulnerable, and the news media are by their nature uncontrollable, at least in Western society. The alternative press is news, and alternative society is news, and as such both are taken up by the mass media. The monopoly that Hearst and Luce once exercised is breaking down. In fact, the more completely hermetic and seemingly successful a control system is, the more vulnerable it becomes. A weakness inherent in the Mayan system is that they didn't need an army to control their workers, and therefore did not need an army when they needed one to repel invaders. It is a rule of social structures that anything that is not needed will atrophy and become inoperative over a period of time. Cut off from the war game - and remember, the Mayans had no neighbors to quarrel with they lose the ability to fight. In "The Mayan Caper" I suggested that such a hermetic control system would be completely disoriented and shattered by even one person who tampered with the control calendar, upon which the control system depended more and more heavily as the actual means of force withered away.

VI
Consider a control situation: ten people in a lifeboat. two armed self-appointed leaders force the other eight to do the rowing while they dispose of the food and water, keeping most of it for themselves an doling out only enough to keep the other eight rowing. The two leaders now need to exercise control to maintain an advantageous position which they could not hold without it. Here the method of control is force - the possession of guns. Decontrol would be accomplished by overpowering the leaders and taking their guns. This effected, it would be advantageous to kill them at once. So once embarked on a policy of control, the leaders must continue the policy as a matter of self-preservation. Who, then, needs to control others but those who protect by such control a position of relative advantage? Why do they need to exercise control? Because they would soon lose this position and advantage and in many cases their lives as well, if they relinquished control.

VII
Now examine the reasons by which control is exercised in the lifeboat scenario: The two leaders are armed, let's say, with .38 revolvers - twelve shots and eight potential opponents. They can take turns sleeping. However, they must still exercise care not to let the eight rowers know that they intend to kill them when land is sighted. Even in this primitive situation force is supplemented with deception and persuasion. The leaders will disembark at point A, leaving the other sufficient food to reach point B, they explain. They have the compass and they are contributing their navigational skills. In short they will endeavor to convince the others that this is a cooperative enterprise in which they are all working for the same goal. They may also make concessions: increase food and water rations. A concession of course means the retention of control - that is, the disposition of the food and water supplies. By persuasions and by concessions they hope to prevent a concerted attack by the eight rowers.

VIII
Actually they intend to poison the drinking water as soon as they leave the boat. If all the rowers knew this they would attack, no matter what the odds. We now see that another essential factor in control is to conceal from the controlled the actual intentions of the controllers. Extending the lifeboat analogy to the Ship of State, few existing governments could withstand a sudden, all-out attack by all their underprivileged citizens, and such an attack might well occur if the intentions of certain existing governments were unequivocally apparent. Suppose the lifeboat leaders had built a barricade and could withstand a concerted attack and kill all eight of the rowers if necessary. They would then have to do the rowing themselves and neither would be safe from the other. Similarly, a modern government armed with heavy weapons and prepared for attack could wipe out ninety-five percent of its citizens. But who would do the work, and who would protect them from the soldiers and technicians needed to make and man the weapons? Successful control means achieving a balance and avoiding a showdown where all-out force would be necessary. This is achieved through various techniques of psychological control, also balanced. The techniques of both force and psychological control are constantly improved and refined, and yet worldwide dissent has never been so widespread or so dangerous to the present controllers.

IX
All modern control systems are riddled with contradictions. Look at England. "Never go too far in any direction," is the basic rule on which England is built, and there is some wisdom in that. However, avoiding one impasse they step into another. Anything that is now going forward is on the way out. Well, nothing lasts forever. Time is that which ends, and control needs time. England is simply stalling for time as it slowly founders. Look at America. Who actually controls this country? It is very difficult to say. Certainly the very wealthy are one of the most powerful control groups, since they are in a position to control and manipulate the entire economy. However, it would not be to their advantage to set up or attempt to set up an overly fascist government. Force, once brought in, subverts the power of money. This is another impasse of control: protection from the protectors. Hitler formed the S.S. to protect him from the S.A. If he had lived long enough the question of protection from the S.S. would have pose itself. The Roman Emperors were at the mercy of the Praetorian Guard, who in one year killed twenty Emperors. And besides, no modern industrial country has ever gone fascist without a program of military expansion. There is no longer anyplace to expand to - after hundreds of years, colonialism is a thing of the past.

X
There can be no doubt that a cultural revolution of unprecedented dimensions has taken place in American during the last thirty years, and since America is now the model for the rest of the Western world, this revolution is worldwide. Another factor is the mass media, which spreads all cultural movements in all directions. The fact that this worldwide revolution has taken place indicates that the controllers have been forced to make concessions. Of course, a concession is still the retention of control. Here's a dime, I keep a dollar. Ease up on censorship, but remember we could take it all back. Well, at this point, that is questionable.

XI
Concession is another blind. History shows that once a government starts to make concessions it is on a one-way street. They could of course take all the concessions back, but that would expose them to the double jeopardy of revolution and the much greater danger of overt fascism, both highly dangerous to the present controllers. Does any clear policy arise from this welter of confusion? Than answer is probably no. The mass media has proven a very unreliable and even treacherous instrument of control. It is uncontrollable owing to its need for NEWS. If one paper, or even a string of papers owned by the same person, makes that story hotter as NEWS, some other paper will pick it up. Any imposition of government censorship on the media is a step in the direction of State control, a step which big money is most reluctant to take.
XI
I don't mean to suggest that control automatically defeats itself, nor that protest is therefore unnecessary. A government is never more dangerous than when embarking on a self-defeating or downright suicidal course. It is encouraging that some behavior modification projects have been exposed and halted, and certainly such exposure and publicity should continue. in fact, I submit that we have a right to insist that all scientific research be subject to public scrutiny, and that there should be no such thing as "top-secret" research.

William S. Burroughs

"The first thing Fascists usually try to do is silencing the opposition."

by opposition on 01/22/2010 11:05:06 AM EST

Everyone sounds very down. But look on the bright side. It's kind of an experiment and you are the guinea pigs. This will probably be the first Corporate Democracy in history. It's the sort of stuff you see in conspiracy movies. I am a little excited to see the outcome. Btw there is plenty of room in New Zealand if anyone wants to see what happens from a distance =P.

Although my guess is there will be a lot of people suffering from this. In the future healthcare won't even be debated, there won't be any complaining about weak democrats =P. Minimum wage increases won't exist. In fact anything that would mean less money for a company, probably won't happen. But this is of course speculation. Can anyone give other possibilities? It could somehow work amazingly and everyone lives better?

It is ironic that Obama was the 'Manchurian candidate' with his many donations from the public, yet a fully corporate sponsored politician is considered free speech. 

by jmf on 01/22/2010 05:17:27 PM EST