Supreme Court to Corporations: Take all the Megaphones You Want, It's Your Right

This week, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to lift spending restrictions on corporations and unions, claiming that such restrictions are a violation of Free Speech, a right given to all "citizens" by our Constitution.

Given that corporations are allegedly "Persons"*, and given that there is legal precedent dating back to the 1970s for equating money spent on lobbying and advertising with Free Speech, the winning side here believes that the Constitutional Rights of these poor helpless fictional entities have been justifiably restored

To me this means we've just cleared the way for America to be a Corporate Fascist nation, not a Democracy.

Sure, there are Constitutional Purists, like Glenn Greenwald, who drank the Kool-Aid and think this ruling was about an abstract fight against the notion of limiting free speech to some category of entities.   He and others think having any such regulation in any context is paramount to censorship and must be stopped.

I don't buy it.

We're dealing here not with stopping ideas we may or may not agree with.  Glenn is right when he points out that government banning and censoring human communication in one context, but not in others, is unacceptable in a true Democracy.  Either you have Free Speech or you don't.  If you don't, you live in China and mere mentioning of certain topics will get you imprisoned or killed.

But, even if we don't restrict its content, the intent of Free Speech was never to allow one group of entities to have more of it than anyone else. The problem is how to mix all the communications channels in a fair, informative way.  Prior regulation kept the Corporate voice lower in the mix.  Now that regulation will be off.

Thanks to these Supreme Court idiots, Corporations will able to seize the control room, crank up the volume and mix everyone else out of the dialogue.

The Megaphones vs. The Unmiked.

It is not that Corporations have not been able to speak.  (They already have).

It's not that they cannot speak the particular messages they would like to (even if those might be misleading or false).

No.  The problem now is that Corporations do not speak.   With billions of dollars, they can YELL.

They can now yell louder, and across more loudspeakers and channels than any other entity on the planet.  These entities can now buy up all the megaphones and boomboxes. 

Speech?  Or Corruptive Influence

Then there is the matter of corruption.  Corruption can trump even the fairest of dialogues and messaging between elected officials and the citizens voting for them.

When a human being donates money to a politician in the hopes of getting him or her elected, there is the hope (or expectation) he or she will vote in a way pleasing to the donor.

But with a corporation, we're talking HUGE sums of money that no mere mortal human being can simply walk away from.  In effect, the politician will think twice before enacting any laws against such a "generous" donor.  In effect, the Corporate Donor has just bought the Law, custom-made for its own self-interest.

Theodore Roosevelt and our preceding governments recognized the danger of granting unlimited power to Corporations.  We had protections in place to separate government and commerce.  They gave corporations a voice, but muted so that the rest of us could be heard too.

But now our members of Congress are former members of Corporations and vice versa.  They have debts to repay, Laws to create on their donor's behalf.  This ruling will make he voice of the Corporations so overwhelmingly loud that we human beings might as well call it a day and do what Douglas Rushkoff suggests -- forget about government and do stuff ourselves.

* Albeit fictional, and only made so in the 1800s by a clerk writing notes on a court case about granting rights to slaves.

Save the Poor Health Insurance Companies!

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Awwww... There, there monstrous corporate entities -- it'll be all right in the end. Don't worry.

Obama Giving In?: The U.S. May Spy On You; You Can't Sue

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Well I for one am disturbed. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against AT&T and the Bush administrations's illegal surveillance hit a humongous snag -- Obama's Department of Justice filed a brief saying they not only endorse the Bush administration's reasoning that the suit cannot be pursued because of national security, but that retroactively, from now on, NO ONE may sue the government or its contractors for warantless wiretapping unless that information is made public by said government.

But more importantly, it undermines Obama's entire campaign.
This is a complete about face, folks. He vowed to hold our government accountable for illegal activity, to preserve the Constitution which expressly forbids surveillance without warrants. To sneak around having to do this to prevent rocking the boat this early in his term is a horrible sign that perhaps, we were all duped. I really hope this isn't the case -- Obama is a nice friendly figurehead but, despite election promises, unwilling or unable to fix the corruption his predecessors engineered.

He better do something. That we are in a manufactured "War on Terror" (a term the Obama team no longer uses) is NO EXCUSE for tramping the civil rights of its citizens. Unless of course you want a fascist nation. (Some do -- better for business.)

Is Obama's DOJ full of lingering Bush administrative people seizing the opportunity? Is Obama oblivious? How could he support such a thing?

More editorial about this here.

If you're angry with all this, please sign the CREDO petition.

If You're Reading This, Go Watch the Inauguration!

Hey! Scram! You ought to be watching President Obama and company on this historic day. Go watch it here.

Support Mentors!

Please help support Citizen School's mentoring campaign by clicking on the link above and voting. Only 140 60 22 more votes needed to get their cause to the next level! Now in 2nd place and off to the second round, but please vote if you haven't yet!

UPDATE:Thanks for voting! Citizen School made it to the next round and needs about 200 more votes to be in the top 10 of all ideas in the running. Please vote on the widget to the right.

Comic: Federal Government Bailing Out The Federal Government

Bailing out the "American" Auto Industry is a Misnomer

So there are three remaining American corporate entities that are pleading with our Government to bail them out with taxpayer money. These entitities have over the last ten years failed to produce energy efficient cars, despite both government regulation requiring them to (which they lobbied against) and increasing consumer demand. Now struggling in every sense of the word against foreign auto companies, they insist they need $25 billion to get them through this crisis, or "millions of jobs are at stake" and American industry will be in jeopardy.

Too late for that, points out Huntington Post blogger Chris Kelly. Chrysler, for example is no longer really an American company, it's owned by an international holding firm Cerberus who couldn't care less about keeping jobs in America if it didn't suit them. It's simply eager to get money from the new corporate socialist trough.

As Mr. Kelly points out, nostalgia is not a good reason to keep a dying company going with taxpayer money. These companies should go bankrupt, restructure themselves, rehire folks, and get ready to start over, or close up shop. Feeding them money to stay how they are, how how they have been and reward more executives is ridiculous.

Obama Wins

Thank God.

Marriage Cannot Have Its Feelings Hurt, Nor Is It Taught In Schools

I'm quite shocked how many times I've seen a certain google advertisement supporting a "Eliminate Marriage Between Same Sex Couples" Proposition that California voters will be voting on tomorrow. It's all over the Internet on completely random websites, like youtube's front page, tech reviews, a Muppet site, a forum I visited about routers, even one in the UK!! Complete blitz.

While google can't censor it (free speech and all), it just seems very uneven to see it without the corresponding "Vote No on 8" ad next to it. Whoever is running their ad campaign is quite savvy -- buying up Google ads and keywords to bombard the Internet. Their advert is appearing on pages by folks writing AGAINST their cause.

I'm really quite bewildered that people are spending so much energy fighting to eliminate rights from people, ones that harm no one, spewing lies about how the rest of us are somehow harmed by same sex unions. Not merely protesting but lying and using extortion. This is not a whole lot different than Laws declaring that Voting is an option for Men Only, and that Blacks are Not People, which people fought hard to REMOVE in this country. Whether you approve of homosexual activities or not, Marriage, so-called traditional families, and heterosexuals are not under attack. This proposition is 100% discriminatory in its intentions.

Here's an op-ed against Proposition 8 from a Rabbi not in California.

We have serious issues with the Economy, with a corporately-governed War, with a corrupt but seemingly justice-immune government that bulldozes over our Constitution and regulations when it serves corporate interests, and a starving, environmentally decaying planet to deal with right now.

UPDATE: As expected, I merely write AGAINST this proposition and the pro ad shows up on my page. The only way to remove it is for me to use google's content ad blocker, but this takes a few hours to kick in.

Alternative to the Bailout: Why Paulson Is Wrong

The assumption that both McCain and Obama and everyone who wants to save the economy from apparent ruin is that the Bailout is the only responsible way to stop it. But it's not. Even you don't believe it's reprehensible for taxpayers to subsidize corporations, there's no guarantee it will even work! University of Chicago Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance Luigi Zingales has written a critique of Paulson's bailout plan which provides an alternative solution.

It's sad that the White House has not brought in economic experts (many of whom think the Bailout is absurd) or anyone else with other solutions -- they'd rather meet in secret and ram things through quickly, without explaining anything to the general public. I've not seen any rational discussion on major networks about alternatives. It's either Taxpayer Bailout or Doom.

We all want the situation to end but accepting a solution proposed by one of the people who caused it at face value is just ridiculous.

UPDATE: Even chief economist at Business Week magazine Michael Mandel, and 200 other economists think the Bail-out is an awful idea. They've petitioned Congress to vote No. Why aren't we hearing their opinions on the TV news? (Oh right, the Media and the Government are buddies.)

Meanwhile, instead of rethinking the solution members of the Senate are trying throw in unrelated frosting (like tax cuts) on top of the original plan to entice Republicans to vote Yes. AND, they've deliberately shut down their email servers to prevent the public from petitioning via Internet (the strategy which had a huge effect on the rejection of the Bailout proposal). Unbelievable.

In Case You Thought Saturday Night Live Was Exaggerating Palin's Scariness...

This would have been a good opportunity for Palin to dispel the negative press, to quell those that question her experience, to prove she's a competent, knowledgeable, strong woman ready to rule the country.

Ooops. And this is just one example.

And so predictable is her speaking style that someone made a random Sara Palin interview generator.

Though I disliked Clinton, she was 10,000 times smarter and more qualified than this lady. Even infamous and often mocked Vice President Quayle seems a better candidate.

Saturday Night Live: Sarah Palin

At last, something about this election that made me laugh.

A Cartoon In Honor of 9/11

Republican Media Bias In Action: MSNBC Demotes Its Highest-Rated Anchors

Media analyst Glenn Greenwald wrote on his blog today about the recent demotion of MSNBC's highest rated anchor-people and how the only rationale for it is political pressures from the White House, McCain, and Republicans.

The single dumbest claim in our political culture is that the huge corporations which own our establishment media outlets promote a "liberal" ideology. Why would General Electric ever use NBC and its other media assets to promote political liberalism? They lavishly benefit from the whole panoply of right-wing policies -- from endlessly expanding defense spending to deregulation. Their multiple businesses depend upon maintaining good relations with the right-wing ideologues who run our Government. Even ignoring all of the above-documented empirical facts, the very idea that a corporation like GE -- or Viacom (CBS), Disney (ABC) and Time Warner (CNN) -- would actively promote a left-wing agenda in its news divisions and undermine the very Government power centers on which they rely has been the most self-evidently moronic premise one can imagine. As Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone confessed in 2004:

Senator Kerry is a good man. I've known him for many years. But it happens that I vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life, and I do believe that a Republican Administration is better for media companies than a Democratic one.

And yet the myth of the large-corporation-owned "Liberal Media" persists, and even intensifies.

This decision by MSNBC is as alarming as it is illustrative. They just implicitly chided and overtly demoted their most popular and valuable news personality because the White House, the McCain campaign and the Right demanded that they do so. It's fine for Brit Hume to host a "news program" and for hard-core right-wing ideologues to dominate cable news. The fact that Dick Cheney (understandably) viewed Tim Russert's Meet the Press as the ideal forum to allow the White House to "control the message" bothered nobody outside of a few online critics, and didn't remotely impede the perception of Russert as the Beacon of Tough and Objective Journalism. But MSNBC's ratings-based decision to feature Keith Olbermann is a grave threat to modern journalism and must be stopped. So decrees the White House and the McCain campaign, and so the GE-owned MSNBC complies.

Basically, the Right is cheating. Rather than let we the people decide who to vote for, what better way to win than to cry foul: "The Liberals have too much coverage!" Grab the media corporations by the balls, tell them "Remove your Liberal content or there will be consequences." Corruption at its finest and most blatant. Bye bye Journalism, informed Electorate. Hello government-controlled media.

Our Potential VP Sarah Palin is a Book Banner?

I can't think of many things more unpatriotic than banning books in a country that prizes free speech. Libraries are not in the business of catering to preference; they are there to allow access to that very free speech we protect.

And yet, Republican John McCain has picked a doosy of a V.P. Apart from her obvious political abuses (like having a brother-in-law fired using her political power), her religious beliefs include censorship:

[...] as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

Whether you're Republican or pro-McCain, I hope you realize what a dangerous person this would be as President (should McCain die). If you really want to put our "country first" as the battle-cry goes, elect someone who does not abuse power, who protects the First Amendment.

via TIME magazine.

Watching the Olympics in London

One of the unexpected perks of being in London as the Beijing Olympics started was that I was able to see the entire (as far as I know) opening ceremony and watch some of the more obscure Olympics events (archery, women's weightlifting, sailing, etc) on a satellite TV, LIVE. If you're a U.S. citizen, you're getting a very processed, filtered experience with added sentimentality, sportscasting chatter, music, athlete story vignettes, and numerous commercial interruptions, delayed deliberately to maximize advertising revenue across time zones. NBC says "We don't care, we paid millions to have exclusive control over what you see."

Now that I'm back, I am finding I can't even replicate the UK experience because of the various entities involved (China, NBC, BBC) restricting access and enforcing geopolitical barriers. Seems to me with the Internet we ought to be able to shift viewpoints, but the old distorting lenses are being enforced even online. What a missed opportunity.

DHS says it can search Laptops At Border Without Suspicion. Why? "Cuz we gotta."

My Brazilian friend sent me this article from the Washington Post this morning. (She is now questioning ever visiting the United States.)

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"The policies . . . are truly alarming," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who is probing the government's border search practices. He said he intends to introduce legislation soon that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches, as well as prohibit profiling on race, religion or national origin.

DHS officials said the newly disclosed policies -- which apply to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens -- are reasonable and necessary to prevent terrorism. Officials said such procedures have long been in place but were disclosed last month because of public interest in the matter.

Read more here

Remember, this is the USA. We have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that say we can NOT under any circumstances be searched without reasonable suspicion. We and travelers coming into this country put up with mildly invasive searching at the borders, but still, the governing principle is that we have privacy, and that we are innocent until we break the Law, taken to Court, and proved guilty through a process.

But now, the impatient DHS has gone mad, claiming "There are lots of bad things out there on computers! We gotta catch 'em!" Thanks to recent rule changes at the Department of Homeland Security, everyone's laptops are fair game. Note, they did not announce these changes -- only after "the public expressed interest" did they reveal them. WTF? We are not ruled by the Stasi in Communist Germany. Did you see The Lives of Others? Did you see that, without checks and balances, these unregulated searches become an excuse to stifle enemies of all sorts, be they political, romantic rivals, industry competition, or "I just don't like these people"? Don't you realize that there's no way to examine effectively 400 million laptops and that these untrained guards will falsely identify more problems that can possibly be countersued? Don't you see that the DHS's claim that "This won't hurt Americans" is bullshit -- other countries will develop blanket sweeps against us too when we travel abroad in retaliation? Aren't we tired of the "We gotta do this unconstitutional, China-like, Orwellian Law to protect us against terrorism" excuse this administration (both Democrat and Republican) spews out whenever there's the slightest dissent?

Is this really the America you want? The World you want? Do you truly want your computer or PDA or iPOD exposed when you travel? All those songs you don't have receipts or CDs for that now the RIAA will gladly sue you for $10s of thousands of dollars once they cut a deal with the DHS? All those non-compliant Windows XP installations that Microsoft would LOVE to know about and sue you for. Health care agencies eager to look for signs on your computer that you're not healthy enough for coverage or deserving of claims. Remember, this may start as a fight against terror but YOU have enemies too, and they will reap the benefits of these unregulated policies, I guarantee you.

Wake up America, this Bush Administration is slowly turning us into a totalitarian, corporate fascist state for the rich, only with better P.R. and marketing.

Will the Real Issues Please Show Themselves?

This is hardly the first time the network news outlets have focused on irrelevant nonsense instead of things the American people ought to be caring about. It is also not the first time that creating smoke screen non-issues has been used for political advantage (Swift Boating).

I'm referring to the whole non-issue about a former pastor that presidential nominee Barack Obama had some association with in the past. The alleged problem? This pastor allegedly made strong statements during speeches that some might interpret as negative, racial, and perhaps anti-American. (Never mind that in our country, statements like this are protected, free speech).

Obama calmly reacted to this, basically saying "I have nothing to do with these statements, whatever they might be." But the media has not let go of it, trying to fan the fire. Have any of them ever bothered to show or play these speeches in context, or even analyze what these soundbites might actually be saying? Of course not. (All except one radio station, where it was clear this pastor was unhappy to have his soundbites taken out of context.)

Then the ABC Debate fiasco. Instead of helping us elect a president who can get our country out of a recession and deal with our Wars, ABC chose to treat it as a game show with inane questions like "Would you wear an American flag pin?" and more about this irrelevant pastor.

Here's a great parody of how the Lincoln Douglas debates might have been like today.

Seriously hoping whoever gets elected can bring us back to being a mature, intelligent country again. Reality TV shows are making us all stupid.

Fascism's Ugly Head: Your Laptop Can Now Be Screened at Border Crossings

At what point do we stop calling America the "Land of the Free," or a "democracy" and call it what it's becoming, a fascist, totalitarian police state? It really doesn't matter what the reasoning behind policy changes such as this example, where cops can arbitrarily decide to peruse your laptop when you cross the U.S. border without probable cause. This is hardly the first example to take place in Bush's post-2001 America. The excuse to eliminate our Constitutional rights is the same as China's. "We must protect the country."

The one thing we have going for us is that, in theory, we can replace our leaders with those who'll revert us back to being a true democracy, with a Constitution, with civil rights. You know, those sorts of things we've been fighting to protect in the first place.

Comic: Trust Us, the Iraq War Pays for Itself