Manchurian Candidates: Supreme Court allows China and others unlimited spending in US elections

[Joanne98]

For OpEdNews: Greg Palast - Writer

In Thursday's Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court ruled that corporations should be treated the same as "natural persons", i.e. humans. Well, in that case, expect the Supreme Court to next rule that Wal-Mart can run for President.

The ruling, which junks federal laws that now bar corporations from stuffing campaign coffers,will not, as progressives fear, cause an avalanche of corporate cash into politics. Sadly, that's already happened: we have been snowed under by tens of millions of dollars given through corporate PACs and "bundling" of individual contributions from corporate pay-rollers.

The Court's decision is far, far more dangerous to U.S. democracy. Think: Manchurian candidates.


I'm losing sleep over the millions -- or billions -- of dollars that could flood into our elections from ARAMCO, the Saudi Oil corporation's U.S. unit; or from the maker of "New Order" fashions, the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Or from Bin Laden Construction corporation. Or Bin Laden Destruction Corporation.

Right now, corporations can give loads of loot through PACs. While this money stinks (Barack Obama took none of it), anyone can go through a PAC's federal disclosure filing and see the name of every individual who put money into it. And every contributor must be a citizen of the USA.

But under today's Supreme Court ruling that corporations can support candidates without limit, there is nothing that stops, say, a Delaware-incorporated handmaiden of the Burmese junta from picking a Congressman or two with a cache of loot masked by a corporate alias.

Candidate Barack Obama was one sharp speaker, but he would not have been heard, and certainly would not have won, without the astonishing outpouring of donations from two million Americans. It was an unprecedented uprising-by-PayPal, overwhelming the old fat-cat sources of funding.

Well, kiss that small-donor revolution goodbye. Under the Court's new rules, progressive list serves won't stand a chance against the resources of new "citizens" such as CNOOC, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation. Maybe UBS (United Bank of Switzerland), which faces U.S. criminal prosecution and a billion-dollar fine for fraud, might be tempted to invest in a few Senate seats. As would XYZ Corporation, whose owners remain hidden by "street names."

George Bush's former Solicitor General Ted Olson argued the case to the court on behalf of Citizens United, a corporate front that funded an attack on Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary. Olson's wife died on September 11, 2001 on the hijacked airliner that hit the Pentagon. Maybe it was a bit crude of me, but I contacted Olson's office to ask how much "Al Qaeda, Inc." should be allowed to donate to support the election of his local congressman.

Olson has not responded.

Continued>>>
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Manchurian-Candidates-Sup-by-Greg-Palast-100123-552.html

[Unvanguard]

1. Actually, the Supreme Court didn't decide the question of restrictions on foreign corporations.

They left that issue open for the future.

[w4rma]

2. If one stockholder is non-American then it's a foreign corporation. (nt)

[Joanne98]

3. It's impossible to track money through the dark markets...

We'll never know where it's coming from. Until there's financial reform the shadow banking systems rule.

[CJCRANE]

4. If they left it open that means they didn't restrict it.

[Unvanguard]

5. The Supreme Court can't restrict it. But Congress can. n/t

[dgibby]

6. And then the SCOTUS can strike it down as unconstitutional. n/t

[Unvanguard]

7. It can, yes. But it may not. We don't know. That issue hasn't been decided yet.

Scalia gave Ted Olson some aggressive questioning on this point during oral argument; it's not clear to me, at least, that such a restriction would be overturned by SCOTUS.

The point is that it's too early to say that our politics will be corrupted by foreign money. We already know that it will be (even more than it is) corrupted by domestic money. But the question of foreign corporations remains up in the air.