A Threat To Democracy (Hartford Courant editorial)

[struggle4progress]

SUPREME COURT DECISION • Unlimited spending tilts playing field and will corrupt politics

... Chief Justice John Roberts, it turns out, is a dangerous hypocrite, a wolf in sheep's clothing. At his confirmation hearings, Mr. Roberts promised to be judicially "modest," respect precedent and simply "call balls and strikes."

There was nothing modest about this decision, which bulldozed precedent and was a seismic shift in the political playing field favoring concentrations of great wealth.

The conservative majority cast the case as a First Amendment issue. The five justices said they were merely extending the right of political speech to where it had unconstitutionally been denied. It's a bogus argument. Corporations aren't people entitled to the free-speech rights that humans enjoy. In most cases, officers, directors and shareholders of corporations can make individual donations — which are limited — to political causes, just like the rest of us. Their free speech rights had not been trampled on.

The court majority unjustly gave the rights of citizens to entities that exist only on paper, and thus gave deep corporate pockets the legal right to hijack elections ....

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-supreme-court-error.artjan25,0,576426.story

[SKKY]

1. I have no idea why there are not marches in the streets over this.

Here in Spain, they're playing this as the end of America as we know it. One commentator even mentioned that the next president could just as easily come from the boardroom of a Fortune 500 company as he could the house or the senate. Frightening.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

2. I think that the last verse of this song describes the attitude of too many Americans.

A lot of Americans just aren't paying attention to what's going on around them while others just don't care. It makes for a dangerous combination of ignorance and self centered thinking. Just what the corporations and the politicians want from us.

Scanning These Crowds by Bruce Cockburn

I was half asleep in the washroom when they came in
Eyes like moonlight on barbed wire and veins showing under the skin
The uniforms made me nervous, I got ready for the chase
But they left me scanning these crowds for some sign of your face

Something fell on Saskatchewan in 1885
Where is it now that we need it, in this century of jive?
The axe falls as if through water -- never leaves a trace
And I'm scanning these crowds for some sign of your face

The world shot down love as a spy, once upon a time ago
Now people stand around here, like crows in the snow
Like the shadow of the rope on Louis Riel, they look so clean out of place
And I'm scanning these crowds for some sign of your face

Though storms may still kiss the grasslands with primal fire
In the land of passive revolution, everything's for hire
Are they demons, are they lemmings, or just the humans in this place?
Lord, I'm scanning these crowds for some sign of your face


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