Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit

[groovedaddy]

WASHINGTON — Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.

The 5-to-4 decision was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said that allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace would corrupt democracy.

The ruling represented a sharp doctrinal shift, and it will have major political and practical consequences. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision to reshape the way elections were conducted. Though the decision does not directly address them, its logic also applies to the labor unions that are often at political odds with big business.

The decision will be felt most immediately in the coming midterm elections, given that it comes just two days after Democrats lost a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and as popular discontent over government bailouts and corporate bonuses continues to boil.

President Obama called it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html?th&emc=th

[timeforpeace]

1. This argues that unions benefit the same as corporations.

[groovedaddy]

2. Unions percentage of the amount given to campaigns was dwarfed by

the corporate giving. This ruling will make it even worse.

[whattheidonot]

3. unions are toast.

Corporations will drown out unions. They will advertise heavily against them. With so many people relying on these big corporations for pay people will find it hard to fight. however at times like this unintended major change may come. it will take an economic evolution to undo this power of the corporations. Get back to community banks, supporting small businesses, where the price of goods may be a little higher but success will bring suppliers and get local economies and communities going. These big multinational corporations really do not give a hoot about communities. Their efforts are stale PR advances that similar no matter the location. What they do not want is competition. A wide reaching democracy is the last thing corporations want.

[groovedaddy]

4. The tendency of capitalism is always toward monopolism. Our system of government

has taken measures at times to guard against that trend, recognizing the implications of unrestrained capitalism. This SC decision doesn't help matters, only making them worse.
Will people wake up in sufficient numbers to stem the tide before we officially become a fasicst
country. Maybe we're already there?