Greg Palast: Manchurian Candidates - SCOTUS Allows China, Etc. Unlimited Spending In U.S. Elections

[Hissyspit]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Manchurian-Candidates-Sup-by-Greg-Palast-100121-877.html

January 21, 2010 at 16:23:58
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Manchurian Candidates: Supreme Court allows China and others unlimited spending in US elections

By Greg Palast
Updated from the original report for AlterNet
Thursday, January 21, 2010

In today'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."

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[jacksonian]

1. he is so right

this is very, very serious. The Supremes have way overstepped reason in the pursuit of giving the Repugs a handout.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. "The Supremes have way overstepped reason in the pursuit of giving the Repugs a handout"

But that's the sole reason that many of them were nominated.

[kenny blankenship]

2. Maybe this could be halted on grounds of national security?

Pretty much every Constitutional right has been put into a state of "virtuality" by the national security trump card in the past decade - they're allowed to exist only so long as some Executive agency does not need to sweep them aside "for our own good and safety". So why not this one, too?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. K&R

[lonestarnot]

5. Shock and awers are creaming their jeans. If it wasn't flooding I'd be out in the street waking

people up with the news.