Why is everyone acting as if corporate control of government began today?...

[misanthrope]

...Has no one been paying attention to what's been going on for the last 150 years? Ever hear of Gen. Smedley Butler who told everyone almost a century ago that American corporations were the ones deciding where American soldiers would die and who would profit from those deaths?

No one remembers Ike's "military-industrial complex?" How about Vietnam? Ring any bells? NAFTA? WTO? Repeal of Glass-Steagall? Anyone? Bueller?

Just the recent Wall Street bailouts and the healthcare reform debacle are evidence alone of how thoroughly things are controlled by corporate America. Essentially, today's ruling does nothing to change the reality except remove some pretense.

We've been headed in this direction for a while and anyone outraged at today's SCOTUS decision has either been willfully ignorant or hibernating. What would have been shocking would have been a ruling in the other direction.

[mrcheerful]

1. When Nixon was forced to resign, congress gave America the Planned Action Committee

when they discovered Nixon was neck deep in corporate money. All PAC has done is limit the amount of money corporations and individuals could give to politicians. The day after PAC went into effect corporations started donating to politicians using employee names, the politicians knew they did this and took the money laughing all the way to the bank. Corporations have been buying politicians since 1880, nothings changed except the myth machine cover up stories, yesterday was just business as usual.

[Stand and Fight]

5. Political Action Committee... not Planned Action Committee. n/t

[mrcheerful]

6. yeah soory was having a heated debate going with the SO on my going out to buy cigarettes

at 2:30am.

[BP2]

2. Why? Because it already is. Now it's on steroids and out in the open. eom

[Solly Mack]

3. k/r

[davekriss]

4. The difference, misanthrope....

...is that what was covert, disquised is becoming increasingly overt and blatant.

The illusion of freedom in America will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.
--Frank Zappa, 1977


It has become less profitable to maintain the illusion, thus they're movong the tables and chairs out of the way and soon we will see that brick wall.

Naomi Wolfe should be praised for her prescient little book...

[Sherman A1]

7. Agreed

and well said.

[Sabien]

8. they elected King George 2nd didn't they? n/t

[NightWatcher]

9. yes, we've been heading in this direction... but today corporate control was legitimized