From Kos -Open Thread for the New Gilded Age

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

This is THE major distinction for those who do still not quite get what this decision allows
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Open Thread for the New Gilded Age
by Meteor Blades
Thu Jan 21, 2010 at 09:35:36 PM PST
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/22/828622/-Open-Thread-for-the-New-Gilded-Age

quoting Joe Conason here-
http://www.salon.com/news/tea_parties/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/01/21/citizenstea

For establishment Republicans like columnist George Will and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the court's decision is simply an overdue recognition of the First Amendment right to free speech. (Or what in fact is more aptly described as "paid speech.") But to understand its actual impact, listen to Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, who drew this pithy comparison: Under the old dispensation, which prohibited direct corporate expenditures on elections for nearly a century, Exxon Mobil could spend only what its political action committee raised from executives and employees. In 2008, said Waldman, that was roughly $1 million. Under the new order, the world's biggest oil company can spend as much as its management cares to siphon from its earnings -- which in 2008 amounted to $45 billion. ...

All the ultra-wingers and tea partyers who agitate constantly over U.S. sovereignty should recall again how little loyalty the multinational corporations and banks have displayed toward the United States in their drive for profit. Now, in effect, the Supreme Court's "conservatives" have opened up the American electoral process to a new, potentially limitless source of foreign influence.

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Anyone who tries to minimize this decsion as restoring "fairness" and "free speech" is being cynical and manipulative beyond belief.
It is patently unfair - the word "unjust" is more accurate, and elevates "paid speech" of the corporations over the "free Speech" of the hoplessly outspent citizen/voter.

Don't let anyone tell you that this is really no big deal. It's the biggest deal to come down the pike in 100 years.

[pecwae]

1. Sounds as if the author

thinks Exxon would be hurting by donating massive monies to a campaign. As if they wouldn't be watching out for themselves as always.

[Toots]

3. For six straight year Exxon had a NET Profit of OVER One Hundred Million dollars a DAY

A frigging DAY,...NET PROFIT after every single expense was paid. One Hundred Million dollars a DAY..Yes they can afford to drop a few hundred million and be out a couple of days Net Profit...

[gkhouston]

2. If Justice Stevens had been in favor of this, the RW media would have called him senile.

Instead, it's quite clear that Stevens still has all of his marbles and the 5 conservatives have none of their scruples. It would be great if Fox News went into one of their hysterical modes and saw this as a national security issue, because it actually is, but I suspect their corporate overlords aren't going to script it that way.

[smoogatz]

5. Of course they won't.

Murdoch is all about the expansion of corporate power. In fact, like most of the current generation of robber-barons, he'd like a corporate monopoly on power, with a government that exists only to serve corporate interests by maintaining infrastructure and using the military to expand markets and keep the labor pool in line.

[fasttense]

4. The dancing Supremes have just sanctioned economic slavery.

Their fist vote with the bushes in 2000, took your right to vote away. Now, they have taken your voice away. Only those with excessive money will be heard. What's next debtor's prison?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

6. Why not? It makes sense to me.

We are on the fast track to Victorian England redux courtesy of the Supreme Court.

[90-percent]

7. I'm with Keith

This is the worst Supreme Corporation* decision since Dred Scott back in 1857. I did the math; that's in 153 years!

Please, all of you, go watch Keith's SPECIAL COMMENT from last night. It's a horrifying explanation of what this decision means to American Democracy.

The Corporate take over of America is now complete. This development dwarfs pretty much everything - HCR, the wars, the economy, the bailout, the torture.

The only people that will benefit, after the Corporations, will be those in the HOME GUILLOTINE business. I predict that rather small segment of the economy will soon be bigger than Microsquish, Exxon-Mobil and all the investment banks COMBINED.

Ahhhh, who am I kidding? We are all so fucking fucked!

It makes me wonder if the wealthy gated communities will soon enjoy a rash of IED incidents? It also makes me wonder if Tim McVeigh and David Koresh and the Unabomber were right after all?

-90% jimmy

* plagiarized from a DU poster. I cannot take credit.

[realFedUp]

8. Corporations buying and electing liberal candidates?

Part of the real angst of this SC vote, aside from dismantling democracy,
is that we all know that most corporations don't fund and elect pols
who are progressive or even want to hold to our democratic values.

We do have organizations who lean more to the left and definitely
do the right thing that will have more leverage in electing candidates.

[tomg]

9. Well, we finally have a multi-party system.

We can vote for the Wal-Mart candidate or the GE candidate or the Boeing candidate or the Microsoft candidate.
Who know, maybe we will wind up with a kind of parliamentarian coalition government where Wal-Mart and Boeing and Apple form a coalition and NewCorp and CBS and Google and Exxon join together.

More importantly, who is going to win this year's Rollerball - Houston or New York?


We are so fucked.