'Citizens United' was one of the worse SCOTUS decisions of our history. It gave to money and anonymity a power no democracy can withstand. The proof today is in the buffoons now elected - especially since 2010 - to congresses both local and national. America has become a nation that celebrates ignorance as the foxes carry off the lucre.
The problem with CU is it assumes a corporation is a definable entity, and as such acts in a manner that makes sense in the way in which we consider a person for instance to act. Corporate goals rarely align with society's goals, or even with a nation's goals. Corporations exist to make money for their stock holders and executives. Persons exist as individuals, as recognizable, responsible agents. Corporations operate outside the democratic framework that individuals operate under. Corporations operate equally well under communism as under democracy, they also operate across borders with resources and policies that differ from place to place. Funds from overseas operations then can enter and provide monies that influence local politics, and even transnational politics by creating and funding ads and other various media that manages the idea landscape. CU gave enormous power to money that comes from anywhere to control media in our democracy with no responsible agent or clear understanding of who benefits, how, or why they benefit. 'Show me the money.' Or show me why all the money and from whom is a better idea for democracy.
"Corporate propaganda directed outwards, that is, to the public at large, has two main objectives: to identify the free enterprise system in popular consciousness with every cherished value, and to identify interventionist governments and strong unions (the only agencies capable of checking a complete domination of society by corporations) with tyranny, oppression and even subversion. The techniques used to achieve these results are variously called 'public relations', 'corporate communications' and 'economic education'." Alex Carey 'Taking the Risk out of Democracy' [see also
]Democracy after Citizens United | MIT Video
American Democracy today has come to support corporate BS about free markets and other nonsense that has no real meaning outside linguistic loop de loops. Consider any issue you like, healthcare for one, and you can easily see the pernicious influence of CU. Should a democracy legalize pernicious nonsense by allowing corporations the power to buy congress and the media sphere? Trying to convince anyone of the deleterious effect of Citizens United passed 5-4 by five justices that operated their whole life outside the real world (a very experienced lawyer I know, mentioned this in conversation recently), I'll list two examples of the power corporate propaganda has over congress even though these examples have (or had) majority American citizen support. The question becomes does government operate for the wealthy corporations or does it operate for the nation and its people? I'm for the latter.
Example one: The sub prime mess and the lack of regulatory, or even sound economics, given the influence of wall street money.
"Abstract: Despite the considerable media attention given to the collapse of the market for complex structured assets that contain subprime mortgages, there has been too little discussion of why this crisis occurred. "The Subprime Crisis: Cause, Effect and Consequences" argues that three basic issues are at the root of the problem, the first of which is an odious public policy partnership, spawned in Washington and comprising hundreds of companies, associations and government agencies, to enhance the availability of "affordable housing" via the use of "creative financing techniques." Second, federal regulators have actively encouraged the rapid growth of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives and securities by all types of financial institutions. And third, also bearing blame for the subprime crisis is the related embrace by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board of "fair value accounting." After reviewing the Bush administration's proposed solutions as flawed, this article recommends a strategy for subprime crisis resolution. Job one is to rebuild market confidence in structured assets by going back to "first principles" on issues such as market transparency, standardization of contracts, and accounting treatment. By reducing complexity on the trade of structured assets through simple deal structures and providing investors with the information they need to analyze collateral, for example by requiring SEC registration and public pricing of assets, much of the current liquidity problem is ameliorated."
The Subprime Crisis: Cause, Effect and Consequences by R. Whalen :: SSRN
Example two: Paul Ryan's attempt to destroy Medicare. This review is a bit OT but the issue is the power of Insurance corporations to control Ryan and others. UHC in America is the example, once popular hurt by CU and its propaganda machine. Money talks and those who deny that reality are fools and its talk is multilingual.
"So consider: elderly people of limited means in the United States who are dependent on Medicare for their basic well-being—there are tens of millions of them—are rather clearly “vulnerable people.” Why, then, is it not equally problematic when a powerful congressman, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, advocates effectively eliminating the program that benefits these vulnerable people, indeed, keeps them alive? “Hatred,” after all, is not the issue as Waldron says, and no one, I assume, thinks Rep. Ryan “hates” the elderly or the poor. He may simply be stupid, or in thrall to an ideology, or defective in empathetic capacity, or beholden to special interests; whatever the explanation, it is clear that his proposals, if enacted, would eventually result in elderly people in need being unable to afford essential healthcare." Brian Leiter review of 'The Harm in Hate Speech' by Jeremy Waldron,
Waldron on the Regulation of Hate Speech by Brian Leiter :: SSRN
Story of how here: "Historian Phillips-Fein traces the hidden history of the Reagan revolution to a coterie of business executives, including General Electric official and Reagan mentor Lemuel Boulware, who saw labor unions, government regulation, high taxes and welfare spending as dire threats to their profits and power. From the 1930s onward, the author argues, they provided the money, organization and fervor for a decades-long war against New Deal liberalism—funding campaigns, think tanks, magazines and lobbying groups, and indoctrinating employees in the virtues of unfettered capitalism." [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Making-Conservative-Movement/dp/0393059308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8]Amazon.com: Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (9780393059304): Kim Phillips-Fein: Books[/ame]
