SCOTUS Deliberately Set Out To Give Corporations/Rich Control-& Turn America Into A Plutocracy

[kpete]

"Citizens United was an attempt by five justices to push future electoral outcomes in a direction that would entrench their approach to governance"

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The Citizens United catastrophe: E.J. Dionne goes there, suggesting that the Supreme Court deliberately set out to give corporations and the rich near-total control over our political system, which is to say, it deliberately set out to turn America into a plutocracy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum-americans-agree-with-obama-on-taxes-economic-fairness/2012/02/06/gIQA5EpptQ_blog.html

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The Citizens United catastrophe
By E.J. Dionne Jr.


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But ascribing an outrageous decision to naivetéis actually the most sympathetic way of looking at what the court did in Citizens United. A more troubling interpretation is that a conservative majority knew exactly what it was doing: that it set out to remake our political system by fiat in order to strengthen the hand of corporations and the wealthy. Seen this way, Citizens United was an attempt by five justices to push future electoral outcomes in a direction that would entrench their approach to governance.

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In fact, this decision should be seen as part of a larger initiative by moneyed conservatives to rig the electoral system against their opponents. How else to explain conservative legislation in state after state to obstruct access to the ballot by lower-income voters — particularly members of minority groups — through voter identification laws, shortened voting periods and restrictions on voter registration campaigns?

Conservatives are strengthening the hand of the rich at one end of the system and weakening the voting power of the poor at the other. As veteran journalist Elizabeth Drew noted in an important New York Review of Books article, “little attention is being paid to the fact that our system of electing a president is under siege.”

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In the short run, Congress should do all it can within the limits of Citizens United to contain the damage it is causing. In the long run, we have to hope that a future Supreme Court will overturn this monstrosity, remembering that the first words of our Constitution are “We the People,” not “We the Rich.”

MORE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-citizens-united-catastrophe/2012/02/05/gIQATOEfsQ_story.html

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. K&R

[madamesilverspurs]

2. Not surprising for the Roberts court,

considering Roberts' own part in engineering the outcome of Florida 2000. SCOTUS has been pleasuring the wealthy ever since, confirming that direction with the installation of Roberts as head pimp.

[Bandit]

4. What was Roberts part in the Florida 2000 election?

He certainly was not a Justice at the time..

[librechik]

11. Among other things, he was supposedly in the Brooks Brothers riot, which shut down counting ballots

also


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0721-07.htm

and this, with confirms
http://usliberals.about.com/b/2005/07/20/court-nominee-john-roberts-advised-jeb-bush-on-2000-florida-election.htm

[Bandit]

3. Haven't they already established that Corporations ARE people?

I am glad I am quite old and probably won't live long enough to see the final results of Total Conservative Rule.....I guess I could look to Nazi germany as a fairly accurate guide and then I shudder..

[newspeak]

6. yeah, well the scotus

already showed their true colors during the little boots vs gore ruling. When two of these cretins should have recused themselves because of conflict of interest. They needed that coup. Because of their self interest decisions and shady dealings, I have no respect, none whatsoever, for most of the court. It is a joke, a laughingstock; except that it rots the very core of our foundation.

What matters more in this country now is not honor, not honesty, not compassion; but, out right greed, cheating, lying and anything to make an extra buck or screw someone. The fish rots from the head down, and it's been rotting for quite some time now.

They can spout all the religious bullshite they want; doesn't make them righteous at all. Just more of the pharisees praying in public while screwing their followers.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. Yeah, but if people THINK FOR THEMSELVES, no amount of $ can sway them.

Of course, if they've been conditioned from an early age by authority figures to blandly accept pablums and bullshit from on high when couched in meaningless words that they've nevertheless been told carry not just meaning but weight, then that mountain will be increasingly difficult to climb.

[hootinholler]

7. I seem to remember something about the court send the case back to the lawyers

For them to expand their arguments. Originally it was a narrowly focused case that would not have resulted in the sweeping allowance of corporate money into campaigns.

[SalviaBlue]

8. K&R

[cstern]

9. It's not just Citizens United

This trend of treating corporations like people under the 1st Amendment and treating money like speech actually began way back in the 1970s. What Citizens United did was alter the balancing test by saying that the government no longer has a compelling interest in preventing corporations from fundamentally distorting the electoral process through massive cash expenditures, thereby making it so restrictions on corporate spending cannot pass strict scrutiny under the 1st Amendment. The truly insane precedents (corporations are people, money is speech) are really pretty old--Citizens United just knocked out the last, feeble plank of wood holding the dam in check.

[LiberalFighter]

10. There needs to be ethics requirements for scotus

and if they fail to meet to those requirements such as attending seminars put on by law firms or corporations they should be castrated.

[malaise]

12. Excellent read

Rec