Requiescat in pace, United States of America. Born July 4, 1776, died January 21, 2010.
Severely weakened after a long battle with corporate greed, the United States was finally dealt its death blow by the Supreme Court today in their decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The case overturns a longstanding precedent decision, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which had allowed states to ban corporations from using money from their company coffers to support or oppose candidates through independent expenditures. The Court ruled, in effect, that money does not enable speech, it is speech in and of itself, and as such, to deny corporations the right to spend money as they see fit abridges on their First Amendment rights.
That the decision today grants individual rights to entities that are not individual natural persons is both asinine and profoundly sickening. When wealthy corporations are given the right to spend as much money as they wish in order to influence elections, this necessarily comes at the expense of ordinary citizens' rights, since you and I do not, presumably, have several billion dollars in liquid assets to throw around. If the Supreme Court of the United States is willing to so severely abridge the rights of American citizens, and moreover, if it makes no effort to hide this fact, then the American Experiment is over.
The United States is survived by thousands of wealthy corporations which will assume its duties of governance now that the major barrier to their outright purchasing of legislators is gone. A Mass of Christian Burial (since, y'know, this was a Christian country) will be offered at 11:00 Sunday on the steps of the former U.S. Capitol building, which will be renamed the "Coca-Cola Capidrome" in a short ceremony to follow.
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The National Lawyers' Guild, founded in 1937 in the depths of the Great Depression, stated in its founding document that its mission shall be "to function as an effective political and social force in the service of the People, to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests." Being as this decision will almost certainly limit the Guild's ability "to function as an effective political and social force" on account of its (comparatively) limited resources, I suggest amending the statement with a few words from Malcom X:
"[Our mission] shall be to function as an effective political and social force in the service of the People, to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY."
3 comments:
this is crushing
this is such a stupid entry that it's an embarrassment to the school
Hey Anonymous, maybe when you acquire the strength of character to stand by your words (say, by posting under your given name,) then people might want to listen to what you have to say. As it stands now, this is not the case. Please come back when you're ready to be an adult and not a damn coward.
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