A post in which I no longer feel the need to vote

I heard on the radio last night that George Bush finally succeeded in the one thing he really wanted from the start – he has sown the seeds for the final collapse of American Democracy. He didn’t do it directly, but he’s done it all the same. By packing the Supreme Court with a bunch of rabid “conservatives”, he has created a run-away court that will eventually be responsible for the fall of our government.

The decision was made yesterday, in the context of the case Citizens United v. FEC, to let corporations give unlimited funds to political candidates, and for political advertising. In short – they have cleared the way for us to be governed by Wal-Mart.

This legal earthquake overturns 100 years of Supreme Court legislation that tries to even the playing field for political candidates.

The reality is that only legislation has kept the pit bull out of the playground. According to Politico:

The decision reverses a 1990 ruling by the court that allowed the government to bar corporations and unions from spending general treasury funds on ads expressly urging a candidate’s election or defeat. And it overruled part of a 2003 decision that upheld restrictions on independent corporate expenditures enacted the preceding year in the seminal campaign finance overhaul act known as McCain-Feingold.

Many of the commentators seem to have the fairy tale viewpoint that corporations really don’t have much interest in politics. I would love to visit the world in which such Pollyannas exist.

For example:

• Any green candidate will be marketed out of existence by the powerful energy lobby. The existing coal and oil industries have fought tooth and nail against any kind of clean-up legislation for years. This gives them the ability to give unlimited dollars to any candidate that helps maintain the status quo. They have the unlimited dollars to spend.
  
• Any hope of health insurance reform goes out the window. With the Massachusetts seat that was Ted Kennedy’s going to a Republican, they can now filibuster any attempt to pass a Health Care Reform bill. You can bet that the again unlimited dollars that the Health Insurance lobby has to spend will swamp pro-health care reform candidates at mid-term elections.
  
• The prescription drug industry has already sponsored misleading campaigns about importing drugs from Canada. They now have free rein to spend as much as they would like to promote their agenda.

This radical reach was done at the insistence of John Roberts, a Bush appointee and Chief Justice. According to Politico:

Lower courts sided with the FEC, and the Supreme Court first heard the case in March. But in June, instead of coming back with a ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts asked the parties to return for a rare re-argument of the case — with a much broader focus.

Instead of merely arguing whether federal election laws should have applied to “Hillary: The Movie,” Roberts asked the parties to argue whether the court should reverse rulings in two prior cases upholding the government’s ability to limit corporate and union election spending.

So much for conservatism.

Again from Politico:

Fred Wertheimer, a longtime advocate of McCain-Feingold, called today’s ruling “the most radical and destructive campaign finance decision in Supreme Court history” and said the court’s majority had “abandoned longstanding judicial principles, judicial precedents and judicial restraint.”

On the radio last night, John Roberts had some BS to say about how “the right to free speech should extend to corporations” too. Have you ever heard of a corporation that had trouble getting its message heard? Because I haven’t.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that a large portion of the blame lies with the bone-idle laziness of those who bother to vote. One of the reason that such massive amounts of cash are needed to run a campaign is that the American voters (a minority to start with) rarely do more than watch political ads on television. The vast majority of those who do bother to vote do so without ever seeking any independent information on their candidate, and without picking up a newspaper.

The saving grace of this is supposed to be that the source of funding on the barrage of corporate-sponsored ads is supposed to be “transparent”. The definition of that “transparency” will be important. Do you really think that lazy voters are going to check to see who paid for the ads they’re content to be spoon-fed? If sourcing information comes at the end of the ad, as a disclaimer, maybe. But if you have to crack a book, newspaper, or even go on the internet to find out the source of said funding, the vast majority will never bother. If they aren’t going to research their candidate, I think we can safely assume they aren’t going to research the source of funds promoting him. So, barring a reversal, or some infusion of sanity (which I am skeptical enough to doubt in our present broken system of government), this is the end. I think the nation will probably stand for my lifetime. I am selfish enough to take solace in that. But the days in the nation in which we live today are numbered, starting today.

Commentators agree that the change in laws will benefit the Republican party. Bush and Roberts are apparently ready to sacrifice the country for the sake of their party. This is amazingly short-sighted, even for neo-"conservatives".

Get ready for corporations to stop pulling the strings, and start running the candidates. God forbid I should live to see a McDonald’s president. George W Bush and John Roberts may well do what Saddam Hussein could not – end the American way of life.

Let the record show that you were there - the day the American government was SOLD to the highest bidder. John Roberts was the auctioneer, George W Bush set up the sale, and the republican party sold the country for partisanship.