Always remember, there are more of us than they’re are of you.

Slowly but surely the sleeping population is being
lead
towards globalization and a single world order. But
keep watching Dancing with the Stars and American
Idol
like we’ve been doing for the past 10 years. Yeah our
population is brimming with Einsteins… hah
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Slowly but surely the sleeping population is being lead
towards globalization and a single world order. But
keep watching Dancing with the Stars and American Idol
like we’ve been doing for the past 10 years. Yeah our
population is brimming with Einsteins… hah
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I don’t have the space to cite all
fastest animal the precedents the court would have to set aside, going back to the Buckley campaign finance top ten history ruling of 1976, if it threw out the very prohibition on corporate money. Suffice it to say that there is one member of the court who has spoken
Jubail Jobs eloquently about the
Top 10 dangers of ignoring precedents. -Jubail

The Supreme Court was designed to be insulated from most of the political process. After being nominated by the president then voted on by the Congress. The life time part of it too was to keep them from being manipulated. In 1789 it was safer for them than 2010 when there are big bucks in control and bribery is legal it may be that those nominated may already be employees of whatever corporations want Justices to do their bidding. If they need to.

Yes, corporations already have a hugely disproportionate influence in American politics.  But Dione is right in that a Supreme Court decision could pretty much make this influence overwhelming and permanent.Take a week off work. Don’t buy or sell a damn thing. Eat only what’s in the back of your cupboard. Don’t replace it. And switch off your television.  Votes have always been tampered with throughout history but now whole states and regions can be fixed.santa letters

The world is watching and the obvious partisan divisiveness was embarrassing. Sadly it does not appear that nice has any place in Washington but Obama has called an end to politics as usual. There is a time and a place for everything. It would be easy for Barack Obama to assume W.‘s swagger and Nixon’s ego but that is not what inspires and motivates people to work for social change and towards social responsibility. facebook farmville cheats

The question left begging StuartH from your articulate comments is how do ordinary people
affect any decisions of the Supreme Court?  It takes lawyers years to get on the docket.  We do not
have access to the justices.  There is no public pipeline, right?  At this point in time, I realize we
just have to see what that turns out to be with respect to the corporations and unlimited donations
to political candidates?  It is a fait accompli.  I just want to clarify it for myself.  Whether it will be
a split or unanimous decision is what will be telling, no?  Then, the majority on the Supreme Court
wins, finite, it is all over and the fat lady will have died in the middle of her song.

When Bush was Governor of Texas, his appointments to the Texas Supreme
Court were obviously the sort of people who were straight A students,
graduated and went straight to law school and then went straight into
penthouse suite corporate law firms.  They never worked at the “street level.”

It was obvious that his rhetoric about “strict constructionism” didn’t match the
reality.  The Texas Supreme Court, packed by Bush, was about nullifying jury
decisions where awards against hospitals, HMOs and other corporations was
the issue.  It was tort reform by another name. 

I wonder if “strict constructionism” hasn’t all along really meant taking sides in
the Republic versus populism-oriented democracy definition of what America
should be.

If you think about the elitism, by today’s standards, in the Founders
calculations; and the subsequent evolution over the next two centuries towards
a more enlightened public capable of really taking a role in a democratic state,
it may be that what is meant by going back to the Founders’ intentions, means
setting the clock back and re-instituting an elitist governance. 

If this is the case, then the Democratic Party really needs to get its shit together
to create an argument for a liberal interpretation of the Framers’ intentions that
is more in line with the social evolution we have been promulgating through
history towards the ideal of democracy. 

I think the closest I have heard is the “Living Constitution” concept.  While the
conservatives howl and clamor for “strict constructionism” we have more muted
and guarded language from liberals.  Not much to rally around.

Just a little more fill-in on ‘democracy’ if anyone has an iota of interest.  The closest thing to a
real democracy appeared in ancient Greece, uniquely Athens to be exact, as the other city-
states had other forms of population control!  I.e., tyrannies, baronial systems (kingships), etc. 
The Greek historian, Thucydides, gives the acclaim of giving democracy to Athens to Pericles
who argued that democracy is connected permanently to the idea of toleration.  And toleration
was a virtue!  The Athenians in particular were highly concerned about virtues and vices. 
Hmmmm, ought we to take a lesson from that?  On another forum, I made mention about
both Plato’s and Aristotle’s condemnation of democracy.  I briefly repeat it here:  Plato said
democracy gave control of the government from experts in governing to populist demagogues
(Plato, and Soc, and Harry were somewhat elitists); Aristotle thought that government by
the people and for the people was government by the poor who could be expected to strip all
political voice from the rich.  Harry Stotle, did, however, note a justification of majority rule
because the majority ought to be sovereign, and not the ‘best’ because in fact the best were
few.  Of course a tyrant would not have cared for Aristotle’s view on that score.  It was called a
democracy because all citizens could take part in political decisions.  The word citizen is the
key however because women, slaves, and residents migrating from other places had no right
to participate in voting.  Hence, only about a quarter of the adult population were free male
citizens.

The question then arises, what is the least number of legal residents that must be
enfranchised (having a voting endowment) for a government to be called democratic?  While it
is not a simple matter since there could be a variety of ratios, it seems ‘majority’ satisfies the
clearest definition and majority means more than half.  In elections where there are only two
candidates no problem, but when there are three or more, a majority becomes very difficult to
achieve.  We can witness this problem today in Afghanistan and a couple of months ago in
Iran.

Night-Giant:

My apologies for the narrow comments. I was typing in the box provided, and just
discovered that it can be widened. Any further posts will be so accommodative.

AA

You have heard of the written word, audio recordings, film in cameras? I defer to you if you don’t need them.

Night Guant, you remember Woodrow Wilson? I defer my seniority to you.

Congress could craft a law and if it is a good law and it passes without adulteration Obama could veto it still. Only a large number of votes in the Congress would override it. Protection for the law could be with a rider that is so important Obama might not want to veto. But that same rider could be reintroduced on other bills or on its own so he could still veto it. See how many hurdles there are? I didn’t even go into the parts about who would actually craft the law or if it would do anything to help us either. [There are many ways to make a law that helps the very business it is supposed to rule over. It is called corruption of gov’t.] The morass is deep and messy with very little clean fresh water (like Feingold, Boxer, Sanders & Kucinich) in it. Mostly mud and muckwamps* in that stinking fen.

Please AvonAgitator use the full width of the lines and your urls will be fully active. Use the automatic breaks instead of your own and it will be fully active. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/09/07/AR2009090702040.html Also we can thank Woodrow Wilson for starting the reference of our republic to a “democracy” in his speeches if I can remember correctly. Technically we are a democratic republic. We started out as a confederation but lost it to the silent coup of the federalists like Hamilton & John Jay with the ambivalent Madison saving the day with the distilled anti-Federalist document, the Bill of Rights (of the people) saved the day and cursed us to this day.

*Muckwamp- a mythical beast that is ugly, smelly and doesn’t look much different from the muck it lives in. Fast and sneaky when it wants to be and its smell matches the swamps odor. So outside of its environment, the warty bug-eyed beast is easily spotted. That swamp is Washington, District of Columbia.

The French Revolution doesn’t seem to have been particularly democratic, unless you’re using democratic very broadly, as when people refer to the United States as democratic.  I’m afraid actual democracy is much less dramatic, town meetings in New England and all that sort of thing, people discussing sewer contracts.  Very tedious.

Fat Freddy:

Are you by any chance kin to Phineas and Freewheelin’
Frank? If so, I must say I’ve long admired your core
philosophy of relative values. Just askin’...

Glad to see at least a couple of folks here
understand the critical differences between
republican and democratic government forms, and why
it is important to liberty that the republican form
prevail.

The rest of you, who insist on the democracy model
(as you imagine it to be), might wish to revisit that
great historical model of democracy in action, the
French Revolution. Admittedly, “off with their heads”
eases certain gut-level frustrations, but scarcely
leads to fruitful political discourse.

As far as the central issue of Dionne’s column, which
I believe involved a ringing endorsement of stare
decisis (and thereby, by logical extension, Plessey
v. Ferguson and Dred Scott) I offer this quote:

“Stare decisis does matter, and justices should think
long and hard before overturning decisions ... (b)ut
you can’t have a system that says if you make a
mistake, it must stand forever.” And that’s not this
old, beat-up pundit preaching, but ACLU mouthpiece
Steven Shapiro, uh, agitating on behalf of (grasp
tightly your knotted panties, progressives) Citizens
United.

Check this uncommonly good WashPost piece:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2009/09/07/AR2009090702040.html

To you corpanoids out there: quit watching scary
movies and get some real-world experience. You’ll
sleep better.

As far from a student of the law as anyone can get, my curiousity was aroused
by your logic.  So the Supreme Court gets off the hook by putting certain limits
on businesses. But, since anyone can get an EIN #, and checkbooks with any
number of business names on it, it can skirt the FEC, and make whatever
amount of contribution as it wants to whomever it wants.  So in effect, there is
no limit.  Is that right Fat Freddy?  Love your name and your sleuthing.

I’m probably way off, but it was fun walking the walk.

Okay, so now that it has been revealed, what can be done about it?  Wouldn’t
there have to be some law involved?  And so herewegoagain has an
excellent question.

But a little research will yield an answer and I still want to say again, I thought
the logic and the subsequent question were brilliant. Apparently the answer
is….yes!

A couple of references:  A paper given at the MidWest Political Science
Association, Chicago, IL, April 3-6, 2008 title: Regulatory Statute, Supreme
Court Decisions, and Congressional Overrides given by Jason D. Mycoff
Assistant Professor University of Delaware
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/6/6/2/7/p
266275_index.html
Scroll down to a set of options for Get this document about half way down the
page.  Click on All Academic, Inc. and it will download the PDF.

The other is a book by Jeb Barnes, Overruled?: Legislative Overrides,
Pluralism, and Contemporary Court-Congress Relations - Since the mid-
1970s, Congress has passed hundreds of overrides—laws that explicitly seek
to reverse or modify judicial interpretations of statutes. Try amazon dot com.

Oh, herewegoagain I do know that the Mayflower Compact is not a
document that anybody but some old codger historians read in this day and
age.  I was just offering for clarification sake how the word Democracy
overtook the word Republic since the latter is closer to the kind of government
we have.  That was part of the history of the use of the word.  We just
think we have a Democracy.  It sounds good and deceives a gullible
public.

Anybody still watching this thread? I don’t want to waste this great comment.

Here’s the deal. Let’s say the SCOTUS rules that businesses can directly contribute to a campaign. There will probably be limits. I don’t think even this court will allow unlimited contributions. Individuals and PACs are currently under limits. Businesses can fund PACs. All PACs must be registered with the FEC. Individuals only need a name and a SS# and need not register with the FEC.

If businesses are not required to register for direct funding of campaigns then, I suppose, only a business name and an EIN (Employer Identification Number, also known as a TIN (taxpayer Identification Number)) is all that will be needed.

EIN numbers are obtained, by request, from the IRS (so they can keep track of your business, and make sure you are paying taxes). They are used in place of a SS#. Any individual can get an EIN for as many businesses as he or she wants. With an EIN, and a business name attatched to it (Ajax Plumbing, for example), a checking account, with only the business name on it, can be opened.

See where I’m going with this? An individual can open as many checking accounts as he wants with a different business name on each one. And only the IRS and the bank will know, not the FEC.

Figure out the rest, I’m tired and going to bed.

Monolithic corporations are not individuals and should not be able to spend billions—in effect millions-of-votes-worth of influence—to make the decisions for 300 million of us in the US. Its interests are counter to the welfare of the 6.6 billion on our planet. It should not be a legal entity with global resources that it can use to screw the rest of us.

Stuwart H, Thanks for the information, it seems one hears words bandied about out of context every day and by osmosis start accepting them under the constant repetition as designed.  McCarthy seemed to do the same with the words socialism and Communism, as some on the right loves to do even now. 

Seems we need to question sources, for credibility by planned deception seems more than less.

Good Lord, Shenonymous, my mispellings are starting to make a truth of their own.  I may be in the grip of a Lower Power.

From listening to exerpts on c-span today, ie Roberts et als, questioning, I have to ssay that it doesnt look good. I was half expecting the attornies for the govt to say, “Well, since youve already decided…”

I could be wrong. Hope I am.

Lee:

I think the word “fascism” has come to mean “anything I don’t like.”  We are in a world where some care needs to be taken with our words. Enough careless language usage and we can no longer use language to say what we really mean.

Under Mussolini, which is where the modern term gets its definition, what was really going on was a military dictatorship in which dissent was dealt with through state terror.  People were arrested, tormented, and if not released so they could talk about the torture they underwent, were shot. 

Under Pinochet, probably a fascist dictator, that was pretty much the scene.  There are still efforts underway to figure out what happened to those who disappeared.  The Desaparecidos they are called.

Corporate influence on American life and politics is less dramatic.  The question is whether an enlightened public can repel the worst attempts at societal control through political action. 

A lot of what we see that frustrates us is economic control over employees and consumers, or control through effective PR techniques, including heavy influence over the mainstream media. 

The reason the Supreme Court case causes concern is that an increase in political power for corporations is likely if they can have free speech rights by spending unlimited money.  That will mean an increase in lobbying, and an increase in the variety and ubiquity of political messages in advertising.

If we note how powerful advertising has been as a means of turning citizens into consumers over the past fifty years, we begin to see how much more there is that we have not seen.

Those who think we are already a fascist state may perhaps long for the present day with real nostalgia.  Of course, the fight goes on and what the next chapter will look like is hard to predict.

My preference is to see how the decision is written.

And the Media told the world the good old USA was spreading seeds of democracy around the world, like Johnny Apple seed. Could it be possible we are really not even a Republic but a Fascist state, especially if this next step of corporate control happens? 

My view of fascism, which may be wrong, Fascism means business and government working together and in control.  One looking at the bile out may see close bed partners of some sort between government and business and money lobby influence over Congress.

As I said in a previous piece, if the Supreme Court facilitates Corporations’ ability to buy Congress and the Senate, it would be a disaster for the entire world, not only America.

But, there’s one encouraging thought. At least a spade will be a spade. By doing this, it will fully expose a practice that has been going on since the Reagan years under the charade of democracy.

If democracy is officially abolished in the United States, then the whole world will have something indisputable to fight for. Not even Republicans will stand for the end of democracy.

One of the factors in the Democracy vs Republic discussion is what happened
during the course of the twentieth century and before that, which caused a
shift in how the public participates in decision making.

To broad brush it, the development of a public school system was not
anticipated by the Founders, who could not have foreseen how local citizens
would support the use of property taxes paid by a middle class (they also could
not have foreseen) to fund public education.  This created a wider base of
participation than any of the Founders would have dared propose was even possible.

The story of Abraham Lincoln studying by kerosene lantern light in a log cabin, while an fabled mythical archetype, nevertheless approximates nineteenth century reality. 

Some might appreciate, from a study of the history of literature, that Harriet Beecher Stowe was known in her time for being probably the first woman to make a living as a writer, and for kind of inventing the Redbook magazine sort of genre of middle class home style that Martha Stewart has inherited.  That was when middle classness more or less approximated literacy, as stories were shared in the parlor where family, friends and neigbors gathered. 

To jump ahead, after WWII, the GI Bill really changed the numbers.  After you have a college educated cohort of men and women, who experienced a wider world than their farms and
small towns because of the way, you had voters with a greater reach.

They wanted the fruits of middle class prosperity that they achieved in the 1950s for the next generation, so going to college became widely perceived as a matter of course for smart kids ambitious to seek the good life. 

These successive waves of people, enlarged by the fruits of medical science, have really created a grey area of the distinction between Republic and Democracy, such that many people use the terms interchangeable. 

Now, with the internet beginning to supercede the mainstream media as a means of interactive dialogue across the whole population young and old, there is going to be a further blurring of the distinction. 

However, the question before the Supreme Court may create another dark prospect while we ponder the positive evolution in our civics terminology.

Can corporations become a government that supercedes the Constitution?

Will the Republic, connoting elite oligarchy, be restored above the hoi poloi democracy rising?

I think that is a terrifying question.

Chief Justice Roberts and members of the court wre chosen from elite corporate law backgrounds, possibly because those with influence around Dick Cheney and George Bush knew this was inevitable.

Has Obama arrived too late to appoint a Supreme Court that can look at this with balance or will the Court be eager to use this to move back towards the Republic concept that seems to be what the Founders had in mind?

Americans operate under a false understanding of what a Democracy is. 
America is not a Democracy.  But everyone wrongly uses the term
interchangeably with the form of government called a Republic.  The founders
of America explicitly did not create a democracy as it was thought then that
the term indicated mob rule. In fact, they equated democracy with tyranny. To
avoid that, they created a “constitutional republic” instead.  Yes, it was decided
by a “few” good men.  What might often cause the mistake that America has a
Democratic government is a document known as the Mayflower Compact. This
was a document the Plymouth Colony, the surviving voyagers of the Mayflower,
sign where they basically agreed to govern themselves. These colonists agreed
they would, ” . . . combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our
better Ordering and Preservation.”  With this agreement, they in fact created a
Democracy wherein the citizens agreed to directly participate in the governance
process.  At that time there were only about 40 colonists, so having all
colonists involved in self-government was entirely feasible. 

As the new country expanded, however, it became unrealistic and
unmanageable to have a body politic responsible for every governing decision
became unrealistic. The founders realized that a constitutional republic,
wherein the people would be only indirectly involved in the governing process.
It was for the sake of efficiency, the citizens were asked to delegate the
governance to the sovereign (government) through the election process. And
the representative form of American republican government came into being.

In spite of that fact, that the founders incisively changed the government from
a Democracy to a Constitutional Republic, today most Americans, incuding
politicians and newsmedia, wrongly believe that the terms Democracy and
Constitutional Republic are equal and can be substituted for each other. Not
true!  The founders saw a real distinction between these ideas. As the third
Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall reminded: “between a balanced
republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.” 
James Madison, thought that democracy was “the right of the people to choose
their own tyrant.”

The Republic form of government has the checks and balances of the three
branches of a federally directed government, which is why it is called the
Federal Government, and your paper money is called Federal Notes.  And like it
or not, this form of government is a system in which a minority faction is
protected, even the smallest faction.  It is just that the word Republic has a
very negative connotation to some of us.  Repugnant as a matter of fact. 

Accurately defined, a Democracy is a form of government where the people
decide policy matters directly—through town hall meetings (which is
interesting given that we have just had a spate of town hall meetings) or by
voting on ballot initiatives and referendums. A Republic, which is what we have,
is the system in which the people choose representatives who, in turn, make
policy decisions on their behalf.  It became popular to use the word
“democracy” come to mean a form of government whereby the government is
granted its power from the people and is accountable to them for the use of
that power. In this sense the United States might accurately be called a
Democracy.

There is a lot of overlap between the terms republic and democracy.  Usually, if they are contrasted, the difference seems to be that in a republic the government is set up so that only the rich, powerful and high in social status can affect the machinery of government, in contrast to “mob rule” where people are in theory more or less equal.  The U.S. Constitution, then, was indeed a republic-not-a-democracy from the outset, and that is what we have now, for better or worse.  I don’t know what the republic-not-a-democracy folks have to complain about; did someone seriously ask them what policies the government should adopt?  I doubt it.

Just what exactly are we getting from these super colleges and their so called degrees?
These situations remind me of an old song. “I would like to change the world” by “Ten years later”
Any simple minded person could tell them that even considering the idea is nothing short of criminal.
After witnessing the Presidency of G.W.Bush and knowing that he graduated from Harvard and Yale, I could also take into account that the diploma of graduation from these colleges can be bought and not earned. This might explain the total mess of government, banks and corporate America. But then that would be impossible since these positions are all filled by the cream of the slop.

Most comments seem deadly right!  (Folktruther did you really mean Truthdip?
Hearty laugh here!) Okay, so now that we see the alpha decay caused by
corporations and the possible problem that can be created by the Supreme Court
which has here been thoroughly identified by the truthdippers, what can be done
about it?  Are you here to solve problems or just rant about them?

BlueEagle, September 8 at 9:21 pm #

Good point and you are correct, but; forgive the name
and listen to the information; I don’t hear it anywhere
else. Amy Goodman has more integrity than all of the
MSM combined.

The US was not set-up as a Democracy nor did the founders ever want us to live in a Democracy. Democracy is mob rule.

The US was set up as a Constitutional Republic (if you can keep it). Rules are supposed to govern the mobs.

I don’t want Democracy Now. I prefer to have my Republic back Now.

Since the first comment by Ouroborus, which included this link, will probably
roll down off the bottom of the column soon, the recommendation to review
the Bill Moyer’s Journal segment about this case is well worth repeating:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09042009/watch.html

The debate back and forth between the attorneys involved in the Supreme
Court case on both sides was very informative.

I hope the Supreme Court doesn’t go for the corporate argument.  Given the
nature of the way the attorney separated the “speech” argument from the
“money” argument, it seemed to me it could go either way.  I felt like the
argument against corporate influence in political speech was more persuasive,
but then I am not on the Supreme Court.

In thinking about this, I also see that a case brought about by a non-profit group in New Mexico, the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) based in Albuquerque, was won by SWOP in local federal district court.  The state Attorney General apparently is appealing it. 

Basically this arose because of a mailing about health care and social justice concerns involved in state legislation.  The piece evaluated legislators’ stands relative to public interests.  The legislators involved got pissed off because they felt this exposed them to political reprisal at election time, even though the group was careful to stay out of election season. 

If SWOP succeeds, this could expand the comfort zone for 501(c)3 community organizing groups educating the public about public policy and legislation, and if they lose, this could restrict the public education function of non-profits.  It would be important to watch both cases.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/4/republican_gomorrah_inside_the_movement_that

Fully activated link to the Blumenthal interview on Democracy Now.

We have been losing our democratic-republic. We are not a democracy and shouldn’t want to be one. Mob rule, the greatest number trumps everyone else.

The rot has spread to the Democrats and even the Libertarians (they like their economic freedom part of it) have the taint. They want to dominate it all too.

Well, I was going to say two things (that we lost this one when everyone thinks that the SC declared a “corporation ” a “person”) (which they did not):

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2469/how-can-a-corporation-be-legally-considered-a-person

Hartmann in Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights (2002)—”...the whole thing began as a courtroom comment by a judge, which was elevated to the status of legal precedent by an overreaching court reporter.

When the case reached the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Morrison Waite supposedly prefaced the proceedings by saying, “The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.” In its published opinion, however, the court ducked the personhood issue, deciding the case on other grounds.

Then the court reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis, stepped in. Although the title makes him sound like a mere clerk, the court reporter is an important official who digests dense rulings and summarizes key findings in published “headnotes.” (Davis had already had a long career in public service, and at one point was president of the board of directors for the Newburgh & New York Railroad Company.) In a letter, Davis asked Waite whether he could include the latter’s courtroom comment—which would ordinarily never see print—in the headnotes. Waite gave an ambivalent response that Davis took as a yes. Eureka, instant landmark ruling.”

And, that we are already a corporate state, but its already been said here, better than I , I see..

Any person on the street knows that a “corporation ” is not a person, but, in the uS, a corporation has many MORE rights than individuals! If a person tried to treat a corporation the way some individuals are treated in this country, they would be thrown in GITMO!

Sorry, the previous link is the whole show; here’s a
link for the interview with MB only;

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/4/republican_gomorra
h_inside_the_movement_that

IMO, if one is posting here, or any similar site, and
not following Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now; then one is
missing a lot.

Amy Goodman interview with Max Bloomenthal on Friday,
September 4th;

http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2009/9/4

More important would be reading or seeing Max Bloomenthal talking about his new book “Republican Gamorra” and the dangers of the very groups I have been talking about that are part of the movement that is also allied with the Cabal whether they know it or not. The theocrats who want to make sure we never get anything more than corporate health care and wars and the destruction of the New Deal and our liberties as they see it.

Well, another timely program; Amy Goodman’s Democracy
Now featured an older program with U. Utah Phillips. A
must see, IMO.
Here’s a link;  http://www.democracynow.org/

So, tell us what you’re doing, srelf!!

Democracy is a constant battle. No “founding father”, civil-rights champion,
constitution, or president, for that matter will, give it to us. EACH generation
needs to fight for it.
Please stop the whining and start doing something about it that requires more
than off-the-cuff thinking and keyboarding!

I fully expect the Supine Court (including Sotomayor) to yield an affirmative decision.  This is one more nail (few are needed) in the coffin of the United States which is heading toward out and out, and “uniquely American”, form of fascism.

From http://www.greens.org/s-r/35/35-19.html

“Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person. Like abolishing slavery, the work of eradicating corporate personhood takes us to the deepest questions of what it means to be human. If we are to live in a democracy, what does it mean to be sovereign? The hardest part of eliminating corporate personhood is believing that We the People have the sovereign right to do this. It comes down to us being clear about who’s in charge.”

E-voting was just the most recent weapon in the arsenal of subversion of our voting rights. It has a part in manipulation of our votes but not total. The older methods of stuffing ballots; broken down and fewer machines in poorer and darker precincts; best working, newest and greatest number in the richer whiter districts, suppression and losing of ballots; disavowing poor/darker ballots as “tainted” while doing the opposite for the richer/whiter ones. Other methods include calling the areas (poorer/darker) and telling them lies about which day to come in, needing more ID and say they can’t vote if…ways to diswade them from voting at all.

After 2000 we fully lost control of our votes. 2004 in Ohio that state was brought in for GWBush no matter who voted for whom. Even so if we don’t get an obvious Republican, we tend to get a Democrat who is a cryptic Republican. Se we lose either way. Just as what happened when we got the stealth candidate in Barak H. Obama who is a wolf in Liberal clothing. How much longer can he play the American people as fools? Not much longer. The Progressive Caucus has drawn that line in the sand. But it won’t help if the Public Option is a ghost of itself and won’t be of much help.

Consider the reich-wing noise machine not only building up the psychological environment of murder, but also it hides Obama‘s continuing plans to maintain and increase the corporate authoritarianism that is more evident than before, for those who can see it.  We are seeing a Continueity In Gov’t of the crypto-fascism that has been building since 1980. We are far from safe from another economic meltdown.

Dionne has decided to go into comedy, getting bored with simply supporting the right wing all the time.  He has taken to the rooftops to warn us of the possiblity of corporations controlling our government!  What a danger!  Luckily we have the Paul Reveres of Truthdip to keep the public informed. 

Because otherwise political hacks would be used by these same to misinform the population and idvert attention from how they re being swindled.

The advent of Diebold and the manipulation of votes was a real knife through the heart of democracy.  Votes have always been tampered with throughout history but now whole states and regions can be fixed.

Oh, please.  We haven’t had anything like a democracy since the richest men in America wrote a constitution institutionalizing rule by the richest men in America.

You mean when a Newspaper offers big money to publish propoganda? You mean that kind of threat to “Democracy”?
Since the Washington Post’s editors are actually Defense Contractors (who yes, have a big stake in preventing health care reform), ponitifications from a staff hack are to be taken with a grain of salt. Who believes any politician, including (shockingly) members of the Supreme Court aren’t bought and sold?

E. J. Dionne is probably not aware that the U.S. political mainstream is already controlled by large corporations!

This decision should it turn the tides of corporate financing loose on American political campaigns, would not spell the end of democracy as we know and love it, Democracy as we know it ended the day the Supreme Court interjected itself into a State Supreme Court matter during the campaign of George Walker Bush and Albert Gore Jr.
There is nowhere in the Constitution that gives the Supreme Court the privilege and responsibility to decide elections that have already been decided by the people. For the Supreme Court of the United States of America to overturn the will of the people, was the most audacious act of an activist court that could never have been imagined.
I am certain, based on my readings of recent Supreme Court cases that this term will see the expunging of laws 100 or more years old, that gave the citizens the right and responsibility of electing their own representatives to the Congress and the President.
More and more, cases are being tried and conducted on a pro-business and laizzes-faire business model.
When in point of fact, the Supreme Court has no such Constitutional authority or responsibility.
The end of democracy as we learned in Civics classes throughout school, happened that day so very long ago, when they decided to take the law into their own hands and voted twice for the shrub, because he ain’t a bush, George Walker Bush.

Um, isn’t “democracy” already dead here in Amerika? Regular Americans have NO
access to members of Congress. Well, not unless regular American can offer up a
bag full of cash. Kind of like a ‘votive offering’. The two headed Republi/Demo
Party of War is all the voter is offered and that is surely not “democracy.” Regular
Americans are quagmired in a kleptocracy (corporatocracy?) and regular
Americans are being driven to a poor house.
Yeah, democracy is pretty much dead in America.

Interesting timing for this article; Bill Moyers had a
debate about this very subject on his Friday show.
Here’s a link to it;
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09042009/watch.html

Definitely worth a watch as the worm turns.