[A-List] Expect the Supreme Court to next rule that Wal-Mart can run for President.

[Nadja Tesich]

comment
 I MISS INFORMATION ABOUT people
in USA,People in France,Germany and Eastern Europe.In Serbia-the strikes of workerss are on.
Nadja
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> From: james.irldaly at ntlworld.com
> To: a-list at lists.econ.utah.edu
> Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:57:49 +0000
> Subject: [A-List] Expect the Supreme Court to next rule that Wal-Mart can run for President.
>
> The Supreme Court just handed anyone, including bin Laden or the Chinese
> government, control of our democracy Wednesday, 27 January 2010 10:12
>
> By Greg Palast
>
>
> From AlterNet
>
> In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled
> that corporations should be treated the same as "natural persons", i.e.
> humans. Well, in that case, expect the Supreme Court to next rule that
> Wal-Mart can run for President.
>
> The ruling, which junks federal laws that now bar corporations from stuffing
> campaign coffers, will not, as progressives fear, cause an avalanche of
> corporate cash into politics. Sadly, that's already happened: we have been
> snowed under by tens of millions of dollars given through corporate PACs and
> "bundling" of individual contributions from corporate pay-rollers.
>
> The Court's decision is far, far more dangerous to U.S. democracy. Think:
> Manchurian candidates.
>
> I'm losing sleep over the millions — or billions — of dollars that could
> flood into our elections from ARAMCO, the Saudi Oil corporation's U.S. unit;
> or from the maker of "New Order" fashions, the Chinese People's Liberation
> Army. Or from Bin Laden Construction corporation. Or Bin Laden Destruction
> Corporation.
>
> Right now, corporations can give loads of loot through PACs. While this
> money stinks (Barack Obama took none of it), anyone can go through a PAC's
> federal disclosure filing and see the name of every individual who put money
> into it. And every contributor must be a citizen of the USA.
>
> But under today's Supreme Court ruling that corporations can support
> candidates without limit, there is nothing that stops, say, a
> Delaware-incorporated handmaiden of the Burmese junta from picking a
> Congressman or two with a cache of loot masked by a corporate alias.
>
> Candidate Barack Obama was one sharp speaker, but he would not have been
> heard, and certainly would not have won, without the astonishing outpouring
> of donations from two million Americans. It was an unprecedented
> uprising-by-PayPal, overwhelming the old fat-cat sources of funding.
>
> Well, kiss that small-donor revolution goodbye. Under the Court's new rules,
> progressive list serves won't stand a chance against the resources of new
> "citizens" such as CNOOC, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation. Maybe
> UBS (United Bank of Switzerland), which faces U.S. criminal prosecution and
> a billion-dollar fine for fraud, might be tempted to invest in a few Senate
> seats. As would XYZ Corporation, whose owners remain hidden by "street
> names."
>
> George Bush's former Solicitor General Ted Olson argued the case to the
> court on behalf of Citizens United, a corporate front that funded an attack
> on Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary. Olson's wife died on September
> 11, 2001 on the hijacked airliner that hit the Pentagon. Maybe it was a bit
> crude of me, but I contacted Olson's office to ask how much "Al Qaeda, Inc."
> should be allowed to donate to support the election of his local
> congressman.
>
> Olson has not responded.
>
> The danger of foreign loot loading into U.S. campaigns, not much noted in
> the media chat about the Citizens case, was the first concern raised by
> Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who asked about opening the door to
> "mega-corporations" owned by foreign governments. Olson offered Ginsburg a
> fudge, that Congress might be able to prohibit foreign corporations from
> making donations, though Olson made clear he thought any such restriction a
> bad idea.
>
> Tara Malloy, attorney with the Campaign Legal Center of Washington D.C. says
> corporations will now have more rights than people. Only United States
> citizens may donate or influence campaigns, but a foreign government can,
> veiled behind a corporate treasury, dump money into ballot battles.
>
> Malloy also noted that under the law today, human-people, as opposed to
> corporate-people, may only give $2,300 to a presidential campaign. But hedge
> fund billionaires, for example, who typically operate through dozens of
> corporate vessels, may now give unlimited sums through each of these
> "unnatural" creatures.
>
> And once the Taliban incorporates in Delaware, they could ante up for the
> best democracy money can buy.
>
> In July, the Chinese government, in preparation for President Obama's visit,
> held diplomatic discussions in which they skirted issues of human rights and
> Tibet. Notably, the Chinese, who hold a $2 trillion mortgage on our
> Treasury, raised concerns about the cost of Obama's health care reform bill.
> Would our nervous Chinese landlords have an interest in buying the White
> House for an opponent of government spending such as Gov. Palin? Ya betcha!
>
> The potential for foreign infiltration of what remains of our democracy is
> an adjunct of the fact that the source and control money from corporate
> treasuries (unlike registered PACs), is necessarily hidden. Who the heck are
> the real stockholders? Or as Butch asked Sundance, "Who are these guys?"
>
> We'll never know.
>
> Hidden money funding, whether foreign or domestic, is the new venom that the
> Court has injected into the system by its expansive decision in Citizens
> United.
>
> We've been there. The 1994 election brought Newt Gingrich to power in a GOP
> takeover of the Congress funded by a very strange source.
>
> Congressional investigators found that in crucial swing races, Democrats had
> fallen victim to a flood of last-minute attack ads funded by a group called,
> "Coalition for Our Children's Future." The $25 million that paid for those
> ads came, not from concerned parents, but from a corporation called "Triad
> Inc."
>
> Evidence suggests Triad Inc. was the front for the ultra-right-wing
> billionaire Koch Brothers and their private petroleum company, Koch
> Industries. Had the corporate connection been proven, the Kochs and their
> corporation could have faced indictment under federal election law. As of
> today, such money-poisoned politicking has become legit.
>
> So it's not just un-Americans we need to fear but the Polluter-Americans,
> Pharma-mericans, Bank-Americans and Hedge-Americans that could manipulate
> campaigns while hidden behind corporate veils. And if so, our future
> elections, while nominally a contest between Republicans and Democrats, may
> in fact come down to a three-way battle between China, Saudi Arabia and
> Goldman Sachs.
>
> Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller “The Best
> Democracy Money Can Buy.” Palast investigated Triad Inc. for The Guardian
> (UK).
>
>
> www.gregpalast.com.
>
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