Bidding For Representation

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Ahso!
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Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:38 pm

Bidding For Representation

Post by Ahso! »

In light of the new decision of the U.S, Supreme Court affording corporations equal 1st amendment rights as individual citizens, I've been thinking about how we as a body politic might adapt to this decision. What might we do?

Clearly faced with enormous disadvantages, you and I as ordinary citizens (corporations are now ordinary citizens too - boy that just sounds wrong) don't stand a chance of making any rational decisions anytime politics will be even remotely involved in an issue, I'm thinking why not just put a system in place like an ebay for politics and let corporation bid on candidates. This way at least some money will go into taxes to help the rest of us pay the bills. Each corporation can select potential representatives and begin bidding against one another. The banking industry could put Joe up, the pharmaceutical industry can put John up, FOX can put Bill up, Monsanto can put Mary up and so on, then they can begin bidding. This could be done with a selected studio audience like a game show and the audience can direct the bid money to each candidate (this is a check and balance conservative style to make sure there is no collusion among corporations).

If we continue to do our electing as we have up to now, money will just be passed back and forth from corporation to corporation through advertising and all that. Just take the people out of the process altogether. Why not, we're all just going to be led slowly to elect the people the corporations want elected anyway. We've been heading down that path for years, lets at least admit the situation and be smart about it.

For those who don't know what I'm taking about heres a good editorial from the NY Times. I know conservatives like to label the times as liberal and will most likely scream about that, but so what. It's really worth the read.

As shameful as it all is we have to face the fact that this is now a reality.

Editorial - The Court’s Blow to Democracy - NYTimes.com

An excerpt;

As a result of Thursday’s ruling, corporations have been unleashed from the longstanding ban against their spending directly on political campaigns and will be free to spend as much money as they want to elect and defeat candidates. If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.

The ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission radically reverses well-established law and erodes a wall that has stood for a century between corporations and electoral politics. (The ruling also frees up labor unions to spend, though they have far less money at their disposal.)

The founders of this nation warned about the dangers of corporate influence. The Constitution they wrote mentions many things and assigns them rights and protections — the people, militias, the press, religions. But it does not mention corporations.

In 1907, as corporations reached new heights of wealth and power, Congress made its views of the relationship between corporations and campaigning clear: It banned them from contributing to candidates. At midcentury, it enacted the broader ban on spending that was repeatedly reaffirmed over the decades until it was struck down on Thursday.

This issue should never have been before the court. The justices overreached and seized on a case involving a narrower, technical question involving the broadcast of a movie that attacked Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2008 campaign. The court elevated that case to a forum for striking down the entire ban on corporate spending and then rushed the process of hearing the case at breakneck speed. It gave lawyers a month to prepare briefs on an issue of enormous complexity, and it scheduled arguments during its vacation.

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., no doubt aware of how sharply these actions clash with his confirmation-time vow to be judicially modest and simply “call balls and strikes,” wrote a separate opinion trying to excuse the shameless judicial overreaching.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities,”

Voltaire



I have only one thing to do and that's

Be the wave that I am and then

Sink back into the ocean

Fiona Apple
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