Two Supreme Court GOP Coups Bracket a Decade
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
By Mark Karlin
From the presidential election stolen in December of 2000 by a 5-4 vote to the 5-4 vote in January of 2010, the decade is bracketed with a partisan Republican High Court that twice shoved the basic underpinnings of democracy -- government of the people, by the people and for the people -- into a garbage compactor and crushed our electoral rights.
BuzzFlash was one of the few progressive sites on the Internet -- and perhaps the loudest and most in your face -- when Antonin "the Fixer" Scalia stopped the 2000 recount in Florida because Al Gore would have overtaken Bush and become president. Then SCOTUS, despite virtually all legal prognostication that it would never take the case and a contrary lower Appellate court ruling, annointed George W. Bush president by a 5-4 vote.
Fast forward just a few weeks more than a decade later, replace Rehnquist with Roberts and O'Connor with Alito, and you have the same 5-4 dynamic of right wing extremist judges trampling on the seeds of democracy by declaring that corporations can finance elections in the same way as people, building upon a pernicious concept -- that BuzzFlash has discussed for some time -- known as "corporate personhood."
Just yesterday, I discussed that the best and most accessible history of how we ended up here is in Thom Hartmann's book, "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights."
I was talking on the phone this morning with Thom, and he brought up the irony that may be prophetic that the infamous Dredd Scott decision that declared slaves to be property led to the Civil War. Now, we have a Supreme Court decision that affirmed that corporations have, according to the GOP 5-4 vote, the same election rights as people.
Global corporations and Wall Street financial firms have become stifling, obstructive institutions that impede innovation and democracy, but they do not breathe; in fact, they suffocate. They don't encourage or stimulate entrepeneurship and small businesses with new ideas; they crush them.
For America, it's been a decade of two Supreme Court coups that have stolen democracy and replaced it with something akin to activist right wing judicial rulings on behalf of the oligarchy that pulls the strings in D.C.
The Dredd Scott decision, as Hartmann points out, resulted in the Civil War.
Will we sit back and passively accept that corporations have the same rights to elect our government as people do?
Are corporations now to be championed by the "pro-life" zealots to boot?
It might not be time for a Civil War, but it is time for a non-violent populist revolt to restore our Constitutional rights as people and to protect ourselves from the predatory corporations that now will transparently buy their politicians in D.C.
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
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The fix is in
This was a dark day for this great country. This shows that we have almost degenerated into the Russia of the early 20th century where one writer wrote that "Russia is plagued by two problems; the darkness of power at the top and the power of darkness at the bottom." We as a society have been distracted by false flag terrorist attacks, dead Playboy bunnys, phoney land scandals and celebrity/sports star malfeasance and have lost the ability to keep the processes of our nation operating in a civil fashion. Unless this train is slowed down we are destined to become the world's largest banana republic.
The attempted GOP coup started with Clinton
Even before the heinous Supreme Court started the theft of our democracy, Nixon was wiretapping the Democratic headquarters. Since then the Republicans had their focus on getting Pres Clinton out of office from the day he was sworn in. That attempt failed but between the Supreme Court and the tampered voting machines in 2004, the Republicans have grown in their outright hubris. And as an asided, on top of all of this, since I was born, I have seen a Democratic president assassinated as well as Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
Contrary view
Before we all hit the panic button we ought to read Glenn Greenwald's take.
"What the Supreme Court Got Right"
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2010/01/22/citizens_united/index.html?source=newsletter
Colleen Clark Cambridge, MA
A particularly shallow bit of sophistry
I don't for the life of me see what recommends Greenwald. If I get this right, he mentions several times that he's unsure that corporations are persons but he's darn glad the Supreme Court gave them freedom of speech because the first amendment doesn't explicitly bar corporations from freedom of speech and it affirms that the court still has our ideals at heart. Right?
That's just stupid. The first amendment doesn't explicitly bar me from shouting "fire" in a crowded theater either. And as Thom Hartmann likes to note, corporations were short-lived entities created for a specific purpose well into the 19th century and their was none of this "persons" foolishness that has only been entered into by trickery in the first place. There is every indication that the Founding Fathers did not envision 21st century America, they would be appalled, and this decision rips the heart out of the first amendment. Greenwald should be ashamed at such shallow tripe.
Mr. Karlin, Great article, -
Mr. Karlin,
Great article, - as usual!
I read some of it to my husband,... he said: "If they now have the same rights as a person, then they must also face the death penalty,.... if they are now 'citizens'".
This insulting piece of trash that OUR Supreme Court passed this week - will - absolutely be reversed - and the silent, slow, growing, definite and decisive non-violent revolution - has already begun...
Rucy
PS Vote them ALL out - and vote for anyone else - who isn't a repulsive, stupid, money-driven, arrogant member of the Republican Party of "NO!" The party of "I got mine,..... who gives a damn - about you!" We need to vote in non-lawyer, people like you - and me.
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Mission Accomplished!
You didn't think the brain-damaged SOB'd get the last laugh, did you?
Guess now we understand why Pelosi knew impeachment was off the table. Welcome to the Thousand Year Reich of the Corporate $tate$ of Amerika!
Union Membership?
Union membership has been under successful attack since Reagan, and the numbers are but a fraction of what they were in 1983. So "allowing" unions to be mentioned in the Supreme Court decision was lip service only. The conservative branch of the SCOTUS knows exactly what they are doing as agents for the Rethugs.
Mark Why don't you run for elected office?
Dear Mark:
I applaud your passion, your productivity, your idealism but who is your audience? I'm broke. I was laid off in 2006, had to sell my home, got a temporary job at less than half my previous salary, I rent a room, I drive a car with over 200,000 miles, I pay $450 a month for health insurance plus all the additional costs, I avoid the doctors, I work a 14-hr day. I am an older person. I am trying to assist my 86-year-old mother... you want an organized revolution. You are right we need one. But, we need leaders we can support at the grassroots level and above. We need a long-range plan to take back our government. Why don't you run for elected office? Everyday, I wish I could quit my job and join an organization to fight the neo-cons but how do I pay my bills? I can't get by on youth and health anymore. I wish you all the best. I do what I can. Take care, m
what about the unions?
I'll bet that there is a stipulation in the decision that says that unions CANNOT have unlimited
contributions like the corporate FASCISTS.
Welcome to bush's FASCIST Ameika, comrads!
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It Ain't Going To Happen!
Unfortunately, If Mr. Karlin had bothered to listen to Thom Hartmann's Brunch with Bernie segment yesterday afternoon he would of heard both Thom Hartmann and Senator Sanders both say almost simultaneously "it ain't going to happen" in response to a callers question about removing one or all five of the Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn 103 years of of American law.
Thom Hartmann is a moderate, Senator Sanders is a Social Democrat. I had at least expected the good Senator to explain to the caller what would be involved in pursuing Articles of Impeachment against a Supreme Court Justice, not "it ain't going to happen".
This is exactly what has gone wrong with this country. The Founding Fathers put impeachment in the Constitution for addressing these two very instances of judicial malfeasance. But as usual the people who are elected to provide the checks and balances required by the Constitution are in favor of doing anything but what they are required to do to Protect and Defend the Constitution.
Stick a fork in us people We Are Done!
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