Class action
suits, also targeted, were disempowered by newly imposed limitations, the sum
result horrifying for all: SCOTUS had pushed aside the two other branches of
the federal government to become the most powerful of them all.
Corporations are
now using money to dominate the ballot box, van den Heuvel concluded. "Five
Supreme Court Justices don't have the last word. We do."
The concluding
pledge was that AFJ will fight back to redirect the Court toward the real
citizenry, the real individuals, we the people. Several of the Justices are
close to retirement age, including Ginsburg, Scalia, and Kennedy, so that in
the next four years there is room for hope that change can veer this country
away from complete corporatocracy.
*****
Jarring the audience, moderator Lipsen noted that the
subject of SCOTUS was ignored during the 2012 presidential campaign. The
Roberts Court accomplishes what it does by means of roadblocks including pretrial
technicalities and procedural flaws, said Gilbert.
She quoted
attorney Arthur Miller that SCOTUS doesn't even bar its doors; it shoots
plaintiffs on the courthouse steps.
Referring to the
origin of the inverse process, an increase in the negotiating power of the
people, Scott recalled the National Labor Relations Act passed as part of the
New Deal, to inject more capital into the economy.
Once Powell took
the helm, he questioned whether unions and workers had too much power--24
percent of workers, not counting government employees, were unionized.
SCOTUS rulings followed to diminish them:
they were no longer permitted to meet on private property and were next denied
the right to bargain over a corporate decision to close down. The Court also
ruled that undocumented workers have no rights according to the NLR Act.
Smiley noted the
full agenda such injustice demanded: redefinition of the term "criminal," for
example--to reapply that label to corporations rather than individual citizens.
Walmart must be framed as the villain. In another anecdote, she told of a
worker who collapsed after having worked three shifts in a row.
Walmart has the
world's best logistics for "moving things," she said. The District of Columbia
has successfully kept it out on the basis of negligence of workers' rights and
environmental regulations. This year forty Mexican guest workers "sent Walmart
into a tailspin." They could well empower the 1.5 million disenfranchised
Walmart employees, Smiley said.
Gulf Coast
workers have just begun to organize, and Walmart knows that they will win, just
like striking employees of Ford and its supply chain.
When the Court
tries Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, activism will be of paramount
importance, said Scott, as it was to the successful survival of the Affordable
Care Act last summer. Gilbert noted that this was the smartest decision that
Roberts ever made [to me it was blatant politics, period--MS].
Ending the panel
discussion on a forceful note, Smiley noted that the Waltons own half the
wealth of this country while its employees challenge the economy with their
need for food stamps and other necessities of life.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
1
