Time to start packing up the kids' photos, all that poetry you wrote to get laid in college, and those DVDs of movies you would take to a desert island.
The 234-year experiment in representative democracy that we toyed with and took for granted is now on the same auction block that was used for tobacco, cotton, and slaves. Oh, and you can kiss your voice in government goodbye, along with your job, health care, and consumer protection.
The radical activists that govern our Supreme Court voted 5-4 this morning to allow corporations the right to spend As Much As They Want To in elections, basically meaning that large companies get free speech and we get drowned out in the resulting cacophony. Yes, you read that right--companies can donate UNLIMITED AMOUNTS OF MONEY to candidates or propositions in an election.
Can donations from lobbyists to influence legislation be far behind? This is just one step removed, and the money that essentially runs our elections already has a disproportionate say in what bills make it to the floor and how the hired stooges in Congress will vote on them.
It's over folks. It was nice while it lasted, and some naà ¯ve souls out there still believe we live in the civics lesson we learned in high school, but guess what? We live in a corporatocracy, of the corporations, for business, by the companies that fund it. It's already been that way de facto for some time, and now Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito have made it safe for big business fat cats to prime the pump with billions of dollars to make sure their point of view gets elected and passes laws.
And just in time for the 2010 elections! Won't that be fun? Not to mention the fiscal orgy that will be the Presidential campaign budgets for 2012.
Thomas Jefferson once said, "I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude."
Well, 5 right-wingnut ideologues have made that decision for us this morning.
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