U.S. Supreme Court Legalizes Corruption Undreamt Of

Some of the earliest commentary has centered on the overreach of the court in issuing their appalling ruling, today; the fact that the ruling went so far beyond the scope of the campaign finance reform case that was before the court, the blatant activism of it, the disregard for the consequences of it. Few, so far, seem to grasp the full implications of it. This is an historical decision. An historically bad one, belonging, at birth, in the same dustbin of history as Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Kelo v. New London, Bush v. Gore (the latter two the work of some of the clowns responsible for today's decision).

To put the matter in its proper perspective, the court has very likely just brought down the curtain on the last vestige of democracy that existed in the U.S. The right-wing majority empowered by too many years of ultra-conservative and quasi-fascist infestation of the White House has, in one fell swoop, just, in effect, removed all impediments to corporate interference in U.S. elections. Building on the dual fiction that money equals speech and that corporations are "persons" (an abomination imposed on U.S. law by a right-wing court of a previous era), the court held that these corporate "persons" can now endorse candidates. They can spend as much as they want promoting them. Restraints on their activities in the political arena imposed by campaign finance laws have been swept aside. The already corrupt system of all-but-open bribery popular efforts had attempted to reform has now been replaced by one of official, open, limitless bribery, given the false patina of free speech, and sanctioned by the highest court in the land.

And woe is us, indeed.

--classicliberal2