Why Citizens United is the Most Dangersous Piece of Legislation Today

Have you ever heard of the Supreme Court ruling entitled Citizens United (CU) vs. the Federal Election Committee (FEC)? If you do not know about this case it is because, while it was in the news, it was not covered in the way that say, murder, war, elections, and health care reform has been covered. In other words, you didn’t have to have been living under a rock in order to not know about it. This case is something that the media, under the propaganda model and the Republicans in particular, really does not want the American people to know about. The reason I chose this as my first topic is because everything that I write about in the future will likely be connected to this Supreme Court decision in some way or another. This includes not only politics, but entertainment; as entertainment is a form of business and corporation that keeps voters uninformed and/or distracted, and has a direct effect on the influence of large corporations on both local and national elections.

The origins of CU vs. FEC started with a smear documentary that CU produced called, “Hillary: The Movie,” which was intended for video-on-demand in conjunction with TV ads promoting it during the 2008 presidential primaries in which Ms. Clinton was a candidate. FEC bought CU to court and sued them, claiming that the ads were in conflict with federal election laws that regulated corporate free speech. The ads were struck down by the lower courts. However, CU was not done. CU went ahead and counter-sued the FEC, lost, than appealed to the Conservative Supreme Court. In a shocking turn of events, the Supreme Court asked for a re-hearing not in relation to the original FEC lawsuit and ensuing CU counter-suit, but for a re-hearing to decide whether or not corporations should have the right to free speech and unlimited funds to election campaigns (before this decision, there were regulations on corporate money to candidates that had pesky restraints that the corporations had to abide to…what a drag!). That’s right, corporations became people, or what is now called, “corporate personhood.” In a 5-4 decision, the CU got their way, and can now literally pour as much money as they want into candidates campaigns that most benefit them, these corporate people. Dissenting Supreme Court Judge John Paul Stevens lamented, “Corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughs, no desires.” President Obama said that the court’s decision had, “given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

Make no mistake; CU brought and paid for the 2010 mid-term elections in which their Republican and Tea Party friends took control of the House and nearly the Senate. They are the ones that engineered the smear campaigns that was the downfall of most Democrats’ defeats, many of them incumbents.

As a result of these events, corporations that controlled the mid-terms and the media, most notably Fox News, have been able to convincingly persuade the American people, mostly uninformed voters, that tax cuts for the rich are good because the rich are the “job creators.” Meanwhile, by taking the poor and middle class hostage and backing the Democrats, including the President, into a corner and forcing them to not allow the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire, hundreds of billions, with a capital ”B,” will be added to the deficit that these Republicans claim to be so worried about. Republicans even derailed a proposal by the current Administration to implement Wall Street reform. This is because most of their donors and rich, corporte friends that drove this economy into the ground under their friend George W. Bush well, work on Wall St. Let us not forget also the battle for the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Health Care Reform, otherwise known to Republicans as a Socialist bill that only they could term as “Obamacare.” This whole campaign by the Right Wing for a repeal of this monumental bill was engineered by CU. Instead of helping millions of uninsured or underinsured Americans by lowering costs, they are spreading falsehoods by claiming that the bill is “job-killing,” and will ultimately hurt Americans. The reason? Not because they actually care about you, but because if this bill is passed, it would mean more regulations and less profits for the big insurance and drug companies.

Rulings like CU vs. FEC have been a dream of the Righties for a long, long time, and those dreams are being realized. When new Speaker of the House John Boehner, on the night of his triumphant mid-term election victory, started weeping in his acceptance speech saying that he has always been, “chasing the American dream,” he was really just chasing HIS dream…and the dreams of many of his rich friends and lobbyists, which include Big Tobacco and Oil, among others. The dream of the 80%+ of the American people is to make a decent living and to provide for their families and for themselves without the interference of corporations that drown their voices during elections. Just the name ”Citizens United” is an oxymoron in itself, right? Chalk this up to corporations literally taking over America and think to yourself: Is this really democracy?

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