The Supreme Court Judges that Sold America

The U.S. Supreme Court has effectively sold America to Special Interests with it's latest ruling. Corporate America and other unethical entities, both for profit and non profit, have had restrictions eased to the point that if they have enough funding they can ultimately "buy" the candidate of their choice...and individual Americans that donate what they can to a political campaign have absolutely no say about it. A century of regulation is being undermined by conservative interests and deregulation is what led to us having to bail out Wall Street. It leaves a very nasty taste in your mouth when you consider how the "deregulation" of policies meant to protect us are now being rewritten by the conservative extremists who would like nothing better than to turn America's political system into something similar to what you would find in Iran where religion and wealth are the controlling factors. If there was anything left of the "American Dream", it has long since been killed off by the Right Wing and their extreme views.

According to political analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, off CNN, what the ruling translates to is that "money is speech and corporations are people". HUH? How does money legally translate into "speech" and a corporation translate into a "person"?

This is not the first time that conservative judges of the Supreme Court have interfered with the law and overall welfare of this country. George W. Bush ended up sitting in the Oval Office because Antonin Scalia, a conservative Supreme Court judge and friend of Dick Cheney, stopped the recount process in the 2000 presidential election. The American citizens, by popular vote, elected Al Gore, but that fact was not brought to light until after Scalia halted the recount of the state in which Bush's brother was the governor. Does all that coincidence not seem odd? It was no coincidence. Many will say I am whining but that would be an excuse to avoid historical fact. America has no right to a democratic society, according to many conservatives like the Citizens United group and Judge Scalia, America should be dictated to...at least be all appearance.

When you think about all the conservatives that have made so much noise about judges that would make decisions based on their own interpretations, you have to wonder whether the same applies to them or just someone considered to be "Liberal". It appears that their view is that "you do what I say and not what I do." The right of free speech was not meant as a vehicle for money to become speech or for an entity, such as a corporation, to become a human being. A corporation is not a citizen of this country. It is a business that strives to make profit. The Wall Street shmucks that the taxpayers were forced to bail out in order to avoid collapse have no right to be allowed to "buy" our Federal government and have policies crafted to suit them. To give a corporation "person status" gives the wealthiest of America more than just their right to vote, it gives each big corporation's CEO a chance to have a second opportunity to influence the vote while most Americans are only allowed one vote. Money should NEVER be asserted as speech because that takes away the rights of the poorest of Americans who do not have much money. A century of our historical practice has been wiped away by those who want to limit our democracy and turn America into a capitalist, religious "robber-baron" third world kind of place. Those who have the money will dictate over everyone else and we shall end up looking more like Haiti...no middle class at all and under the boot of Wall Street.

The ruling resulted from the efforts of a group known as "Citizens United". In order to understand what sort of repercussions this might lead to, it is important to have an idea of who "Citizens United" really are.

The information available on the Internet is very telling. There is very little that does not make them appear to be a serious right wing group that support the wealthy, liked and supported the Bush policies that cut taxes and took us into a war in Iraq that, to this day, never had a justifiable motive.

Citizens united also wanted to follow through on Bush's desires to "reform" Social Security by privatizing it. All of us are very lucky that Bush's bad ideas did not develop to fruition because all of the funds for Social Security would have been lost when Wall Street tanked in 2007.

Pre-emptive attacks on other countries is also a favored policy for Citizens United so, if they had their way, we could end up in a perpetual state of war. It needs to be remembered that the government of Iraq refused to sign an agreement to allow our military to remain in Iraq until AFTER the last presidential election simply because they did not trust the Conservatives who ran this country into the ground.

Our national debt skyrocketed because Bush cut taxes for the wealthy, causing Main Street to pick up the slack. The war in Iraq was unjustified and has cost thousands of lives and multi billions of dollars that we really could not afford.

The unethical mud slinging and slander provided by the "Swift-boat" attacks on John Kerry can also be connected with Citizens United.

The freedom of speech has been used against the American public, for whom it was meant to protect, in order to enhance the political agendas of the extreme right, wealthy and corporate interests.. Citizens United agenda also seems to align with the extreme as far as religion. The idea that those who claim a tax exemption due to religious affiliation have the right to Federal funding in the eyes of Citizens United as well. Does this also mean that I will have to give up my tax dollars for Evangelical beliefs that many of us do not share?

The conservative agenda includes lower taxes but that is mainly for the benefit of the top 1% -5% of Americans. What about the rest of us? If the wealthy have legal excuses to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, how are we supposed to pay for what our country requires? Are we to not have first responders and police? That would make us more like Haiti than we would ever want to be. Those people that are trying to use scare tactics against socialism will find a way to do away with Medicare, Social Security, unemployment insurance and other helpful programs that were initiated after the Depression that plagued the 1930s.

It is already evident that this ruling is having a domino affect through the state level. Laws that have prohibited America from being bought and sold are now deemed "invalid' and it is only going to get worse.

The U.S Supreme Court has now subjugated and bastardized the U.S. Constitution. It may be time to consider a rewrite of the Constitution to set term limits for Justices. It may also be time for the citizens of this country to have a sincere "tea bag" event...one that resembles the original. The "tea baggers" today only represent one group but we need an event that takes the power away from the wealthy and corporate to put it back in the hands of the people. Taxation without representation is as real today as it was over 200 years ago when the wealthy took advantage of the rest of us.

Hang on, because if America keeps allowing the conservative right and their Corporate bedfellows to rewrite America, it will be an extremely bumpy ride.

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/21/campaign.finance.ruling/index.html?hpt=Sbin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_debate_%28United_States%29#George_W._Bush.27s_privatization_proposal

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United

http://www.factcheck.org/republican-funded_group_attacks_kerrys_war_record.html