Once again the United States Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has shown the nation it will always favor corporations over people even if it means conjuring new law out of thin air. Like Citizens United, the recent 5-4 ruling in AT&T's favor gutting the power of consumers to file class-action lawsuits against giant corporations tips the scales of justice against the people and renders the enormous power of corporations even more enormous.
When I first heard about the case, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion there was little doubt in my mind that the Gang of Five -- John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas would figure out a way to ignore Supreme Court precedent and again apply their judicial activism in service to the corporations, and by extension, to the oligarchy they apparently believe the "founders" intended.
It's kind of funny when we see Republican presidential candidates like Mitt Romeny, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich pandering to the "little guy" denouncing "elites" who are trampling on their rights only to remain mute on the fact that their beloved Republican Supreme Court never, ever rules in favor of the "little guy."
The Republican president Ronald Reagan gave us Scalia and Kennedy; the Republican president George Herbert Walker Bush gave us Thomas; and the Republican president George W. Bush gave us Roberts and Alito. This cabal has shown over and over again where its true loyalties lie, not to "the law," not to "the Constitution," not to "calling balls and strikes," but to a 21st century version of corporate feudalism. This new corporate feudalism that the High Court is determined to thrust on the nation is even more exploitative than the earlier brand of Medieval feudalism because it is absent noblesse oblige.
The serfs toiling on the corporate plantation can only continue to pay Chase and Bank of America for their underwater mortgages, ExxonMobil and Chevron for their $4 a gallon gas, and AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile and the rest for the privilege of communicating in a modern society. And if the serfs seek redress the High Court will slap them down before they can get anything substantial off the ground. With Citizens United placing a stranglehold of corporate power over our state, local, and federal system of elections, we cannot turn to our political "leaders" for redress, we can't turn to the courts, and we certainly can't turn to trying to morally persuade sociopathic non-human entities called corporations -- so where does that leave us?
In the current context of unrestrained corporate dominance it's unconscionable that the Obama administration has not done more to blunt its disastrous effects. The Justice and Treasury Departments, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, etc. could be doing a hell of a lot more in bringing balance to the equation of corporations versus people. The administration's lagging performance in holding Wall Street accountable is well known, but it won't even lift a finger to block grotesque mergers like the one between Comcast and NBC Universal, and AT&T and T Mobile. In all these mergers and acquisitions it's always the consumers and the employees who lose, while the CEOs and a select few of shareholders and financiers make out like the bandits they are.
Nothing illustrates the corruption rampant in Washington more than the recent resignation of Federal Communications Commission member, Meredith Attwell Baker, a Republican who Obama appointed to show how "bipartisan" he can be, who is now going to work as a lavishly paid shill for the very industry she was supposedly "regulating." Ms. Baker will now make the big bucks serving Comcast/NBC Universal after she voted for the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal. Sweet. And few in the Beltway see anything unsavory about it.
Our political leaders, our Supreme Court, our captains of industry and finance, are so out of touch it's going to be a long, long time before ordinary working people see any relief. All of our institutions, political, economic, even religious, social, and cultural, all of them, are failing the people miserably in pursuit of the Almighty Buck. The cunning game of appointing young ideologues to the bench has paid off handsomely for the corporate power structure. Someone should tell those people running around in tri-cornered hats and talking about the "founders" that it might be wise to save an ounce of their collective wrath for the Republicans who have appointed five Justices who are trampling on individual freedoms in service of corporations.
Follow Joseph A. Palermo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JPalermo
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We MUST find a way to break through. We need a new set of members on the Supreme Court. If only Obama were an actual liberal. . . . .
Is there any hope we can "primary" Obama with an _actual_ progressive? I'd say his goal is to be the Best Republican President in history - after all, Lincoln is his hero. (Too bad he didn't pick FDR - we need an FDR clone in the white house FAR more than we need another Lincoln.)
Think of the beautiful judicial robes with their colorful corporate logos!
Yeah! All they had to do is go by the Constitution. If past Supreme Court decisions are unconstitutional, they need to be ignored.
, 2010 will go down as a dark day in history of American democracy, and its decline. The editors of New York Times did not exaggerate when they wrote that Supreme Court decision that day "strikes at heart of democracy" by having "paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding" -- more explicitly, for permitting corporate managers to do so, since current laws permit them to spend shareholder money without consent.
Nor does Michael Waldman, School of Law, exaggerate when he writes that this exercise of the radical judicial activism that the rightwing claims to deplore "matches or exceeds Bush v. Gore in ideological or partisan overreaching by the court. In that case, the court reached into the political process to hand the election to one candidate. Today it reached into the political process to hand unprecedented power to corporations."
The Court was split, with the four reactionary judges (misleadingly called "conservative") joined by Justice Kennedy in a 5-4 decision. Chief Justice Roberts selected a case that could easily have been settled on narrow grounds, and maneuvered the Court into using it for a far-reaching decision that overturned precedents going back a century that restrict corporate contributions to federal campaigns.
In effect, the decision permits corporate managers to buy elections directly
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20100124.htm
What we all need to do at this point is examine where our ultimate power lies. It is not in our votes; our voting rights are being stolen even as I type this, in many state legislatures. It's also not in accepting the evil being cultivated by a radical Supreme Court. After all, many Democrats voted for the worst two liars: Roberts and Alito. (Of course, these very Dems are living on fat salaries and pensions and healthcare benefits, and will never suffer under these obscene rulings.)
No, our power lies in the purse. It's often derided, but something similar to a General Strike would have real impact. Under such action -- if we all in our individual ways, as best we can with family obligations et al -- I'm sure we all could find 10% to 20% to cut in expenses.
Do we really need that landline anymore? Cable TV? (After all, TV mostly serves to placate us.) Expensive toys? The latest disposable clothes from Walmart? Think about it. Think about what corporation is depending on you to continue spending and sending profits their way.
Perhaps, they assume too much.
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We must push the concept that anyone who benefits from the U.S. business environment without paying a fair share is a PARASITE and is willing to destroy our economy for selfish greed.