Nothing could enhance American democracy more than if Occupy Wall Street helped enact the 28th Constitutional Amendment to end the pretense that corporations are people who speak with money. The 99% can stop the privatization of government.
There's an important conversation going on about the goals of Occupy Wall Street after the evictions. Both conservative attack dogs and confused liberals have chided the movement for not having a to-do list ready on September 17 or November 17. A recent New Yorker cartoon showed a prophet holding up a sign "The End is Near," as a bystander asks, "Yeah, but what's your goal?"
The initial goal was to shift the national conversation away from an obsession with Washington and deficits to the ignored truth that income inequality is devastating the middle class. Done that. Now that OWS and its supporters are obviously puzzling through next steps, I have a suggestion, a plea really.
OWS should plug into the nascent effort to enact the 28th Amendment to the Constitution to overturn Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo, two of the worst decisions in our judicial history, right up there with Dred Scott. They weave together two crazy concepts -- corporations-are-people and money-is-speech -- into the loony conclusion that corporations can buy democracy. Of all the possible principles to base their decision on, justices came up with giving more power to the most powerful organizations in America.
Talk about judicial activism! Only a satirist like Antonin Scalia could both argue that we have to follow the Founders' original intent and then make believe that the Founders intended to include corporations -- never mentioned in the Constitution, creatures of states given perpetual life to raise private capital for commercial purposes, not regarded as people by anyone in 1789 -- in the First Amendment.
Dylan Ratigan at the New York Common Cause dinner earlier this month observed that "campaign finance reform is everyone's #2 issue." But government cannot produce a cleaner environment, more stimulus and growth, stronger bank regulations, universal health care and a jobs bill until the machinery of democracy is repaired. So long as the Roberts Five allow Rove/Koch to raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars secretly in local and national elections, we will have a government, as Joseph Stiglitz says, "of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1%."
It's a fluke really that a few thousand Jews in Palm Beach County accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan which, eventually, allowed George W. Bush to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with Samuel Alito who became the fifth vote in the 5-4 Citizens United majority.
Here we are. With the odd-duck combination of George Will, Floyd Abrams and a national GOP defeating the DISCLOSE Act by filibuster, paralyzing the FEC, dominating the Supreme Court -- and an IRS allowing corporate political spending to be deductible charitable giving -- we're left with two constitutional options. One is that President Obama wins reelection and the lottery of life allows him to name and get confirmed a non-corporate apologist as one of the five majority justices. A lot of ifs there.
Or Article Five lays out how to pass a Constitutional Amendment that stops unlimited corporate (Koch) and individual (Bloomberg) money from privatizing democracy. I'm sure that the Brennan Center at NYU would help draft the precise language.
Nearly everyone at first thinks the prospect is just too remote and uphill. But. There have been 17 amendments since the Bill of Rights, usually when a bi-partisan super-majority and a popular, grassroots movement overcome inertia; in the modern era, the Equal Rights Amendment fell only three states short of the 38 necessary to become constitutional law. Well, there's now a near 80% majority against corporations pretending they're people speaking politically with money; and there is one popular, grassroots movement that can organize in Washington and every state Capitol almost overnight.
OWS, I'm talking to you. As your general assemblies and policy committees seek consensus on specific goals, please consider including a "Stop Corporatism Amendment" on your very short list. True, it's easy to compile a list of 20 issues/goals/demands... but hard to get it to three so the public can get behind a few big things. Lenin said "bread, land and peace"; Reagan said "reduce taxes, defeat communism." A movement that came up with "we are the 99%" can now evolve from concept to content by "occupying," say, foreclosures, tax rates... and democracy.
Occupying democracy can include pushing Washington to adopt the kind of public financing of public elections that now work in Maine, Arizona and New York City. Those put a floor under non-rich candidates who can then compete in elections. But what about building a ceiling over big business interests. Let them lobby, speak, and donate but not out of their trillions in corporate treasuries that drown out the voices of everyone else. Short of of a new justice and new decision, that requires not a federal statute but a federal amendment.
There are wonderful groups already engaged in this effort -- from Public Citizen to Free Speech for People; and six senators earlier this month, including Schumer and Durbin, introduced a constitutional amendment, Sen. Res. 29, needing two-thirds of the Congress to be sent to the states. But only OWS's energy, guts and brand can create people-not-corporations groups in every state either to enact the 28th or at least to mobilize opinion around the issue for future elections. Other than Labor, only they can get the numbers of people on the streets against big money in politics as we saw in Wisconsin and Ohio in those collective bargaining fights.
Sisyphean? Possibly. But if roles were reversed, wouldn't a Grover Norquist be starting a long-planned drive to convince voters that, to quote Mitt Romney, "corporations are just people"? (My favorite sign at Zuccotti Park: "Corporations will be people when Texas executes one.") If OWS is against a rigged economy and government, how can it leave the Constitution to a Tea Party with no understanding of how the Revolution and Constitution sought to replace a states-based Articles of Confederation with a federal government?
I've lived this issue over the decades as someone who's raised millions of dollars as a candidate, written books about the "evil of access," enacted laws advancing public financing, and then, with a shrewd sense of irony, run against the richest man ever to purchase office. That sequence leads me to two conclusions. First, OWS could create a pro-democracy movement to enact at least a federal public financing law, ideally a constitutional amendment.
Second, it would be tragic if Dr. King's second most famous speech in Washington, when he said at the Washington Monument in 1957 "Give us the ballot. Give us the ballot," did in fact enfranchise millions of Americans though the Voting Rights Act...only to posthumously fail when his political descendants didn't try to stop corporate money from erasing those ballots. As a tidal wave of secret super-pac money sweeps over Iowa and as OWS thinks about next steps, "we can't wait."
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by Brian Seligman on Friday, December 2, 2011
We at Occupy Los Angeles DO have concrete goals and objectives, contrary to what the Main Stream Media (MSM) reports. Here are some that top the list for the USA, it is not meant to be all inclusive.
General Principle: People are more important than money, which is a tool for our use and is not meant to be an object of worship.
1. Get money out of politics. The idea that money=speech is blatantly false. People talking or writing or recording is speech. Mine should count as much as the CEO of Exxon because “All men are created equal”. Politicians need to be honest and work for the people without having to sell their souls to get elected. Amendments to abolish Citizens United are pursuing this goal.
2. Save the economy from a “W” by Re-instating Glass-Steagal NOW. This act separated commercial and investment banks, without its regulations we are getting credit card debt bundled and short sold just like real estate debt was.
4. Stop cutting government. Cutting government jobs makes the jobs problem worse not better. We need to make sure our food, air, water, etc are safe so that people don’t DIE of e.coli (as happened to 6 in Boehners district due directly to the FDA cuts) or other food illnesses. We also need to keep the 10,000 police President Clinton put on the streets or crime will shoot back up. Additionally we have a duty to make sure our most vulnerable, the hurt, homeless and hungry have their Common Good provided for equally.
5. Take care of our veterans, especially homeless ones. They have bled, fought and died but when they get home are unemployable AND need care for wounds and PTSD that the VA does NOT give them. They need places to live, jobs to work and most important places to stay.
6. Healthcare for all. The reforms in Obamacare need to stick, such as preventing denials for being injured or sick and enabling the government to negotiate a bulk discount. Most people like single payer better than the insurance pools, but one way or another it needs to happen.
8. End bank fees. All of them. We won early on the debit fees, but some banks are playing whack a mole by charging people to make payments, etc. Banks made plenty of money with accounts that paid customers interest and no fees when I was young, we need to go back to that. Fees for late pays, overdraft, making payments, etc. all favor the rich over the poor unfairly.
9. End the wars (in progress) and pass a tax to pay for them. We can’t just keep borrowing and paying interest on the Trillions of Dollars we’ve been wasting forever.
10. Respect the first amendment by stopping the Homeland Security driven crackdowns on people exercising their Constitutional rights to assemble and speak freely.
11. Return ethics and honesty to journalism. Many reporters give fair coverage but it isn’t broadcast or printed. Fox or MSNBC, doesn’t matter, bad info leads to bad decision making in the electorate.
Like thousands perhaps millions of other I am ready to join the movement.
In reality, these people are just anti-free speech. They are fine with speech that they agree with, but if it is something that they don't like, they have no problem regulating and restricting it. Well, this is why the Constitution says that Congress "shall have no power" to restrict speech... to protect ourselves from such petty tyrants.
"In response to statements by President Obama and others that the ruling would allow foreign entities to gain political influence through U.S. subsidiaries, Smith pointed out that the decision did not overturn the ban on political donations by foreign corporations and the prohibition on any involvement by foreign nationals in decisions regarding political spending by U.S. subsidiaries, which are covered by other parts of the law."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission
This isn't even true. When the very first sentence in your comment is false, people can instantly recognize that you don't know what you are talking about. Consider this: if the government passed a law that banned undocumented workers from protesting, how many on the left would say "that's okay, the First Amendment only applied to U.S. Citizens"? None.
Criminalizing speech is not the answer to the problems which, absolutely, seem attendant to the influence of money, corporate or not, on our elections.
Why do you think it is?
Cookie?
Nowhere is the Supreme Court granted the power to amend the Constitution - so how is it that this immunity has been transformed into a "right" which is supplied by the government which can take it away?
Irrespective of one's personal view of how things 'ought to be' - the First Amendment says what it says, and those supporting the abridgement of speech {of corporations or otherwise} HAVE YET to summon a reasonable philosophical justification for modifying the plain language of the 1st without a formal Amendment.
Now as to any such Amendment... apart from the fact that most newspapers are organized as corporations, the question arises 'who will guard the guards themselves' as to deciding which speech is criminalizable?
In the Citizens case, remember that Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" was not subject to this abridgement but an equally partisan documentary put out by a small group of citizens, organized as a corporation, *was* the target of the speech police.
There is not only great potential for abuse and selective prosecution, but the bare idea of criminalizing speech, etc. should send shivers down the spine of any genuine {classical} liberal.
That it does not, seems to vouchsafe the worry embedded in Orwell's quip.
Orwell once wrote that "[s]o much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."
In my view that notion is apt to the mistaken view that Citizens was a "bad" decision. I wholly agree that the influence of $ on elections is fraught with problems. However, when the Left, in its zeal, concludes that throwing people in jail for making documentaries is a good idea, it belies their purported love for our civil liberties.
It seems axiomatic that the 'hallmark of constitutionality is the Constitution itself' - if and to the extent that is true, what the First *actually* establishes is not a "right" but an "immunity."
Our speech is not a "right" granted by the Constitution, but activity which the government may not prevent.
What the First provides is that the government is expressly *not given the power* to squelch speech. Scalia nowhere claimed that the 1st gives corps a "right" - he simply observed that this limitation on government power is not delimited by the 'speaker.' It is free speaking and writing, qua such, which government should not 'abridge.'
Following reports of serious financial abuses in the 1972 Presidential campaign, Congress amended the FECA in 1974 to set limits on contributions by individuals, political parties and PACs. But politicians exempted the corporate press:
2 USC 431 (9) (B) (i) The term "expenditure" does not include any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, unless such facilities are owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate;
If speech doesn’t cost money, then why is the term “expenditure” used? And not considered “contributions” is also found in the press exemption.
It is normal for all large businesses to make serious efforts to influence the news, to avoid embarrassing publicity, and to maximize sympathetic public opinion and government policies. Now they own most of the news media that they wish to influence. - Excerpt from The Media Monopoly by Ben H. Bagdikian
Shouldn’t flesh and blood enjoy equal rights to participate? Aren’t Super PACs and non-profits how we attempt doing that?
“Section 1. No human being, corporation, business entity, non-profit entity, or governmental entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office, nor shall they be allowed to contribute on behalf of, or opposed to, any type of campaign for Federal office. Prohibited contributions include, but are not limited to, money, valuables, personal property, or real estate, with the exception that human beings, but not organizations, may contribute provided that each human being’s contributions during any one month to any one candidate has a net value of less than $99 in 2012 dollars. In addition, human beings may contribute any amount of their own time, their own services, or their own speech to any candidate or candidates. Congress shall have power to allow contributions beyond those described here, but only when such contributions are made in a manner that is fair and balanced among the candidates for the Federal office.
Section 2. Human beings, but not organizations, may make unlimited contributions to any candidates in the form of their own personal speech. Any such speech is protected by the First Amendment. However, contributions such as money, valuables, personal property, or real estate are not speech whether made by human beings or by organizations, and such contributions are not protected by the Constitution or its amendments.
Section 3. Congress shall establish a federal holiday for the purpose of voting for candidates for Federal office.”