In response to the January 21, 2010 decision by the Supreme Court to abolish campaign finance limits by corporations, I created this image. Feel free to copy and share as you like. More below the fold:
When I first heard about the decision, I was heartsick. Then angry. It's not like it was unexpected, but it still felt like a sucker punch. I mean, we all knew they were going to do it, but somehow we just didn't BELIEVE they were going to do it.
And then they did. In broad daylight, as slick as you please, the Supreme Court of the United States unraveled over 100 years of legal precedent and protections. And not just in the campaign contribution side, oh no... if you go deeper, into what the MSM has either missed or glossed over, way back around page 178 you'll find Justice Thomas offering his considered opinion that not only should corporations be free to buy and sell politicians like a stock exchange, there should also be none of those nasty public disclosures and intrusive freedom of information, because it might impact the anonymity of who's doing the buying.
It's a real piece of work. One gets the impression from reading the SCOTUS decision's majority opinion that they'd been working on this one for a long, long time. The wording is too perfect, too clear-cut, too crafted-looking to be something that wasn't hashed out over a period of months, if not years. This is an incredibly wrong decision, but the language used comes across as iron-clad and all-inclusive. Nothing was left to chance. They wanted it clear as a bell that corporations now have a free hand, and if anything, they're patting the corporations on the back and congratulating them on their new-found liberties.
You'd almost swear some members of the SCOTUS were already bought by the corporations... but nah, that couldn't be it, right?
I may be sick for our nation's future, as much as Keith Olbermann is perhaps, but I'm not taking this lying down, nor should anyone, no matter what end of the political spectrum you may fall. This affects us all. As of January 21, 2010, the United States went hurling down the road to Fascism. And I'm not using hyperbole, nor am I pulling out a Godwin here. We've been on the brink before, and we have always kept a certain separation between corporate power and our government, however thin it has gotten lately. But that separation is gone; the veil is torn asunder; corporations, should they so choose (and why wouldn't they?), now have a direct IV into the bloodstream of our government and can literally purchase politicians to pass whatever in the hell they want.
Give it time, and they won't even bother passing anything. They'll just work the system into silly putty and new laws will simply be declared. "Why bother with all that time-consuming negotiation and such, just pass the damn thing already, we've got stockholders waiting!"
Now is the time to join like-minded groups. Call friends. Organize. This is bigger than healthcare, than the wars, than any other issue we face today... even global climate change. If this decision stands, all of those things will be out the window anyway.
Take to the streets. In the thousands. The tens, hundreds of thousands. The millions. If you're halfway ambulatory, then don't just tweet and update your status... move your butt. I am.