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Former Texas Agriculture Commissioner, creator of the Doug Jones Average, and perennially witty guy Jim Hightower writes via The Union Democrat of Sonora, California:
If tiny groups of Wall Street bankers, billionaires, and their political puppets are allowed to write the rules that govern our economy and elections, guess what? Only bankers, billionaires, and puppets will profit from those rules.
[...] They've rigged the rules to let them feast freely on our jobs, devour our country's wealth, and impoverish the middle class.
"Take On Wall Street" is both the name and the feisty attitude of a nationwide campaign that a coalition of grassroots groups has launched to do just that: Take on Wall Street. The coalition, spearheaded by the Communication Workers of America, points out that there is nothing natural or sacred about today's money-grabbing financial complex. Far from sacrosanct, the system of finance that now rules over us has been designed by and for Wall Street speculators, money managers, and big bank flim flammers. So--big surprise--rather than serving our common good, the system is corrupt, routinely serving their uncommon greed at everyone else's expense.
[...] A growing grassroots coalition of churches, unions, civil rights groups, citizen activists, and many others are organizing and mobilizing us to crash through those closed doors, write our own rules, and reverse America's plunge into plutocracy. The "Take On" campaign has the guts and gumption to say enough!
[...] The campaign has laid out a five-point [sic] people's reform agenda and are now taking it to the countryside to rally the voices, anger, and grassroots power of workers, consumers, communities of color, Main Street, the poor, people of faith... and just plain folks.
- Getting the corrupting cash of corporations and the superrich out of our politics by repealing Citizens United and providing a public system for financing America's elections.
- Stopping "too big to fail" banks from subsidizing their high-risk speculative gambling with the deposits of us ordinary customers--make them choose to be a consumer bank or a casino, but not both.
- Institute a tiny "Robin Hood Tax" on Wall Street speculators to discourage their computerized gaming of the system, while also generating hundreds of billions of tax dollars to invest in America's real economy.
- Restore low-cost, convenient "postal banking" in our Post Offices to serve millions of Americans who're now at the mercy of predatory payday lenders and check-cashing chains.
There's an old truism about negotiating that says: "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu". The "Take On Wall Street" campaign intends to put you and me--the People--at the table for a change.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 01 2016, @02:09PM
Getting the corrupting cash of corporations and the superrich out of our politics by repealing Citizens United and providing a public system for financing America's elections.
No. Citizen's United is not a law that can be repealed. It was a SCOTUS decision regarding the Constitutional right to Free Speech. So this whole thing starts by proclaiming they want a Constitutional Amendment to repeal Free Speech in the US.
No.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Thursday September 01 2016, @02:42PM
I'm not sure why you think that a Supreme Court decision can't be reversed, there are plenty of examples [wikipedia.org].
Now, free speech. You have to realize that corporations are legal fictions (I know, I'm a lawyer) and should not be understood as having the same rights as a natural person. For example, you can't throw in jail a corporation, why should it have a right to free speech?
Now, they are using their "free speech" to unduly influence elections, the latest example is George Soros attempt to influence the election of district attorneys [politico.com]. Think for a moment, a rich guy who does not live in your community is trying to get elected a district attorney he likes, is this the way democracy should work? Regardless of his aims (good or bad), I think election of local public officials should be in the hands of local citizens and not some rich guy whose primary residence is in New York.
We the people reads the constitutiion, and by "the people" they mean natural persons and not legal fictions, should have the power to elect our form of government and any and all public servants. Corporations should be banned from contributing in any way to candidates; this does not preclude the offiicials and shareholders of said corporations from personally contributing, but as natural persons.
This way, we the people get to keep and enjoy our rights.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:24PM
You misunderstand the issues, the campaign finance laws, and the interpretations of contributions, contributions-in-kind, and advocacy as defined by the FEC, as well as the categories of committees, disconnected committees, PACs, and "Super PACs".
Corporations cannot contribute to campaigns. The Citizens United decision did nothing to change that. From the FEC:
Rules for organization's PACs did not change based on Citizens United either.
Citizens United simply said that the FEC cannot ban the publication of books, magazines, newspapers and movies based on the content of the publication. I find it hard to believe that you think there are enough people that can make movies out of their personal funds without forming some sort of organization to do it. I'm also not sure why you think that the New York Times and the Washington Post should be free to publish anything they want, but movie studios should not be allowed that same freedom...
I am a crackpot
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jelizondo on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:55PM
Let’s see if we can find common ground here.
At Soylent (and in other venues of life), you and I are peers, enjoying the same rights and freedoms. You are free to post as many comments as you like and rebuke any comment you happen to disagree with and I have the same access.
Now suppose one of the admins, take NCommander (sorry buddy), decides to exercise his freedom of speech but instead of posting a comment, he “promotes” your comment by featuring it in the main page and in a special sidebar on the comments page.
Given the above situation, most people would agree that now the playing field at Soylent is uneven. A small minority (I hope) might argue that since they own Soylent, they can do whatever they want.
Moving from analogy to real life, this is what happens when you and I decide to contribute to a candidate or a party, but in the other side they have the Koch brothers, the Walton family, George Soros, Goldman Sachs or Citi, each worth billions of dollars, against our combined paycheck.
You see, you are wrong. The Citizen’s United, Emily’s List and SpechNow cases lifted the restrictions on the amount of money a legal entity (corporation, union or non-profit) can spend towards advocating for or against a candidate or party.
In essence the Supreme Court ruled that money equals speech, meaning those with more money can make their voices heard louder, which is contrary to democratic principles.
In order not to make this comment longer, I invite you to read the following material:
Cheers
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gravis on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:02PM
incorrect. what they want is to say that corporations are composed of people but corporations themselves are not a person. this would mean that corporations do not get the same rights as people which includes the freedom of speech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @06:06PM
There is nothing in the Constitution that says corporations have all the same rights as people. That interpretation was gradually added over time, probably via corporate pressure on the courts.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Friday September 02 2016, @07:27PM
There is nothing in the Constitution that says corporations have all the same rights as people. That interpretation was gradually added over time, probably via corporate pressure on the courts.
Actually, the opposite was the case, originally. Some one else may know the history better, but as I recall, corporations were first classed as persons so that they could be taxed. As a non-person, corporations were able to retain vast sums of capital that did not show up as income for the stockholders, so the government granted (forced?) a limited person-hood on corporations in order to tax that wealth.
Citizens United has expanded that limited notion of being a limited "person" under the law for tax purposes, and has started to claim that corporations are natural persons, rather than artificial, and so due natural human rights, like freedom of speech. And the "religious freedom" stuff going around now will probably establish freedom of religion for corporations, so that Catholic corporations can refuse public accommodations to heretics and apostates, for example. And just wait until corporations go all ammosexual*second amendment*moron labia on us. Blackwater was only the beginning. Private corporate armies?
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:28PM
Have you ever tried to watch a movie that was produced entirely out of one individual's personal funds? It's not pretty. It's not good.
A corporation is just a way to organize a group of people. Should we ban ALL legal entities from being allowed to produce opinion pieces? Labor Unions? Churches? Non-profits (501c4, 501c3)?
Please explain why newspapers and TV stations can say whatever they want, but other corporations have their content censored?
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday September 02 2016, @07:05AM
Does this count?
New Mexico is Beautiful [youtube.com] (Allie Knight)
Computers are amazingly powerful these days.
(Score: 2) by julian on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:25PM
SCOTUS gets things wrong from time to time, Citizen's United is one recent example. Their decisions are neither perfect nor permanent. Money isn't speech. Our current laws and precedents say it is. Our current laws are wrong.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:22PM
SCOTUS did not say money is speech. They said a movie is speech. And it is.
There are 6 corporations that control 90% of the media in the US. They all have political biases. How do you decide what to censor?
Besides, it doesn't matter. It turns out that money for messaging doesn't really do much for politicians. If it did, Trump would not be the Republican nominee - he was way outspent. He's being outspent 10-to-1 against Hillary, and not losing by much. Even the Koch brother's money could not stop him.
There are many, many examples that prove that the money isn't making much of a difference in campaigns. Dave Brat was outspent 100x over, but he still beat Eric Cantor. The entire thing is a tempest in a teapot. It's irrelevant. It's just a rallying cry used for fund-raising.
Meanwhile, the influence peddling of the Clintons and their "non-profits" continues unabated.
I am a crackpot