Wednesday, September 9, 2009

money, money, money

The Supremes are re-hearing the Citizens United v. FEC case, aka the anti-Hilary documentary see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/washington/06movie.html?_r=1--that a rightwingnuts organization put out before the presidential primaries were over in 2008. Two things: this is why Sotgomayor's nomination was pusheed through Congress--so she could sit for the oral arguments in this case; and, more importantly bear in mind the only thing of lasting importance: the Supremes may answer the question: does the First amendment permit corporations to spend shareholder money in ways that allow the corporations to buy your elected officials?

The scholars, Jan Edwars and Molly Morgan have written that--Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate Personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person. It is the notion that coporations are persons that avails corporations of the priviledges and immunities granted we the people--such that corporatons by delivering of boatloads of money to our elected officials thwart the interest of the people. Oh, and with what the corporations have left over, they tell us how much we like what they are doing using camouflaged goups with consumer advocacy sounding names, like Citizens for Free Choice to be Ass-fucked by Big Oil, Pharm, You Name It.

Now, no one is going to accuse Bad Lawyer of being a brainiac, so refer to the real thinkers for detailed analysis of the issues in Citizens United v. FEC
see http://www.albanygovernmentlawreview.org/articles/_9_169-193.pdf and the implications of the Supremes overturning their precedents in campaign finance law see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/doug-kendall/five-reasons-why-emcitize_b_274180.htm.

What you need to know that this is about money, money, money. Your money. Can we think about how this is? Blue Cross sells you health insurance, the company charges you a premium that you can afford to pay, so they agree to cover only certain things, they will only pay certain amounts, and the premium dollar must be sufficient to pay executive compensation and return a profit for shareholders. Well it turns out, Blue Cross is making scads of money, short-changing health care providers, not covering more expensive procedures and not covering certain medical conditions--but pending legislation is going to change that--Blue Cross and its competitors get together, pool their resources and create Citizens for Health Care Free Choice, and they run ad campaigns supporting industry-um, friendly legislators and supporting attack campaigns against candidates viewed as less friendly: see Olbermann's brilliant take on owned-legislators: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/32277034#32277034

Money, big money, money the corporate personhood owns your government of the people, for the people and by the people. Citizens Untied v. FEC is a big case--how much more of your ass will the corporations own? That's the question.

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