A reasonably good editorial in this morning’s Day, decrying the recent Supreme Court decision that handed the government over to the corporations. One quibble and one more serious caveat.
While it’s true that the decision also gave the unions the right to spend unlimited amounts on campaigns, that fact is not worth mentioning in the same breath as the fact that this “right” was extended to corporations. The financial resources of unions pale to insignificance next to that of the corporations. Consider, for instance, that the banking industry alone will be handing out bonuses this year that would, all by themselves, pay for the health care needs of the entire country. It is beyond doubt that had this ruling applied only to unions, it would have been nine to zero against what is now a spent force in our political system.
The more serious caveat involves this paragraph:
We renew our support for public financing of campaigns. While such laws cannot, and should not, force candidates to use public financing, a candidate’s decision to forgo it and turn instead to corporate and other special interests to bankroll a campaign will send a message to voters as to where that candidate’s true priorities stand.
The justices took care of public financing as a tool to clean up the system, with the same stroke of the pen with which they freed the oppressed corporations. The decision involved independent expenditures, not money given directly to candidates. A candidate could accept public financing secure in the knowledge that his or her corporate masters would be bankrolling a separate but more than equal campaign, a campaign for which the candidate could disclaim responsibility. We Second District residents remember Rob Simmons doing exactly that in a small way a few years ago, when he maintained that he simply couldn’t control what the RNC put in their ads. Given this ruling, any system of public financing would be a sham, since the Supreme Court has already created a loophole the size of the Grand Canyon. (And, why, by the way, should a candidate not be forced to participate in a system of public financing, were it possible to create an effective system? Why do we worship the wealthy so much that we insist that they have a god-given right to rule us? Why can’t we as a nation exercise our right to defend ourselves from the oligarchs?)
Post a Comment