My personal belief is that any hint that Hillary Clinton is in favor
of overturning Citizens United, is pure hogwash.
But assuming she is, and announces her decision to pursue this goal,
she would be confronted by a solid wall of opposition that would make
Trump's border wall look like it was made from Papier-mache.
As much as the congressmen and women shed tears of frustration, they
are owned by the big money donors.
Look about you and tell me which major political party represents the
working class majority of American People.
And frankly, I'm getting tired of hearing folks telling us that all we
need to do is to bring pressure on Hillary, once she's in office. Do
we really think that we can pit our numbers against her donor's
billions? Even Bernie Sanders has lost considerable respect by
myself, as he begs folks to back Clinton.
Tell me just how we turn our nation away from violence and eternal
war, if we vote for the War Hawk Clinton?
No my friends, as much as we'd like to believe that we can force
Hillary Clinton to work on behalf of the People of America...not just
the 1%, the best we can hope to gain is to slow down our decent into
Hell's Fire.
The only way we Americans can establish a democracy in this
Republic(actually, the Oligarchy) is to remove all charters to all
corporations, and along with that, remove all their ill gotten money.
Since these vast corporations, some more powerful than most nations,
will never agree to sharing that which they stole, we have only two
choices to select from. We're back to the Lady or the Tiger. Behind
one door is the "Lady" who will distract us and charm us and help us
forget that we are fast becoming Serfs of the Empire. From behind the
other door rages the corporate monster, eager to spring forth and
devour us in a single gulp. Before we open this door, we'd better
have a plan for killing the monster. If we hesitate or believe we can
tame it, we are dead meat.
Carl Jarvis
On 10/23/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Truthdig
Why Overturning Citizens United Isn’t Enough
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_overturning_citizens_united_isnt_eno
ugh_20161022/
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Posted on Oct 22, 2016
By Adam Eichen / Moyers &
Company(http://billmoyers.com/story/overturning-citizens-united-isnt-enough/
)
Pictures of Money(https://www.flickr.com/photos/pictures-of-money/) /
(CC-BY-2.0)(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
Amidst all the other headline-grabbing pronouncements in Wednesday night’s
debate, Hillary Clinton mentioned the importance of overturning Citizens
United. While this is encouraging, focusing on Citizens United is not
enough; our campaign finance system was broken well before 2010. If Clinton
is serious about reducing the role of money in politics, she should appoint
Supreme Court justices willing to revisit Buckley v.
Valeo(https://www.oyez.org/cases/1975/75-436) , a 1976 decision that said
(among other things) third parties could spend unlimited amounts to
influence the outcome of an election, and First National Bank of Boston v.
Bellotti(https://www.oyez.org/cases/1977/76-1172) , a decision two years
later that struck down state attempts to limit corporate spending to affect
ballot initiatives. Those cases formed the basis for our inability to
regulate money in politics.
Moreover, altering Supreme Court case law is not enough. To ensure fair
elections it is essential to pass public financing of congressional
elections, create independent redistricting commissions, and reduce
lobbyist
influence over public policy.
In their discussion of the Supreme Court, both candidates also failed to
mention Shelby County v. Holder(https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96)
(2013), the case that gutted the Voting Rights Act — arguably the most
important piece of civil rights legislation ever passed. Since this
disastrous decision, states across the country have passed anti-democratic
measures that mandate voter IDs, enact draconian voter registration
requirements(https://www.thenation.com/article/texass-voter-registration-law
s-are-straight-out-of-the-jim-crow-playbook/) , reduce early voting, and
eliminate preregistration for minors (among other measures). The next
president must address this democratic crisis.
As Ari Berman
argues(http://billmoyers.com/story/election-rigged-not-democrats/) , the
election is “rigged,” but not in the way proclaimed by Trump. The
Republican
nominee continues to lambaste the virtually non-existent voter fraud (an
occurrence less likely than being struck by lightning), while millions of
Americans will be forced to sit out this election due to voter
disenfranchisement.
Electoral integrity is a serious matter. The United States has a long way
to
go to ensure a fully functioning representative democracy. Yet, refusing to
concede an election on fallacious grounds, as Trump did last night, is
beyond inappropriate. As law professor Rick Hasen
wrote(http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87772) , “Our democracy is a fragile
thing which depends upon accepting the rules of the game.”
Democracy is a living form of government, evolving over time and requiring
constant vigilance to ensure proper representation; undermining the entire
process, however, is childish and dangerous.
Adam Eichen is a member of the Democracy Matters Board of Directors and a
Fellow at the Small Planet Institute,(http://smallplanet.org/) where he is
working on a book on the Democracy Movement with founder Frances Moore
Lappé. He served as the deputy communications director for Democracy
Spring.
Follow him on Twitter: @eichendoit(https://twitter.com/eichendoit) .
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