Good-bye elections

So, the Supreme Court of the United States, by a 5-4 vote (are they ALL 5-4 now?) has ruled that corporations (and unions) can spend as much as they want on political campaigns. Can you say "activist court?"

Allegedly, they still cannot donate directly to candidates (this will be the next court challenge), but can spend whatever they want on whatever they want to say, true or not. Oh, this is wonderful.

There just hasn't been enough money sloshing around in political campaigns! The airwaves around elections are just barren of political ads! We haven't had billion-dollar Senate campaigns yet! Why not?!

I frankly see little reason to any longer give any money to any candidate. My dollars will be easily overwhelmed by corporate money. If you think you've seen a lot of so-called "issue-oriented" ads before, oh, brother, just wait until this next, and current, election cycle. We're going to see BILLIONS spent on ads. And much of it will likely come from special interests who just happen to have billions lying around. You think we have corporate-cloned-candidates now? Just wait.

Hey, man, it's free speech. As long as you've got the money, you can say whatever you want. Phony or not. Money=speech, so says the courts. If you don't have any money, well, just SFTU and get out of the way, and if you don't, we'll sic the cops on you to bust your head.

This is another manifestation of the supremacy of money in our culture. Collectively, we worship it over all else. All hail the mighty corporations. They can do no wrong. (Don't think about the current recession). Greed just scored a new address.

And don't give me this "well, unions have the freedom to put money into campaigns now too" bullshit. The Republicans (and some Democrats for that matter) have been hell-bent on killing unions for years, and are largely succeeding. Corporations will outspend any unions by 1,000 to 1, or worse. No comparison. How dare you WORKERS try to tell MANAGEMENT what to do!

I hope I'm wrong, and somehow our democracy will survive and rise up to reclaim itself. But hope is about all we have right now, and look how that turned out with Obama. Another slap in the face.