Mark Penn concern trolling on MoJo this morning–move to the right, move to bipartisan, move to my bullshit shilling for Teh Village same ol’ same ol’.

Be afraid of the progressives, be afraid, very afraid, is the concensus of MoJo today. And Imus is talking to Beck…well, there’s 15 seconds of my life I’ll never get back.

Time to go get the winter survival kit ready….

Is it just you and me this ayem, BT? Excellent thread yesterday with Grayson.

ensure that Republican candidates will be at an enormous advantage in future elections.

Why would Republicans have any advantage? From what I’ve seen during the HCR cycle, there are plenty of Democrats willing to take big cash from corporations.

Just wait until our corp masters eliminate internet for everyone. Nice knowin’ ya.

Doesn’t matter, R or D, under this scenario the remaining tea-insy diffs will be eliminated.

Corporate masters, or…

Whose agenda is being furthered by the Roberts Court? There’s more than one shadow elite in Teh Village.

Dan Brown could have a field day with the angels and demons that skulk in that town.

Mornin’, BT, pups

Well, we know the corporations will be flooding the airwaves with ads so we’ve got to come up with something to counteract that. Campaigning the old fashioned pre-TV days for starters, lots of real live face time.

Whose agenda do you think is being advanced?

As I understand it, the strategy of people like Rahm is to beat the Republicans at their own game by becoming Republicans.

Democrat. Republican. There wasn’t much of a difference before yesterday. The differences were already mostly in the marketing, as Jane has said. Now, within a year or two, the differences will be entirely in the marketing.

Although misuse of the filibuster (helped by the supineness of the Democrats) is a big problem, the major impediment to effective legislation and governance is the financing of campaigns and thus the careers of politicians. This decision is a blow to finance reform.On top of Massachusetts election, a really bad week for our country.

homer http://www.altara.blogspot.com

O announces indefinite detention for 50 Gitmo prisoners, from democracynow.

I wonder if people are aware that this will have huge impact at the local, state, regional levels as well. This adds an atomic-scale weapon that corporations and their professional associations can apply against relatively poor and powerless local and state governments.

I would add legislation that provides a list of corporations with at least half the board with dual citizenship, and/or half of the shares foreign owned or owned by US citizens with dual citizenship, be denied the ability to invest in our elections due to threat to national security. (That includes financial and insurance institutions). I would also add any non-profit organizations under that legislation as well.

Otherwise, foreign countries can buy our elections which amounts to treason. I wonder if the fine justices thought about the threat to national security? Justice John Paul Stevens was the only one to notice this issue.

I would also think about adding that if corporations do not have 90% of their profits held by sole US banks within the US, they cannot contribute to campaigns. Again, due to threat of foreign election influence.

They won’t eliminate it. You’ll just need to get a 3rd mortgage on your house to use it.

Add another couple hundred folks who’d be willing to blow themselves up to strike back at the Great Satan.

What difference does it make whether the SC ruling helps repubs or dems? Bottom line it means that corporations now own the political system. Well they already did but this now codifies it into law. R.I.P. U.S.A. Despite the ups and downs a decent run.

I’ve been worrying about this exact point since I first heard about the decision. Firedoglake was already fighting hard with limited resources. Now, Firedoglake and other netroots/grassroots activists will have their limited resources far overshadowed by corporations.

Olbermann last night mentioned that it would be pointless to call for a revolution because, as he put it, they make all the guns and ammo.

At the moment, it seems to me that “right-wing tactical convergence” isn’t even enough.

Americans have to march. There have to be protests. I’m wondering if a boycott of the 2010 midterm elections might be in order. I mean every activist group – regardless of political philosophy or pov – just declaring in one loud voice that corporations cannot own this country, and making sure that we’re all damned loud about it.

Maybe some subset we’ve never even heard of…there are so many butting chests against each other. I’d heard of Opus Dei for example, and Skull and Bones, but who ever knew about C Street until the sex scandals erupted.

Or maybe they’re all overachieving class clowns that in our home states we think, we gotta keep re-electing so-and-so or what’ll they do for work? /s

Same diff.

I would repeat the concern of national security threat by this Supreme Court decision over and over and over and over.

I would make the conservative judges own the threat to national security created by their decision. Conservatives screaming national security threat at the drop of a pin. And now? Now they are silent and just smiling on this decision?

This decision is a huge national security threat.

And we have twice that number of agents working to find them.

Who’s going to tell them? The corporate media? They’ll sugar coat it and tell everyone to just “move along, nothing to see here.”

All of the above. The corps are the most obvious beneficiary but not the only ones.

It’s more than a threat. At this point it’s checkmate. The coup that began with Bush v. Gore is now complete.

Tease that out. What is the national security link?

If the left boycotts the mid-terms we’ll be worse off than we are now. The mesmerized by teebee low info voters will show up. Boycotts of corporations could be somewhat effective but would require a lot of sacrifice by those usually not willing to give up their toys and creature comforts.

We need to refine this definition, though. Say corporation and around here in the heartland folks think of the local Ace Hardware or something.

But you bring up an interesting perspective. For example, the Saudi prince now trying to buy into Murdoch’s operation. You want cher Fox network propagandizing you by the Saudi’s instead of the Aussies, teabaggers?

Just had my wireless service cut off unexpededly. Called AT&T, and they told me that my monthly usage went over the limit. Previously, they didn’t charge for anything over the monthly flat rate. Now they’re enforcing some limit. To use the service over the limit, I have to pay a premimum.

The guy told me if I want to avoid the extra charge, I need to avoid refreshing my screen so often.

R.I.P. U.S.A.

Seriously, we saw this happen not two decades ago to the USSR. The circumstances were different, but capitalists have found a way to twist even democratic principles into something that serves their interests.

This isn’t just about corporations shitting all over democracy. It’s about corporations controlling policy. The results will devastate our economy and cause the collapse of our country.

We’ve done to ourselves what no terrorist could ever have done to us.

These motherfuckers couldn’t find a whale in a swimming pool without someone pointing it out to them.

You have a point.

I didn’t say “the left.” I said Americans should boycott. I wrote that all activists – regardless of political philosophy or pov – should boycott.

It’s just an idea. I don’t know whether such a thing could be put together.

But who won’t have a chance.

Interesting. So many ways to be screwed. Who can keep up.

Yes,

But get people out on the ground explaining this to citizens. With a list of the corporations that meet the parameters I mention above @ 14 and the list of countries that are buying influence via which corps.

Crap would hit the fan. People would unite against this like a tidal wave.

I would also track what “other” organizations said board members and major stock holders have in common (such as largest donations to non-profits) to track what “other” influences may be playing out as well. There most likely is a pattern.

Some were in the tribal area of Pakistan bin Laden and his followers are giving each other high fives and chest bumps. They know they can work with the corporations. R.I.P. U.S.A..

I agree, I was just responding to the quote (I don’t know if it was KO or whoever) but they said:

ensure that Republican candidates will be at an enormous advantage in future elections.

Someone let their partisan show.

Is it true that one of the Supreme Court’s duties is to set precedent?

So if this is true, Bush v. Gore was emphatically not to set precedent? Or why go to the trouble of elections?

Shouldn’t the Supremes who voted to stop the voting in Fl. be removed? Since they went against their own protocals? When our country is circling the drain as a result of their decision? Look at the economy now as opposed to when bush became president. There is more to terroism than targeting those who fly planes. Cat Stevens was prevented from entering the US during all the bush hype. We are supposed to think this keeps us safe?

If you have a board that is perhaps half ownership by non citizens or dual citizens buying elections, you essentially have the threat of foreign influence buying elections.

There are plenty of targets representing the US outside the US. Every tourist, every business traveler. Doesn’t have to be blowing up airliners. Think like a modern guerrilla. A small team acting individually could wreak havoc in any locality. When one’s sole focus is “How can I kill these people?” it gets ugly in a hurry.

It’s okay. I’m sure our corporate masters will treat us nicely.

I agree but Oh right my job was out sourced in Nov 09 and I’m about to receive my 1st EDD check. Yes king g left with a kinder and gentler Amerika in place.

Everything is on schedule, please move along

Agreed, it is getting increasingly hard to keep up. Maybe we should all just give up and join the Amish.

Thanks. See what you’re saying.

The fact that all the explaining in the world couldn’t convince the American public that “torture” is not a good policy for the country a collective shrug of the shoulders will be the reaction to the corporations now owning the political process for all but the most informed electorate. The people are either too dumbed down, too stressed out or too distracted, or all of the above will likely just want to be left alone. Serfdom is in their future.

I thought for a long time that the most effective political action would be a widespread consumer strike. Even for a day. Would scare the bejeezes out of the corps. Don’t know how to get it organzined though.

Torture, unfortunately, has been shadowed by the pitch “Keep America Safe.”

Tell citizens that foreign countries are buying elections (and illustrate it with the associations of the majority of board members and share holders) and what candidates they are buying to imposed legislation which denies rights and you have quite the point to perk anyone’s attention. It is essentially an invasion of our country. 9-11 was a strike.

This. This is the threat of invasion.

It’s treason.

It’s an idea that’s been around for a long time. Those that should be organizing it, however, labor unions, civil rights and liberties organizations, environmentalists, consumer advocates, etc. etc. etc. are unable to see the big picture and the need for collective action.

Well, the U.S. buys elections all around the globe, one way or another, so I suppose fair is fair.

We’ve already got a large segment of the population who are struggling just to feed themselves. At a half million layoffs every month it won’t take long for that segment to grow and have an effect on consumer buying. Just not buying anything on credit would have a huge impact.

Yeah, it’s not particularly original but on the top of my mind as economics is my field. Yes, those orgs should be the ones organizing it.

Look at it this way. There could be a silver lining with foreign countries owning the country. Say for example French corporations buy the Congress and the Presidency. Perhaps then there might be universal health care. The French corporations already know that universal health care is good for the bottom line. American corporations, clueless.

It won’t need a genius or an inspired leader to bring it about. When the frustration reaches a tipping point, it will happen spontaneously.

Yesterday someone on another blog said, “next time you’re in Philadelphia be sure and visit the Liberty Taco Bell”. Made me laugh.

One of my one-liners when I did econ forecasting for a living was: consumers are fundamentally insatiable. They will buy & buy & buy & buy, all impediments to the contrary. This is the first recovery that will test that proposition. We had quite a lively and civilized discussion of the forecast at my diary.

I will not argue with you on that. If anything, I hate the thought that we do that. Although, as a citizen, I have not endorsed the buying of a foreign election. We should also come up with strategies to deny our influence on foreign elections (short of non-gov organizations observing the elections are fair) from happening as well.

And we should be equally pissed at the thought that we do that, instead of encouraging democracy.

Without the organization and education of the masses it will not happen no matter how bad it gets. Feudalism lasted for several hundred years and was not swept aside by a “spontaneous” uprising.

I realize that was snark.

But do you want China, Russia, The Vatican (which is a foreign state) or Israel owning our elections?

It’s too late for that. The govt-controlled telecoms are able to monitor all our communications. Any organization attempting any action or education plan will be infiltrated and disrupted. When the upheaval occurs, it will happen spontaneously, and all the resources of the state won’t be able to stop it.

good morning.

OT – i see ecahn had a great diary and discussion yesterday. thought i would mentioned it, in case anyone like ME missed it yesterday and ecahn is willing to continue the discussion, the diary threads are open for comment for several days. here’s the link:

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/25481

Paul Revere it.

The last on you list already does.

It was a bit of snark but then Israel in a sense already owns “our” politicians. How often do we actually here a fair, open and honest discussion on the actions of the Israeli government and the plight of Palestinians? As to the Vatican (the church) already owns many of “our” politicians. Think the “Family” and all their allies in the halls of Congress.

Shit, the Vatican and Israel already own our politicians.

The U.S. put the “mock” in demockracy. That used to be true just overseas. Now it’s true at home as well. I suppose that should have been expected in the sense that what is done outside the borders will never stay there.

The state has the guns and all the “police” power they need to put down any insurrection regardless of size. The only exception is if the military turns against the government.

All’s I got is tea so yer gonna hafta be satisfied with that. *g*

the army of unemployed is already big and growing everyday. it’s just a matter of time that people just SNAP. it’s going to happen.

this will only speeds things up.

Well,

Get a national movement for legislation like this and sit back, listen to the complainers and the fighters of it. Then you have your list of those committing treason.

You are actually making all the arguments for creating a movement for legislation like this. Essentially, you are not only stating this type of legislation is necessary but that it is urgent.

The US is the most heavily armed country in the world. Even this hippie Zen Buddhist has 3 long guns. To protect our country from all enemies, foreign and domestic, doncha know.

Thanks. Left you As to your Qs. Off to shower, but I’ll be back soon. Keep asking.

We, that is the commenters here, do not see the need for collective action or we are not inclined to it which is the same thing. Were we to organize everyone, right left and middle, on the internet, we might via state laws and state constitutions, obtain what the federal constitution (according to the 5 man majority) does not provide. Andrew Jackson said of the SCOTUS decision regarding the Bank of the US “They made their decision, now let them enforce it.” Opposition begins with us. If we wait for a leader, we will wait in vain.

I watched this, it was immediately after Johnathan Turley deflated Keith’s balloon by saying he would have had to vote with the SC majority over reasons of first amendment rights.

I am not a constitutional scholar but the gist I got from Johnathan Turley’s brief interview (before being given the bum rush to get onto Mr. Grayson’s more sensational remarks) was that if you choose, as a society, to treat corporate entities as persons, then those entities have the same rights as persons and that includes first amendment rights. It’s kind of cut and dry from that perspective; sucky, but cut and dry nonetheless.

To my mind, the bigger point is attacking the question of why corporations get to be considered persons; however, I personally believe no one will ever address that question–even the sensational Mr. Grayson. The reason being that when an entity is a person, it can be taxed. Take away the status of a corporation as a person and I think you make a strong case for a massive portion of the US annual revenue to dry up in the blink of an eye. That might, ultimately, be the right thing to do but it might also hurt the country a great deal. So, since some preceding generation made this deal with the devil, we can complain that a legal loophole was allowed to exist for several decades which made it palpable (vis-a-vis: it’s ok that corps get to be people because we can tax their asses and we restrict their constitutional rights), but I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that this particular SC finally let those chickens come home to roost.

What do the FDL legal eagles say to Turley’s point?

What kind of legislation are you talking about? I got lost somewhere.

We probably turned them into vegetables through their exposure to TORTURE / MURDER / TREASON. Just a thought.

thanks!

This is the point the conservatives want. They want the SC case to define a “person” and what meets those conditions.

This is a back door to Roe v. Wade. Wrote that on Christy’s blogs months ago.

This approach was studied and mapped out by quite a legal team for quite a while. Now the wheels are in motion. We just need to get up to speed as to their legal angle(s).

We, that is the commenters here, do not see the need for collective action or we are not inclined to it which is the same thing.

what’s the evidence of this?

What I suggested at 14.

We, that is the commenters here, do not see the need for collective action or we are not inclined to it

If we wait for a leader, we will wait in vain.

I don’t understand where you get the notion that we’re not for collective action nor do I see anybody looking for a leader. We are all leaders.

Turley is looking at a tree and missing the forest, imo.

Seems to me that constitutional scholars and Supreme Court Justices know that they have to consider the practical implications, i.e. the relationship between law and society.

Turley focused far too narrowly on a principle without consideration of what the decision will lead to in practice: the destruction of the principle that he thinks he’s defending.

Go read bmaz from yesterday.

Like I said, all’s I got is tea. *g*

Cool.

Well, not to pester overly much but how does the wind blow? Is there an indication that conservative legal minds want a “person” to be something other than a visible, corporeal entity imbued with a self-sustaining life force? There seems to be a conflation of moral/legal points rushing to this single nexus: Are zygotes people? Are old folks on life support people? Are corporations (which pay a ton of tax in a nice, peoplely fashion) people?

What’s the liberal angle, and how broad is the grey line between “people” and “taxable entity?”

Thanks. Going to read it now. Perhaps johnSwifty22 should read it, too.

http://rawstory.com/2010/01/ron-paul-cia/

There’s been a coup, have you heard? It’s the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They’re the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. … And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. … And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They’re in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators … We need to take out the CIA.

Debate?

Good enough. Thanks

My understanding is that any U.S. registered corporation can spend as much as they want.
What happens when China buys Chrysler. China is then protected under our constitution more than the citizens of this country.
China will be able to buy and sell politicians to get better trade deals from the U.S.

It’s The End Of The World
R.E.M.

(an excerpt)

That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes,
an aeroplane – Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn,
world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs.
Feed it off an aux speak,, grunt, no, strength,
The ladder starts to clatter with fear fight down height.
Wire in a fire, representing seven games, a government for hire and a combat site.
Left of west and coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck.
Team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered cropped.
Look at that low playing!
Fine, then.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common food, but it’ll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right – right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine…

except i don’t feel fine. i feel afraid. very afraid….. for future generations.

if ever we needed a presiendent who was a constituional lawyer.

oh wait, we have that.

now lets see if he can actually use what he knows to counterbalance this travesty (jonathan turley not withstanding)

No folks, today we see only one man, Alan Grayson, who is trying to stop the final “checkmate” in the corporate coup d’etat. One voice in the wilderness. No spontaneous revolt to throw off the yolk of oppression. No organization that is willing to step up and lead a “movement”. Merely a disorganized collection of individuals and individual organizations flailing about with little effect. America will still have it’s Jay and Conan and “Idol” and the Gosselins and Sunday football and Nascar and Rush and O’Reilly and it’s Dems and Repubs and it’s vapid political speak and it’s front lawns and potted petunias and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and for many Americans that’s as good as it gets. The U.S. has lost not only it’s conscience but it’s soul. R.I.P. U.S.A.. The “fat lady” hit her high note yesterday.

Gee, I love it when folks give up before the fight even starts.

I’d like to start a movement….

but I don’t have any money.

New post up top…

Not that I’m “giving up” but I don’t really see anything positive looming on the horizon and I’m far past my prime street fighting days. Italy beckons.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

The Afghans drove out the Soviets and have fought the US for the last 8 years. They have found ways to defeat the enemy and drive it from their land. Are we less courageous than the Afghans?

US KIA Irak: 4,374

US KIA Afghanistan: 967

Iraki and Afghan casualties: estimates vary to over 1.5M

US MBS 2010: 2,604 and rising

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.

Think of the burgeoning power around the marriage of corporations like Xe and agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the military. Add in the money that the Pentagon misplaces each year without Congressional complaint. Using non-metaphorical mercenary corporations as front for real change in national politics just got a major leg up. They don’t have to fight or buy politicians directly, the mercs are much better positioned for that task.

My guess is that the southern strategy may have just gotten a whole lot more powerful.

Just did, thanks.

Mr. Feingold paints a bleak picture. The two main bummers being: Corps can flood the media with their self-serving political messages and the unwashed masses will be further polluted with onslaught of that deluge; no thinking voter will ever be able to make a cohesive decision ever again. And, almost more important, the SC is setting the plate to overturn any damn thing it wants, regardless of its own precedent.

The first is a major bummer–as is the second, but the second does beg the question of whether two wrongs make a right and how much does it hurt to let a wrong stand? If the idea that corporations could be both “people” and restricted in their free speech at the same time was wrong (as the SC has recently decided), then wouldn’t it have been just as wrong to let that hundred year old ruling stand? How many other rulings need to be re-examined (Roe v. Wade being brought into play)? Here is the possibility for some relatively massive social change, but I don’t think it is change anyone wanted to believe in a year ago. The irony is succulent.

The only ones that are sacrificing their lives in today’s U.S. are military personnel that are fighting in a war without end.

I’ve been told 45,000 Americans die annually for the simple want of adequate health care.

It might be noble to fight and die for a cause, I’d like to think it is.

I’d also like to know what cause is worth fighting and dying for? I think I could be brave if I knew what that bravery was being expended for.

As Rep Barney Frank said last night, corporations are not natural beings. They are constructs made possible by legal privilege. As such, they can be regulated by laws that enable them to exist.

The Supreme Court decision yesterday was obviously wrong, wrong legally and wrong constiutionally. Wrong.

The question is what to do about it.

As to the second point, the Supreme Court making decisions without citing any precedent, in fact, through about established law and all precedent, is something that has to be dealt with separately and secondarily, imo.

cheers!

R.I.P. U.S.A.. The “fat lady” hit her high note yesterday.

only if everyone gives up. really up to us. each of us.

now i owe you a drink. coffee?

The Supreme Court decision yesterday was obviously wrong, wrong legally, wrong constiutionally, wrong existentially, wrong essentially. Wrong.

I guess I’m dense, I don’t see the obviousness. Once the Frankenstein monster has been imbued with life–once corporations are allowed to exist as “persons,” I see the regulation of those entities as being a great potential for damage to constitutional rights. The obvious wrongness I see is that corporations should never be considered persons in any regard.

This is really a last straw for me.

There’s an organization called GOOOH (Get Out Of Our House) that’s pushing an independent message about putting “statesmen” back in Washington instead of career politicians.

Checked out the founders and everyone I can find associated with it’s organization and it appears to be legitimately grassroots but at this point I’m so jaded I’m afraid there’s a teabag under every rock!

Maybe some of you can check it out and let us know what you think.

Got a little honey?

Looks like we’re gonna be busier than we thought.

The evidence is that we don’t talk about how we might organize starting with ourselves in our individual towns. I’ve pressed this point a lot, for which I apologize, but it takes time for people to conclude the system doesn’t work mainly because torches and pitchforks seem the only alternative. Take health care-please. There was a time on this blog when the call went out for phone calls and petitions. Didn’t work although the house may yet, Krugman notwithstanding, sink the whole thing.

Suppose I want to create in my town (about 75000 souls) a web site that posts the town’s checkbook online. I mention checkbook because I think that has the best chance of attracting my fellow citizens. The topic can be any thing that lots of people might find interesting. Trouble is I don’t have the technical ability to do it. Then there’s the problem of servers and financing. Finally, my town doesn’t mean much by itself, so it needs lots of other people in lots of other towns getting on the same page. We can then network to see if we can, collectively, do something more effective than complain. It is an enormous undertaking, but it can be done if enough people decide they want to try to do it.

I agree. And I think that that’s what Rep Frank was getting at last night. That’s what I meant by this:

As Rep Barney Frank said last night, corporations are not natural beings. They are constructs made possible by legal privilege. As such, they can be regulated by laws that enable them to exist.

I suppose Rep Grayson’s effort to force corporations to get shareholder approval prior to using profits to purchase politicians is making the same point. Shareholders are people. Corporations are not.

As I understand it, the strategy of people like Rahm is to beat the Republicans at their own game by becoming Republicans.

That’s profound!

This is the same type of laws that Germany and Italy had back in the 30′s

Once the Frankenstein monster has been imbued with life–once corporations are allowed to exist as “persons,” I see the regulation of those entities as being a great potential for damage to constitutional rights.

There is nothing in the Constitution that “imbues corporations with life.” They are entities — not persons — of our own creation and we regulate them in all kinds of ways.

Turley was extremely disappointing on KO.

I am not a constitutional scholar but the gist I got from Johnathan Turley’s brief interview (before being given the bum rush to get onto Mr. Grayson’s more sensational remarks) was that if you choose, as a society, to treat corporate entities as persons, then those entities have the same rights as persons and that includes first amendment rights. It’s kind of cut and dry from that perspective; sucky, but cut and dry nonetheless.

My thinking exactly. I also am no lawyer but while pursuing the legal channels we can make one of our talking points the demonstration of the fact that corporations are not people. They are in-human.

The right has been terribly successful in anthropomorphizing them and their “brands.” But they are not flesh and blood. It is the humans within who are refusing to pay out on a health insurance claim on the basis of policies made by humans.

The right wing’s response to otherwise unanswerable criticism is that they provide jobs. No. The hiring is done by a person, not a corporation etc etc

Write laws that demand the people show up, not their lawyers when business with the public is to be done.

Right. They’ll simply continue to buy both parties. In fact what we really have is what Nader told us a Corporate party with two wings one a bit more socially liberal then the other. On most issue regarding business however they’re on the same or very similar pages. The nobility from here on will totally own the political system from top to near the bottom. The SCOTUS ruling is just the bookend to the 70′s ruling that basically made $$ into the equivalent of speech. This is just $$ talks II. The Corporate elite is sealing the deal in law now. They own the State everyone else can fuck off.

if you choose, as a society, to treat corporate entities as persons, then those entities have the same rights as persons and that includes first amendment rights.

The key word is “choose.” There are numerous ways that corporations are not treated as persons.

Welcome to the UOA = United Oligarchy of America

I have it!

Make it illegal for non-citizens to campaign for laws or candidates. Then work on the criteria for establishing citizenship for a corporation, such as what percentage of workers are in the US or what percentage of shareholders are citizens. The right wing should love that.

You have to be a ctizen to vote. Why not include that prerequisite for campaigning.

Not totally joking.

If money is the same as speech then those that spend the most will always control the dialog. Speech that is granted to corporations based upon their access to the money contained in their coffers gives them the power as individuals within and the addition of the sociopathic monetary power nature of the corporation. Members of the corporation thus have an extra form of speech not available to non-corporation controlling members. By granting corporations the ability to spend to influence votes, the power of everyone else, that lacks corporate backing, to speak is either diminished or eliminated.

Public finance and unlimited corporate speech through money are incompatible because the public coffers could never compete, all the more so as tax revenues continue to drop. So, to some extent this can be seen as a pre-emptive strike on any future attempts at public finance, which had very little chance anyway. The folks that put up Roberts and Alito and the Ds that rolled over during the nomination hearings should be quite happy today since their activist judges continue to carry the day.

I guess I’m dense, I don’t see the obviousness. Once the Frankenstein monster has been imbued with life–once corporations are allowed to exist as “persons,” I see the regulation of those entities as being a great potential for damage to constitutional rights. The obvious wrongness I see is that corporations should never be considered persons in any regard.

The assumption you keep trying to slip in here is the equivalence of the “personhood” of corporations with actual living persons.

In point of fact, we don’t equate them. Is there a person called Mediacom that actually steps into a booth and votes? Is there a person called Goldman-Sachs that could be physically jailed?

For that matter, there recognized persons that don’t enjoy the sorts of rights we take for granted – the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay don’t have a right to a speedy trial, for example, and Habeus Corpus simply does not exist.

The chain of reasoning is as nonsensical as saying that since my can opener is red and cardinals are red, my can opener is a cardinal and so my can opener has the power of flight.

You are probably right. I find Mr. Grayson’s methods to be questionable from time to time, but I never question that his heart is in the right place. And, sadly, I have to admit that Grayson’s more sensational methods are a way to get exposure in the 24/7 news cycle. Forcing corporations to at least answer to their shareholders is certainly an idea for bringing a human element back into the equation, at least to some degree.

If the SC must give the corporations first amendment protection (right or wrong; I’m certainly tired of arguing devil’s advocate position that it is right) then is more regulation the only recourse? If the net result, as Feingold has forewarned, is that media can be flooded with corporate message by organizations, won’t that a) cheapen the message and b) open the door for competing organizations to retaliate? In fact, won’t good sense and a sense of righteousness force caring folks to organize in opposition to corporate messaging? Until Xe takes over the streets and the intertubes, the biggest problem facing proponents of “correct” ideas for government and societal organization, seem to me, to be the classic questions of forming convincing argument with ethical, logical and sympathetic constructs that point to the truth of a matter.

To that end FDL continues to be a good ad hoc organization and collection point for ideas; but, formalizing more methods for collecting money to expound those ideas seems like a natural progression to fight the corporate media onslaught.

I like that I can click over to the blueState site and give a little jing to a congressional race that seems to support my ideas–but I never know if that candidate will really carry through. I gave a fair amount of money to John Tester years ago, and I don’t think I got my money’s worth. Hell, in my own state, I gave money to Tim Walz, and that might have been a bust, too.

I might prefer to click a button and give my money to a media campaign effort. I wouldn’t mind seeing more FDL sponsored adds with VERY direct messaging. If Russ Feingold’s prediction comes true and the fall elections see a bevy of corporate advertisement; I’d like to be able to think a few of my dollars went to a media message that stood in direct opposition.

Now, the real question is if the corporate media would allow that. I remember a few years ago Ms. Huffington formulated some slick media that was in direct opposition to the American auto industry and the big networks refused to run it. I forget the details but the over arching fact is that SC’s decision would mean nothing if the corporate media outlets did NOT allow for an opening of the floodgates. Similarly, if the corporate media outlets do not allow for an antithesis to the anticipated corporate deluge, then there will be no way to reach the public in between contestants on American Idol, regardless of the best efforts of FDL, Michael Moore, Arianna Huffington…etc. More’s the pity.

Yeah, I didn’t like hearing what Turley had to say. But I’ve respect his opinion on other matters and I know I should have liked to hear more of his opinion on this. There must be very complex wheels within wheels here and I am reticent to go with the knee jerk response that the recent SC decision was all bad, all the time, even if my sympathies make me lean that direction.

Regarding Turley, and also Keith’s suggestion that the “lifelong first amendment advocate” lawyer who helped make this possible apparently only existed for this day…wasn’t Jon Stewart fun? What a treasured experience it was to watch him savage K.O. I felt strapped to my seat with the duct tape of denial and dismay. Couldn’t turn it off, hadda see where it was going, rode my chair all the way into the middle of the lake, and drowned there. It’s like Jon Stewart has only existed for this day!

The day Keith Olbermann reacted to the Supreme Court decision to make corporations super citizens was the night Jon Stewart put on 10 pairs of funny glasses and committed triple his usual amount of time to cutting him up into ‘ittle pieces of silliness. Oh, how the Daily Show audience roared with laughter, sir!

I heard Stewart mention that the audience is real young. Good deal, that’s when you get ‘em, while they’re young. Get one young enough and you can drag his mother up before him, and he’ll chop off her head like Jesus demands of us(according to the religious wisdom of Douglas Coe).

Stewart savaged Obama naysayers real good, too. Gosh, Jon Stewartb is so intelligent, cool, and funny. I feel ant-like before his might. We’re just swine watching TV lying down, wanting sexy abs by way of a belt we strap on so we don’t have to do a thing for it. Stewart was clear that it wasn’t the rightie naysayers he was talking about, as those go without saying. What needed shredding was/is the naysayers who voted for Obama and “simply can’t be satisfied.”

I’ve had nothing left to believe except conspiracies since the Obama shockers got underway. Obama has done only one thing right, and it was at the beginning: he extended unemployment. But Bush would have done that too.

Notice how this SCOTUS decision changes the paradigm on re-electing/not re-electing Obama. Many on the left were going to go all-out for a primary challenger. Now we daren’t. Now we really do have to crawl on the ground with love and gratitude for the lesser of two evils. No more argument, it’s done now. A primary challenge to Obama will never mean a thing in an election where the opponant has unlimited corporate backing. Obama’s incumbency will be all we’ve got in the general election.

Who was that old lawyer Olbermann named? I can’t find the origins of this New Dark Age SCOTUS decision.

Regarding “health care” why are we using the term they gave us? Whadda ya mean, HEALTH CARE? the bill was designed by insurance giants, big Pharma, blue dogs, joe leiberman, and the republicans. Yet (listen to Rachel Maddow, she will pound it into you), as ever, the aim isn’t actually reform, the aim is serving your political party (not yourself or your country or the world), and above all serving/saving the Obama presidency, a presidency that has no intention of saving us, in fact wholly intends the reverse.

The health care bill, like nothing else, is EMBLEMATIC of Republican absolute power and control in this time of a Dem prez and a Dem congress. But we’re still supposed to rail against its being stopped? And we ARE?

Nothing much to add, except that I respectfully disagree with Turley, much as I like him otherwise. The drum I plan to beat is that this is selling our country out to be ruled by other nations (not that we aren’t already, but this cements it). Is that we’ve come to, citizens? Being run by China and Osama bin Laden? That’s where this is heading. Hope you’re ready to learn Mandarin & Arabic.

Analogy is the weakest form of argument. I don’t get your premise in metaphor or simile and you totally lose me with your transitive reasoning. I’m not Catholic and my can opener is grey, but I’ll agree Cardinals and can openers aren’t the same (and I try not to discriminate based upon color). I feel reasonably confident the same can be true for the bird, out the window.

I know corporations don’t step into voting booths, thank god. But I also know that they can be taxed upon their income, also thank god. I’m not going to argue that corporations should be allowed the rights of people, because I don’t think they should be, not in the least. I will argue though that I do see the real problem of a constitutional issue whereby the collective “voice” of a corporation can be silenced by law. If there is a nice, clean way to do that–”Hey you guys in the corp can broadcast your own, personal, opinions but we’re going to make laws about you getting together and agreeing about anything…”–then I’m all for it. But that seems to be the gist of the matter that the SC just struck down. And they might be wrong, but they might be right, too. And I’m going to think on it awhile, and I’m going to ask the opinion of people smarter than me who can pontificate on both sides of the issue. I see you’ve got the one side covered. Thanks for your opinion and no need to open a can of worms, regardless what you use to open it.

This is so fucking bizarre it’s hard to believe it’s not fiction. Isn’t everyone’s first reaction, when first hearing of corporate personhood, WTF? Grayson’s bills may be good ideas, but this idea of personhood is the thing that needs to be addressed. Any corporation is already loaded with scores of actual people with constitutional rights. Why isn’t that good enough? Couldn’t things like the ability to enter into contracts be given to the person occupying an office within the corporation instead of using the personhood thing? If anything, corporations are more like machines. Without operators it just sits there. At best, they are not more than cyborgs.

If the SC must give the corporations first amendment protection (right or wrong; I’m certainly tired of arguing devil’s advocate position that it is right) then is more regulation the only recourse?

Yes. Corporations, as Frank has said again today, are the creations of the law, not of God, as the SCOTUS seems to think.

If the net result, as Feingold has forewarned, is that media can be flooded with corporate message by organizations, won’t that a) cheapen the message and b) open the door for competing organizations to retaliate?

Corporatism is as bad for most corporations as it is for the people. Most corporations are small and already had great difficulties competing with huge, multinational beasts. My point is that regulatory robbery was already a problem, as the big corporations and cartels manipulated the laws (written by their lobbyists) to beat up and strangle their smaller competitors.

My point is: what organizations are now going to be able to retaliate effectively, given how difficult it already was before for smaller corporations to compete for political favors with the far larger corporations?

In fact, won’t good sense and a sense of righteousness force caring folks to organize in opposition to corporate messaging?

To that end FDL continues to be a good ad hoc organization and collection point for ideas; but, formalizing more methods for collecting money to expound those ideas seems like a natural progression to fight the corporate media onslaught.

With what resources? You’re talking about a fight between huge corporations – that would make Goliath look like a dwarf – and the people, who are now made microscopic compared to little David.

When did: of, by, and for,
go out the door?

What will this do to 5013c corporations? Like churches and other non-profits?

I think saving a stained blue dress was part of it.

Of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations is doing just fine, thank you very much…

When we went from of the people, by the people, and for the people to of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations, I suppose, is a different question.

And Corporations are People therefore: syllogism impossible to construct. Also money talks, and now money has free speech, so I’m gonna’ pay my credit card bill by saying my balance owed is zero. My speech is money.

Admittedly living in Belgium with an excellent healthcare and education system may play a factor in my lack of panic over this issue, but I seriously see this move by the Supreme Court as a potentially positive development. Positive, that is, if the Democrats realize that by simply reframing the nature of the conflict from a conventional battle between two equals (think WW1 Western Front with two relatively equally matched sides battling it out) to a non-conventional insurgency (think Indochine, Vietnam, Algeria, Lebanon, Afghanistan (twice) and Iraq 2003-)that they stand a better chance of winning. The new framework would be one where weakness paradoxically equals power and their strongest weapon will actually be the overwhelming corporate support for Republicans. But in order to pull this off they will have take the correct approach and abandon all efforts to match Republicans for corporate (or labour) financing and instead wage a morally cohesive political insurgency against corporate America. And obviously my use of a war analogy is not meant as a suggestion that they use actual violence.

To understand this strategy one needs to be familiar with Fourth Generational Warfare

http://antiwar.com/lind/index.php?articleid=1702

and Martin Van Creveld’s related ideas of the “power of weakness” illustrated in the quote below:

In private life, an adult who keeps beating down on a five year old – even such a one as originally attacked him with a knife – will be perceived as committing a crime; therefore he will lose the support of bystanders and end up by being arrested, tried and convicted. In international life, an armed force that keeps beating down on a weaker opponent will be seen as committing a series of crimes; therefore it will end up by losing the support of its allies, its own people, and its own troops.

Substitute the despised adult for the Republicans with their flood of corporate financing and the sympathetic child for the Democrats with their self imposed ban on taking corporate money. A clearer demonstration of the differences between conventional and unconventional war are the two Iraq wars. In 1991, Saddam Hussein made the most foolish choice ever in deciding to fight the US in a conventional war. Toppling such a fool in 2003 only empowered the wiser Sunni leadership and freed them up to fight an unconventional war in which they succeeded quite well.

In a similar way, previous campaign finance rules gave the corporations just enough cover and restraint to make the system seem acceptable. It kept the Democrats fighting a “conventional war” in that with the restrictions on corporate finance they actually had a chance to compete with the Republicans for corporate dollars. But for the Democrats to fight this type of war was to lose it. By taking the corporate donations they had to in return modify their policies in order to get corporate financing. The resulting mess we see in the current Obama Administration and in the Clinton Administration in the 90’s.

But if the Democrats were to now stop trying to match the Republicans for corporate dollars they would free themselves up to actually propose and pass policies that might actually make them popular with the American people. Their lack of ability to compete with the Republicans for corporate money would become their strongest asset. They could then point out over and over again that the resulting mass of pro-Republican and anti-Democratic corporate propaganda was evidence of their worthiness.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

inter-state commerce, regulated (e.g., taxed to allow the regulation, etc) by the feds. Only problem is it could already be too late…I “hope” now.

To that end FDL continues to be a good ad hoc organization and collection point for ideas; but, formalizing more methods for collecting money to expound those ideas seems like a natural progression to fight the corporate media onslaught.

Yesterday I heard — others must have also, so correct me if I’m wrong — that the Fortune 100 companies had over $13 trillion in revenue last year with profits in the range of $650bn. A tiny tiny percentage of that is more than was spent on the 2008 presidential election. There is no competing with that. In some small ways corporations will compete with each other with this moneyspeech, but for the most part all companies in any industry have one main foe — which is the government and it’s regulations, IOW, us and our regulations.

With what resources?

…with supreme coolness and superior cleverness. If it’s only ever and for always about money, then we’re all screwed.

How do corporations get their power? From money, or from the fact that people buy their line of bull, both literally and figuratively?

Once a human’s first rung of needs are met on Maslow’s chart, he casts about and tries to find what else to do with the intelligence he’s been given.

I think it was Asimov who said something to the effect that intelligence appears to be an accidental concomitant of life, and perhaps not even a particularly useful one. Regardless, humans have some degree of intelligence and after finding water, food, shelter, we have to find something to do with our time in between creating or killing ourselves.

And so organization seems to have evolved first as a means to meet the requisite base needs and secondly as a way to waste time whilst waiting to meet those needs again. So comes religion, militia, fraternal organizations and, of course, the institutions in question that manage to control whatever the current base for barter or commerce might be…a Pandora’s box of organizational possibilities.

You seem to say that the power of organizations come from controlling the means of barter. If that’s your contention, you might be right.

My proposition is this: that human organizations might have power because they control the possibility that humans can due something with their leisure.

In my leisure (little as it may be), I do FDL. I think I could be seriously influenced by that fact.

Can Robert’s be removed by process (for “just” cause, etc)?

I’m curious. How often do the less-well-financed candidates win elections?

Maybe if he can be caught accepting “speech” from a corporation.

as said on On Point NPR today:

if you tickle them they do not laugh…
if you prick them they do not bleed…

(person versus human person)

Scott Brown – 13 Million
Martha Coakley – 4 Million

Also was said that when this law was set in 1907 it was after the R’s from the South won the election over the D’s….

~
17 Million versus 400,000….

I suggest some of the desire to re-iterate free speech is the fear created by people like Cass Sunstein, a possible Super-Judge nominee and TECHNOLOGY advisor of Obama’s. Even as a liberal, it makes me cringe. This is from wikipedia. It gets worse, though:

“”Sunstein co-authored a 2008 paper with Adrian Vermeule, titled Conspiracy Theories, in which they wrote, “The existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be.” They go on to propose that, “the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups”, where they suggest, among other tactics, “Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action.”

Sunstein… also advocate the practice of secret government payments to outside commentators, who are then held out as independent experts; they suggest that “government can supply these independent experts with information and perhaps prod them into action from behind the scenes,” further warning that “too close a connection will be self-defeating if it is exposed.”

…the practice of enlisting non-government officials, “might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts.” This position has been criticized by some commentators, who argue that it would violate prohibitions on government propaganda aimed at domestic citizens…”"

Sounds like, at least, with the supreme court decision, we got a level playing field from types like this… At least we could go back to other media if needed, on both sides. We could all be in the streets with the teabaggers soon. Just sayin’.

I ask again. Does anyone know how this will this affect 5013c corporations? Churches and other non-profits.

If Coakley had won that would (should) have been one.

How often do the less-well-financed candidates win elections?

Well, it’s official now thanks to SCJ Roberts and his “Gang of Four”…

“Governance of the people, by the corporations, for the corportations.”

Next thing ya know these five fascists will bring back slavery. After all, if the SCOTUS can declare a business “a person” with free speech and voting rights equal to the individuals they can certainly make individuals “slaves” with no rights at all.

Sorry to say the end of “Democracy” – what litte we enjoyed – is dead and the “experiment” has gone they way of communism to the trash heap of history as another failed attempt at governance.

Once a human’s first rung of needs are met on Maslow’s chart, he casts about and tries to find what else to do with the intelligence he’s been given.

He. She. Individuals. Society is made up of groups. Groups don’t function like individuals.

Your contention appears to be that the great ideas of individuals cannot be drowned out by a flood of messages from far more powerful corporate entities, powerful in the sense of having, for all intents and purposes, infinite resources.

Setting aside how many great ideas of individuals you and I have never heard of because they’ve been drowned out by the powerful (especially those who control resources), the teachings of the Buddha took around 300 years to rise to the level of the powerful in the Indian subcontinent (and, even then, did not make it – I’m referring to Asoka of the Mauryan dynasty) and the teachings of Jesus took around 300 years to rise to the level of the powerful in the Mediterranean world (and only because the Roman empire was near collapse during the 200s CE and then, soon after, were adapted for the advancement of the powerful).

In practice, what you’re saying would require the people to wait until the bad policies of the powerful cause the system, which they think is working for them, though it actually is not, to collapse.

yes. and not surprised. *g*

I have no idea.

My proposition is this: that human organizations might have power because they control the possibility that humans can due something with their leisure.

In my leisure (little as it may be), I do FDL. I think I could be seriously influenced by that fact.

You and I, unfortunately, are exceptions. Most people do not do what we’re doing with their leisure time. FDL does try to speak out so that those who choose not to spend their leisure in this way will hear us.

Now the resources of FDL have been greatly diminished in comparison to those of the corporations, which are run by people who in many ways are not held accountable to the people and who, for the most part, are unable and/or uninterested in thinking about the common good.

I could go on writing about ways in which corporate America reduces leisure time and even creates an unnatural amount of stress that is alleviated by a variety of products, but I’m not sure that it even needs to be said.

Xe

Nice new name – its not spelled like it sounds, Xe (Zee)

- we want to keep the streets safe, and that is what Joe Lieberman wants
- using whatever codewords to get by any future law that sticks
tiny print: …brought to you by Xe

You get hit with the audio/vid and emotion from the marketing, and then there is a tiny thing in the bottom that says “Xe”.

Corps have stockholders, they are human persons

The evidence is that we don’t talk about how we might organize starting with ourselves in our individual towns. I’ve pressed this point a lot, for which I apologize

no apology needed for pressing the point. my objection was to your assertion that none of us is inclined to collective action or local organizing. i don’t think you know that unless you assume that what isn’t written about isn’t done and i don’t think that’s necessarily a fair assumption. and it irks me because i have done some local organizing (not enough to be sure). maybe ask first?

wrt your idea, just because people don’t jump on it doesn’t mean they aren’t organizing in other ways. for myself, i used to think that progressive political blogs might be an aid to grass roots organizing. i don’t think that any more, although i still hope that might change at some point. so that’s not why i participate. for me, right now, it’s more like a coffee shop or union hall where info is shared and arguments are made to contribute to our collective understanding(s).

re “Take health care-please.” that issue, over the last year and a half, is biggest reason why i know longer think progressive political blogs are an aid to grass roots organizing — it was just the opposite for this issue.

Agree.

To all: One of the best things I ever saw on tv was a lecture given by Jan Edwards and Molly Morgan addressing the abolishment of corporate personhood (in 2004?). They have written it out in a wonderful article for ReclaimDemocracy.org (“Abolish Corporate Personhood”), and I urge people to check it out.
As I understand it, a law clerk snuck corporate personhood into play with the case in 1886 “Santa Clara County County v. Southern Pacific Railroad” (mentioned by KO). I’m going to refresh my memory right now.

Musical interlude.

“Macy’s Day Parade”

Today’s the Macy’s Day Parade
The night of the living dead is on its way
With a credit report for duty call
It’s a lifetime guarantee
Stuffed in a coffin 10% more free (Xe)
Red light special at the mausoleum

Give me something that I need
Satisfaction guaranteed to you
What’s the consolation prize?
Economy sized dreams of hope

When I was a kid I thought
I wanted all the things that I haven’t got
Oh. I learned the hardest way
Then I realized what it took
To tell the difference between
Thieves and crooks
A lesson learned to me and you

Give me something that I need
Satisfaction guaranteed
Because I’m thinking about
A brand new hope
The one I’ve never known
Cause now I know
It’s all that I wanted

…

- Greenday

In practice, what you’re saying would require the people to wait until the bad policies of the powerful cause the system, which they think is working for them, though it actually is not, to collapse.

I hope I’m not saying that.

I do agree that individual proponents of a grand concept rarely ever see it recognized in his/her lifetime. Artists are notorious for dying off before the kudos comes down. Giants like Newton, Einstein, Picasso are rare to be sure in that they were recognized in their own lifetime. And it is certainly true that group dynamics are spectacularly different from individual human reaction–the herd mentality is strong with us.

No I think what I’m saying, or trying to say, is that I hope money doesn’t win at the end of the day. I hope the net result of the human condition cannot be reduced to a subservience to the almighty buck. I hope that the cool and the classy attracts genuine interest from humans who participate in the same reality because of something intrinsic and right and beautiful and lovely. I really had no intention of degenerating into a philosophy of aesthetics but I guess that’s the root of my hope. I hope that superior ability to recognize and reflect the beautiful will win out over a competing effort to exploit the same for capital gain. I hope group mentality and corporate think can never be as agile and facile as radical individuals in the ability to put forth interesting and engaging ways to illuminate the beautiful.

I hope, and I hope most violently, that a human appreciation for the beautiful can never be completely drowned out by the corporate tsunami of corporate messaging. I hope this because it looks like our future will an exercise in exploring that potentiality and I hope this because I don’t want to just sit back and watch it happen. I hope, at the very least, that I will be given the opportunity to click a freakin’ button that says, “Contribute 100 dollars to a media campaign focused at refuting the idea that private heath care insurance is a good thing for America…” or something similar, and that my funds would be used to put together a media message that is so awesome in its beauty that the rightness of it will win out over the opposition of the monied interests.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I hope I’m not the only one and I hope it doesn’t take 300 years to realize that. Is that audacious?

Well, if there is something to the power of the helpless (and I think there is) The posters on this thread are the most powerful people in the land today. I swear it seems almost un-American to to be so passively masochistic.

Time to move on. Maybe post something about the victimized LGBT on Teddy;s endless logging.

There is life outside the computer display.

(End of rant.)

That’s beautiful, man. Billie Joe rocks!

Politically, great ideas can rise along with charismatic leaders, many of whom rise to power as populists and then turn ugly. Of course, other charismatic leaders act like populists, though they are not; they initially appear not to be ugly and reveal their ugliness only after it’s too late.

Then there are great ideas that, in the process of being institutionalized so as to be useful in organizing society, can be adapted for the use of those who control the institutions in ways that benefit only those in control.

Charisma and great ideas are fine, but good people need resources to organize and communicate with others in society.

What we’re talking about is the ability of corporations to totally drown out voices of the people. The good ideas of people will be drown out. The bad ideas of people will be drown out.

FDL now has hall monitors!? Good luck with that.

I know. I am bad. But sometimes I stop and wonder what the hell we are all doing?

If only Bill Clinton had appointed Ralph Nader to the Supreme Court.

You’re here instead of out there. What the hell are you doing? ;^>

Collective action and local organizing are two different things. Some people, my son at one time, thought the way to a more environmentally sound society was to be environmentally sound himself. While I appreciate individual efforts, I believe collective problems must be solved collectively. Organizing your neighborhood is fine, but it has no impact on the nation. For that kind of impact, every town must be organized. That’s a real problem with trying to persuade people of the path to change. Everyone, myself included, has a pet project. Pursuing our individual perceptions we lose sight of the forest.

I think we fear an organized society as a threat to individualism. I can go into why I think we fear that and why it need not be so, but your actions, that you do local organizing, has no impact nationally. Neither does all the woe is us comments. We may indeed be screwed, but if we go down, we should go down trying to do something about it.

I really do include myself. I should be out there more but I did suggest looking at some positive reactions and strategy to counter the absurdity of culture by robots. to be fair to myself, I am almost 80 yr old and arthritis has me. It is almost a year since I have been on the streets. I even missed the MLK marches this year.

However.I have just spent most of my computer time recently trying to get aid to a some people in Haiti. Unfortunately all but one are now confirmed dead. Please join me in grief for these fine UN folks.

I agree for the most part. I don’t see the web being used to start organizing but rather as an information sharing tool once an organization is on the ground. During the anti-war heyday UFPJ, World Can’t Wait, et al used the web to notify folks of actions, etc which can be very effective. The web is a real boon to umbrella orgs like the 2 I mentioned. PDA is very active in my area and email is their main web tool.

As I said in earlier posts I think it is more important than ever for face to face confronting and demonstrating to be part of any strategy. We need to show the differences between humans and virtual reality. Also to bring the humans who make the decisions in the corporations into the light of day.

Do you think the web can be an organizing tool in addition to being an information tool? If you do, how would you go about it?

We need to have 100% publicly-funded federal elections, all paid for with our tax dollars and no “donations/investments/bribes” from anyone. The people in Australia have a very short election campaign, lasting only six weeks long, I believe. They have a few televised debates and then they, gasp, vote…

The thoughtful Bob Dylan, back in the 1960s, had a song with the line, “money doesn’t talk, it swears…” How true…

REpublican corporatist fascists have staged two coups in the 21st century. On 12 December 2000, five fascist idiots on the Supreme Court illegally stopped the voting counting in Florida, staged a fascist coup and stopped democracy in its tracks and handed the Presidency to the gangster Bush.

The gangster Bush returned the favor, and appointed three more fascist corporatists to the Supreme Court. Yesterday, on 21 January 2010, five corporatists on the Supreme Court voted to give corporations unlimited power in influencing our elections.

Corporations, which are legal fictions, which we have created for our own convenience, now threaten to destroy our democracy. We need to rein in corporate power; we need to domesticate corporations.

We need to Impeach the five corporatist fascists on the Supreme Court who just unmuzzled corporate greed: Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Scalia and Alito.

but your actions, that you do local organizing, has no impact nationally.

i don’t buy it. local organizing are the building blocks of larger organizing efforts.

That’s a real problem with trying to persuade people of the path to change. Everyone, myself included, has a pet project. Pursuing our individual perceptions we lose sight of the forest.

i don’t think persuading people is the main work of organizing. grassroots organizing, for me, is primarily about how we (whatever the we/group is) working together to realize our shared goals / mission. information, power, etc flow from the bottom up, not the top down.

have you done any local organizing (the kind that is volunteer only and not part of a larger formal organization other than coalitions)? i have only done a little, mostly anti-war stuff. and i have one very strong impression from that i’d like to share with you, but i’m afraid i won’t be able to do it well by writing a comment (much easier in person where body language, etc provide cues on meaning and intention) and i don’t want to risk offending you. may i have your permission to give it a try if you are willing to cut me a lot of slack if i come across badly?

Well said.

yeah. getting the word out, as a communication tool, etc. right on. but i used to think that political blogs might be one day work to amplify the message and work from the grass roots, maybe even provide a kind of media and fund raising support function (especially for direct action — for example, shining a bright light on the action and activist support for people who get injured/arrested/etc especially with msm silent on most actions, this i think could be a very big deal for blogs with a national audience.). but now i think blogs have become too top down (individually and how they are organized with each other) to be able to do that. who knows, though, what tomorrow will bring? and the coffee house / union hall function is imo is filling an important need.

We need to have 100% publicly-funded federal elections, all paid for with our tax dollars and no “donations/investments/bribes” from anyone.

for politics as usual and electoral politics in particular to work to represent the interests of the people, yes. but i don’t think i am alone in thinking that we are in a time where politics as usual are not enough. imo, we must include a social movement perspective to our thinking and our strategies. that’s my 2 cents anyway.

big things have rarely (ever?) been accomplished here by electoral politics alone: women didn’t get the vote by voting. same thing for ending some of the worst abuses of jim crow. that wasn’t won by the vote alone. that was won by committed long term social movements.

Yes that and also the minute campaign messages begin to get sent out under the “brand name” of the blog it becomes depersonalized/dehumanized and lowered to the level of the corporation. Not to say communicating talking points and action plans such as the call ins FDL does can’t be very useful.

But something from Brand Blog that appears in your inbox just as well come from CitiBank.

To continue the theme. I do a lot of writing and web sites just for pleasure, hopefully some useful information. I have a group of friends who know I do this and even occasionally visit the sites. It is interesting that though we may have just had lunch discussed the same topics with energy, I rarely get a note commenting on what of mine they have visited online or if so it is often disconnected from how they usually relate to me. It is as though they forget a person did this. Much less a friend.

How many here have worked their ass off on an organization web site to ahve it rarely visited or the information remembered? I have attributed much of this to my age peer group but I am discovering that’s not the only factor.

sure-write me at ekunin at att.net (MODNOTE: edited with “at” to prevent automated spambots)

Don’t worry about offending me. I have a pretty thick skin.