Truth in Snark: Justice Stevens on Corporate Personhood
While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.
[US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, dissent to majority opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, quoted by Mary Hall, State of the Union: Obama Walking in the Footsteps of FDR, Huffington Post, 3 February 2010.]
I haven't read the opinion for myself yet, but why wait when someone else gives us a delightful soundbite?
I'm far from surprised that the current majority of the Roberts court should wish to remove the fetters from corporations when it comes to campaign contributions, I think it bizarre that they should decide is as a First Amendment issue and further expand the exceedingly peculiar and undemocratic notion that corporations have constitutional rights. I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again.
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events, Feeling Peevish
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on Friday, 5 February 2010 at 23.29
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Conservatives/Republicans have a perverse take on what constitutes democracy. That's because while they live in a democracy and benefit from doing so every which way, they really don't like democracy all that much. They're constantly under pressure to move over and accommodate "other" beings (with "lesser" understood but not usually spoken). In their hearts, conservatives prefer a neofeudal system of top-down command and control. By no small coincidence, corporate structure and M.O. fits that description perfectly.