Art Pope's dream

over public opinion and public policy just got a shot of steroids. Sheesh.

From Karl Marx:

Marx argued that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, would inevitably produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction.[2] Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, he believed socialism would, in its turn, replace capitalism, and lead to a stateless, classless society called pure communism. This would emerge after a transitional period called the "dictatorship of the proletariat": a period sometimes referred to as the "workers state" or "workers' democracy".[3][4] In section one of The Communist Manifesto Marx describes feudalism, capitalism, and the role internal social contradictions play in the historical process:

We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged...the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on before our own eyes.... The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring order into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.[5]

In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure,and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races.

More from Justice Stevens dissent:

Stevens complained that those justices overreached by throwing out earlier Supreme Court decisions that had not been at issue when this case first came to the court.

"Essentially, five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law," Stevens said.

IOKIYAR - google it.

http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/cms/2010/01/21/democracy-or-auction/

A column worth your time.

actual journalist left!

and perhaps a new court strategy?

From a comment at Ed Cone's about the disastrous Supreme Court decision.

It's not all bad. Just infer by corollary your own right to limited liability, get a Chase Visa card and find some hookers and blow.

Putting aside the absurdity that a corporation has 1st Amendment rights (so much for strict constructionism), why can't corpoate campaigning be controlled in another manner?

I would suggest both the federal and state government condition any contract, grant, incentive, guarantee, etc. on the recipients' agreement not to engage in lobbying and campaign expenditures.

If you do business with the government you can't spend money lobbying or campaigning. I'm not even sure you need to pass a law. I believe it can be done by executive order.