Word is out that Obama is furious about the recent Supreme Court decision regarding campaign financing. He, along with the Congress, will be taking strong action.
In other news, Long Island four-year old Cory is reported to be furious at his parents’ refusal to allow him to have a TV in his room, and has vowed to take strong action.
I don’t know the fallout from the decision, nor can I predict unintended consequences. I do know that the intended consequences are that those who have larges sums of cash on hand will engage in propaganda to elect people they like to office. There will be little ability to counter it. But that’s the way we’ve been headed for years now, and the Federalist Society that dominates the court merely shut the gate behind them. They are firmly in power, and have been for years. We are no longer a constitutional republic in anything other than name. We are a plutonomy.
But I’m curious – corporate support of candidates is the air we breathe. Most of our office holders are corporate, few of them have the balls to challenge these people who own the networks and finance their campaigns. Is it different now that UnitedHealth and Wellpoint can openly proclaim their support of Obama? If they come out in the open and say “Hey – we are a large corporation that leaches on the health care system, and we want Barack Obama elected president”, is that better than Obama merely taking $20 million from them and running his own ads?
Only one thing is different: The open advertising is more honest. Obama never once mentioned all the support he was getting from Wall Street and AHIP.
Corporate personhood? Of course it’s absurd. Of course it is judicial activism at its worst. But I’m so used to this crazy country that it takes a whole lot more than that to surprise me or turn me cynical. We’re corporate now, and we’re finally open about it. If they just call off the elections, eliminating the formality of putting democratic lipstick on the corporate pig, we can all get on with our business.
Piece of Mindful 
2010 will fit seemlessly into a greed-is-good political run that started with Reagan, but tastes more like warmed-over Clinton than anything “new” or “hopeful.” Privatizing schools and Social Security, both Bush fumbles, will be the next dominoes to fall. Snake-eyes.
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