Doublespeak
The US was over the minute this happened
Citizens United was never about helping people
Submitted 3 weeks ago by VetOfTheSeas@discuss.online to workreform@lemmy.world
https://discuss.online/pictrs/image/1463bea4-eaac-4ef9-b60e-1b7dc30dfc38.jpeg
Comments
CIA_chatbot@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
OriginalTangle@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
I just can’t comprehend how those SC judges were able to justify this to themselves. The reasoning seems absurd.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
daychilde@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, there’s so many places where things got significantly worse, but this specific one is quite easy to argue is one of the single worst single points in the downturn towards fascism.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This was a line that should have never been crossed, perhaps the last nail in the coffin of the USA.
Once you open up campaigns to unlimited corporate and billionaire donations, it’s precedent, it’s done.
Politics in the USA is now the easiest way to acquire generational wealth without inheriting it. Nancy Pelosi’s family is set for generations. Trump’s family is now financially secure for centuries. They’re not hiding it.
They won’t give up that money willingly.
deWafelMan@lemmus.org 3 weeks ago
If corporations are people, they should pay the same taxes.
snooggums@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
And be incarcerated for crimes.
isles@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s the corporate quantum superposition
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
their rate is usually higher actually
deWafelMan@lemmus.org 3 weeks ago
No it’s not. They get to deduct expenses. This includes rent, food, gas, car…
fodor@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
If corporations are people, we should lock them up for crimes. We should charge personal income tax, charge for social security, and give them the death penalty for murder.
Radical_Socialist_t00t@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
And shouldn’t let them get away with bankruptcy
switcheroo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Nothing the Cons do is about helping anyone but themselves. Our country is too stupid to realize that.
Telorand@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
I agree, but there’s at least a few decent candidates who will be on ballots in November who know how to be entertaining, and they’ll attract the stupid ones who only pay attention to the candidates who make the biggest spectacle.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Citizens United was never about helping people
I can’t believe it. An organization originally created to get Michael Moore’s movies banned from theaters on the grounds that it was a form of campaign spending? These are the people with nefarious intent?
anarchy79@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If they are people they should be able to go to prison like people.
Hey if corporations are people, and you own one, does that make you a slave owner?
rumba@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
tbf, people should not be able to buy politicians either.
FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I agree, the uber-wealthy should be excluded from the political process. We should have a government of the working class, by the working class, for the working class.
rumba@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Vote em in, Vote em out. They don’t do what people need, kick em to the curb
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Another take is that if money is speech then money is fraud, terrorism, fascist oppression, and servitude to foreign interests. So liars who are platformed by media should have all their money taken from them, as well as all media shareholders dispossessed/diluted through nationalization of their shares, and the board of directors/executives of said media also be zeroed out financially.
Krudler@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Americans are done. America is done.
The time to fight this was before it became law.
It’s over can’t you accept it?? We all saw this happening in front of our eyes but Americans sat on their hands and did nothing and let it happen.
AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
skisnow@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
There don’t seem to be nearly enough attempts to force corporations to explain exactly what their money is trying to say when they donate to candidates from both parties, as many of them have done and still do.
daychilde@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Au contraire, it is absolutely about helping people - the only people that matter (to themselves) - the billionaire oligarch class.
(i.e. I do not actually disagree)
fisch@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Johnny Harris made an excellent video about money in US elections: youtu.be/-NuXpwB2DV4
People were way too scared about companies buying politicians. It turns out that the real danger did not come from companies, but from their rich owners.
kat_angstrom@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I remain convinced (from my Canadian perch up above the USA) that if Occupy Wall Street had made repealing Citizens United as their main platform, it may have actually worked. Unfortunately OWS was instead a mélange of angst that couldn’t organise itself effectively, for a hundred reasons that ten thousand people smarter than me could better speak about.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
One problem is that it’s a supreme court decision, and the only way to “repeal” those is a constitutional amendment, which requires support of a 2/3 majority of congress, or a new set of supreme court justices to make a new decision, but those are lifetime appointments and so you may have to wait decades for an opportunity. Realistically the only options are workarounds because a literal repeal has a very high barrier that’s unlikely to be overcome even with a very successful mass popular movement.
adarza@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
it just needs at least some turnover at scotus and a new case, so it can get a new ruling that really narrows the previous one or shreds it completely.
kat_angstrom@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
As a Canadian, I was entirely ignorant of the Supreme Court’s role in this travesty of a Law. Appreciate the explainer.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
if Occupy Wall Street had made repealing Citizens United as their main platform
It would have been ignored, just like all their other platforms.
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 3 weeks ago
OWS didn’t fail. It was brutally crushed in a coup coordinated by the Obama administration.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Nothing short of a parade of guillotines could have made OWS successful.
RabbitBBQ@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The politicans you are able to choose from are decided by the wealthy families and interests that run your city, states and federal govt. It has always been this way and it will always be this way. That’s why nothing will ever change through voting itself. The entire system is captured by the oligarchs. Even the new socialist wave is the same thing. Any time you hear them run to medicare for all or something else healthcare related, that’s your signal who for who owns them. The giant health care establishment. This same form of corruption that has existed since the very first cities in the united states extends to every area of Government. Law enforcement, Judges, District Attorney, Attorney General, Governor, Mayor… All of them are put there by the wealthy class that owns everyone and everything. If any of them ever get out of line, they are removed.
Citizens United was just standardizing a system that began a long time ago.
ceenote@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I wonder if he preferred that they leave the empty podium up there to remind all viewers that Mike Rogers is a weak little bitch, or if he’d have preferred they just do away with the debate format, sit in chairs and have a long-form interview.
BigMacHole@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
How UNAMERICAN of Him!
-Republicans who HATE Billionaires!
JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Duh
Hupf@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Doublespeak
Maybe we should try Newthink instead?
crashfrog@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
People don’t have fewer rights under the First Amendment when they assemble to exercise them than they do individually. Citizens United was correctly decided and if you disagree, it’s because you think it’s a ruling that “corporations are people.”
When it’s actually a ruling that corporations are fictions.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 3 weeks ago
Except that’s not how they implemented it. Somehow organizing grants you EXTRA rights over being an individual. Suddenly you get an avenue to get around personal contribution limits, on top of retaining your original personal contributions allowance…
crashfrog@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They who? Implemented what?
There never were individual limits on political speech.
dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
You’re kind of right, Citizens United did not rule that corporations are people.
That determination was made in the 1880s in Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad. Kind of, it was in a summary before the ruling, but (like Robert Bork’s essay that said true monopolies don’t exist and even if they did competition would destroy them and so antitrust action should only be taken if a merger will negatively impact consumers where “negatively impact consumers” is constrained to mean “raise prices in the immediate future”) it was treated as having the force of law.
crashfrog@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
CU doesn’t rely on corporations being people. It relies on individuals having First Amendment rights.
frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
If corporations are people, every dollar they spend should be 100% supported by every member of said corporation. You think the janitor wants to donate millions to fascists? Because right now it looks like they do. Forced speech like that should be illegal.
fartographer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If corporations are people, then they need to pay all their dependants’ taxes, and their own. Also, PPS (Personnel Protective Services) should take all the “children” away from toxic and abusive companies, and place them at companies that value their workers.
NABDad@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The employees aren’t members. The stockholders are.
Your point may still be valid, but the motivations of the stockholders are likely different than the motivations of the employees.
frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
Right now not even shareholders have a say. I for sure don't have any ability to change where the CEO of the company I have stocks in donates, but I guarantee we are not on the same page.