Who cuts olby's paychecks? Oh yeah, I remember now....GE! And they pay him to what again? Make political speeches. Yes, that under the table stuff is so much better.

So, if we're done discussing the future employment potential of the messenger, what about the message?

Corporations flourish by exploiting advantage. They already spend billions on lobbyists to influence legislation: no longer necessary. Does the picture painted by Olbermann really strike anyone as outlandish?

Corporations already owned most of the process and bought most of the legislation. Yesterday's ruling removed the last obstacle to wholesale corporate government.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”

~ Benito Mussolini

FDP

Are elected officials required to disclose all the "campaign contributions" they have received?

This decision is indeed horrible and depressing. What really turned my stomach were the pieties in Kennedy's so-called promotion of "the right of the public to be exposed to a multitude of ideas". Yeah, that's the ticket. Now that the "news" divisions of every network are tightly coupled to corporate bottom lines, the "multitude of ideas" pouring forth from the media is truly impressive, isn't it. We now know every sordid detail of Michael Jackson's demise and virtually nothing about how public health care functions in other countries. Does Kennedy truly believe this nonsense, or does he just have no clue about what is going on.

Re: Olbermann undermining his own credibility

Wow, I never thought I would agree with Keith but I do. I wish our people would wake up; our rights are quietly being eroded away through our own individual apathy. The best thing that ever could have happened in our republic is if we could have imposed term and spending limits to even the electoral field for representative government, instead we have gone the other direction and given the keys to the palace to the people that need it the least, the rich and powerful. In addition to the other things I just mentioned, the next best thing we could do is overturn the amendment that gives corporations the same rights as a person. Not only would it stop them from usurping democracy in this way, but it would also help solve a myriad of other social issues. Individuals within corporations would be PERSONALLY liable for corruption, environmental disaster, and the like - not the current blanket fines and toothless prosecutions that corporations shrug off as the cost of doing business.

This should be of interest to readers of Glenn Greenwald, one of my very favorite columnists, who flatly disagrees with Olbermann and most of us here:

What the Supreme Court Got Right

I have tremendous respect for GG, but this passage is the one that bothers me most:

...Beyond that, the central principle which critics of this ruling find most offensive -- that corporations possess "personhood" and are thus entitled to Constitutional (and First Amendment) rights -- has also been affirmed by decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence; tossing that principle aside would require deviating from stare decisis every bit as much as the majority did here.

Here is where Olbermann (and I) object, but Olbermann's analogy is imprecise. Today's decision isn't the Dred Scott of this issue, that distinction belongs to Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. GG argues that today's case simply amplifies precedent and I think GG has too much respect for precedent here. At some point the country has to reverse its extension of "personhood" to corporations or the democracy is indeed doomed, if it isn't already.

Tim, Thanks for your link to the Greenwald commentary. He has a point that the decision has precedent, but there is still the issue of the influence of money over government that we as a country are grappling with.

If campaign finance reform and restrictions are irrelevant, if money can be equated with speech, and as long as we grant corporations personhood status no matter what harms they may exact over a community, their workers, or the economy at large, then we need to find another way to get hold of this influence. A mandated shorter campaign season would be a start. Would this also be seen as a restriction of free speech? Can we not balance free speech with improving the function of society? Does campaigning have a track record of halting policy making, of diverting resources from better causes, including the promotion of businesses?

I realize that we are in accord somewhat

GG argues that today's case simply amplifies precedent and I think GG has too much respect for precedent here. At some point the country has to reverse its extension of "personhood" to corporations or the democracy is indeed doomed, if it isn't already.

I'm wondering what suggestions people have for reversing this trend?

KO does hit on something in the close of his comment. His reference to the dark ages may seem like hyperbole, but I think it opens up a can of worms for another topic.

Corporatism is another version of feudalism, in my outlook. The heads of corporations hire underlings for a relative pittance. If the bigwigs at the company screw up, they rarely take the hit; the hard working hourly and low salaried lose out: stock portfolio busts, benefits cut, and/or they lose their jobs altogether. If the company is large enough to exert influence beyond its physical walls and business dealings (Goldman Sachs, for example), others who were convinced to ride their gravy trained are also in the ranks of the screwed; hell, even those who avoided jumping aboard may fall victim to the company's dealings. Will the corporation(s) hire an army to protect the underlings? F no; but they will make will make sure that their upper level talent escapes relatively unscathed.

Even though I feel that there are a number of economic systems at work in this country - capitalism, socialism, corporatism and other forms of feudalism (gangs, sweatshops, predatory lending, and pyramid schemes) - I feel that the latter is posing the most danger at present. Corporations as persons are more interested in their bottom lines (read: covering their asses) than contributing to society; often more than producing a quality product. It's past time that society confronts this nasty creep.

Corporations as persons are more interested in their bottom lines (read: covering their asses) than contributing to society; often more than producing a quality product. It's past time that society confronts this nasty creep.

This is pretty much the way one of my students put it. If we admit corporations as "persons", then we've let in a pack of sociopaths.

Corporations are not people. Yet, this ruling has given corporations a ranking as a favored class, since they collectively control vastly more wealth than even massive groups of individuals, who are now regarded as an unfavored class.

It is the supreme court's responsibility to protect unfavored classes, which it failed to do with Dredd Scott and has failed to do now.

The only way I can see to fix this problem is to amend the constitution to define that a person for the purpose of any consitutional interpretation is NOT a corporation or other government tax construct, and then replace the corporate spending limitations under taxation law.

What Fox and MSNBC are doing needs to be curtailed. It is the job of news agencies to report news unbiasedly.

Also, it is insane to argue in favor of a ruling merely because "things can't possibly get any worse." That is not the future I want for my children. We CAN make the world better, we DO it every day, and we WILL not stop.