Manchurian Candidates:
Supreme Court allows China and others
unlimited spending in US elections
Thursday, January 21, 2010
By Greg Palast | Updated from the original report for AlterNet
In today's Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court ruled that corporations should be treated the same as "natural persons", i.e. humans. Well, in that case, expect the Supreme Court to next rule that Wal-Mart can run for President.
The ruling, which junks federal laws that now bar corporations from stuffing campaign coffers, will not, as progressives fear, cause an avalanche of corporate cash into politics. Sadly, that's already happened: we have been snowed under by tens of millions of dollars given through corporate PACs and "bundling" of individual contributions from corporate pay-rollers.
The Court's decision is far, far more dangerous to U.S. democracy. Think: Manchurian candidates.
I'm losing sleep over the millions — or billions — of dollars that could flood into our elections from ARAMCO, the Saudi Oil corporation's U.S. unit; or from the maker of "New Order" fashions, the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Or from Bin Laden Construction corporation. Or Bin Laden Destruction Corporation.
Right now, corporations can give loads of loot through PACs. While this money stinks (Barack Obama took none of it), anyone can go through a PAC's federal disclosure filing and see the name of every individual who put money into it. And every contributor must be a citizen of the USA.
But under today's Supreme Court ruling that corporations can support candidates without limit, there is nothing that stops, say, a Delaware-incorporated handmaiden of the Burmese junta from picking a Congressman or two with a cache of loot masked by a corporate alias.
Candidate Barack Obama was one sharp speaker, but he would not have been heard, and certainly would not have won, without the astonishing outpouring of donations from two million Americans. It was an unprecedented uprising-by-PayPal, overwhelming the old fat-cat sources of funding.
Well, kiss that small-donor revolution goodbye. Under the Court's new rules, progressive list serves won't stand a chance against the resources of new "citizens" such as CNOOC, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation. Maybe UBS (United Bank of Switzerland), which faces U.S. criminal prosecution and a billion-dollar fine for fraud, might be tempted to invest in a few Senate seats. As would XYZ Corporation, whose owners remain hidden by "street names."
George Bush's former Solicitor General Ted Olson argued the case to the court on behalf of Citizens United, a corporate front that funded an attack on Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary. Olson's wife died on September 11, 2001 on the hijacked airliner that hit the Pentagon. Maybe it was a bit crude of me, but I contacted Olson's office to ask how much "Al Qaeda, Inc." should be allowed to donate to support the election of his local congressman.
Olson has not responded.
The danger of foreign loot loading into U.S. campaigns, not much noted in the media chat about the Citizens case, was the first concern raised by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who asked about opening the door to "mega-corporations" owned by foreign governments. Olson offered Ginsburg a fudge, that Congress might be able to prohibit foreign corporations from making donations, though Olson made clear he thought any such restriction a bad idea.
Tara Malloy, attorney with the Campaign Legal Center of Washington D.C. says corporations will now have more rights than people. Only United States citizens may donate or influence campaigns, but a foreign government can, veiled behind a corporate treasury, dump money into ballot battles.
Malloy also noted that under the law today, human-people, as opposed to corporate-people, may only give $2,300 to a presidential campaign. But hedge fund billionaires, for example, who typically operate through dozens of corporate vessels, may now give unlimited sums through each of these "unnatural" creatures.
And once the Taliban incorporates in Delaware, they could ante up for the best democracy money can buy.
In July, the Chinese government, in preparation for President Obama's visit, held diplomatic discussions in which they skirted issues of human rights and Tibet. Notably, the Chinese, who hold a $2 trillion mortgage on our Treasury, raised concerns about the cost of Obama's health care reform bill. Would our nervous Chinese landlords have an interest in buying the White House for an opponent of government spending such as Gov. Palin? Ya betcha!
The potential for foreign infiltration of what remains of our democracy is an adjunct of the fact that the source and control money from corporate treasuries (unlike registered PACs), is necessarily hidden. Who the heck are the real stockholders? Or as Butch asked Sundance, "Who are these guys?"
We'll never know.
Hidden money funding, whether foreign or domestic, is the new venom that the Court has injected into the system by its expansive decision in Citizens United.
We've been there. The 1994 election brought Newt Gingrich to power in a GOP takeover of the Congress funded by a very strange source.
Congressional investigators found that in crucial swing races, Democrats had fallen victim to a flood of last-minute attack ads funded by a group called, "Coalition for Our Children's Future." The $25 million that paid for those ads came, not from concerned parents, but from a corporation called "Triad Inc."
Evidence suggests Triad Inc. was the front for the ultra-right-wing billionaire Koch Brothers and their private petroleum company, Koch Industries. Had the corporate connection been proven, the Kochs and their corporation could have faced indictment under federal election law. As of today, such money-poisoned politicking has become legit.
So it's not just un-Americans we need to fear but the Polluter-Americans, Pharma-mericans, Bank-Americans and Hedge-Americans that could manipulate campaigns while hidden behind corporate veils. And if so, our future elections, while nominally a contest between Republicans and Democrats, may in fact come down to a three-way battle between China, Saudi Arabia and Goldman Sachs.
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Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." Palast investigated Triad Inc. for The Guardian (UK). View Palast's reports for BBC TV and Democracy Now! at www.gregpalast.com.
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Why did you leave out the fact that Obama took tens of millions in "bundled" contributions from corporations, Goldman leading the way, and how the bundled contributions overshadowed the paypal crowd?
Sure why not? Blood Money is Just as good as any old money.
If corporations get all the rights we "real" persons have, do we also get all the rights corporations have?
For example:
The hospital sent me a bill -- though it was just for terror purposes since they were also billing my insurance company.
I found out that the insurance company was billed for ONE FIFTH as much as was on the bill I received, the bill for which I would have been responsible had I not had insurance.
So equality ought to mean that the insurance company and individuals get billed the same amount?
As the saying goes: If that bird takes off, it can fly both ways!
It's quite impressive that such a thing has made it all the way to the supreme court. US politics is unbearable in its folding to the corporate deity at the best of times. Tv & films often depict corporate entities as being more powerful then government in a comic tongue in cheek kind of way. This will be the law that'll make that a reality. Once they control the US government the rest of the world will be at the mercy of the Co.
How much analogous power does the U.S. wield in countries throughout the world?
A huge table of who contributes laundered money to whom all over, even postnationally, would be most informative, another rock to turn over.
I`ve always wondered to which end the USA would finally come. Now I know. On the auction block of the newly created UNEFRA. UN Emergency Financial Releif Agency. After China, various EU players, the KSA (who finally started getting something more then fast cars and loose women for all that texas tea), and Dr Evil finally break the USA under extortionary demands for cash crops, austerity measures, the gutting of any spending on social infrastructure, the transformation of the US military into the US Defence Force, the liquidification of the Fed and the incarceration, torture and execution of anyone who doesn`t seem to agree, China gets the West Coast, Canada gets Denver, ING buys New York city back for the Dutch, the UK gets New England back and the rest can go to the hightest bidder.
Hasta La Vista bébé.
I want to see how each individual member of the Supreme Court ruled on this issue. A common citizen running for office is going to be passe. Instead it will be the rich, the buyable, and the Skull and Bones buying their seats from corporate America. Now the DCCC will not even TALK to a candidate unless they have $250,000 in their coffers. The DCCC only wants millionaires to run - that DIRECTLY from the mouth of Rohm Emmanuel in 2004 when he headed up DCCC. Our country and our Democratic process is lost. The Great Experiement has failed. Turn the entire mess over to Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh and after we all dine on Oxycottin and Cocaine, and womanize for a while (not too sure about Rush on that one) we can turn the whole country over to them to finish destroying.
Chris: What you are saying is outrageous! How dare you claim that Goldman Sachs topped the list of Obama's donors?!? That was the University of California. Check the facts before you make wild allegations:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
Goldman Sachs was SECOND, with $994,795. Followed by Harvard University, then Microsoft with $833,617 (and we know that Bill and Melissa are philanthropists first), then Google with $803,436 (and who doesn't love Google?), then Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Time Warner.
By the way, Richard, "they" have always controlled the government. Who do you think has been in charge all this time? THE PEOPLE?!?
Greg: When you say, "Obama took none of it" (PAC money), how do you characterize the amounts reported here:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
If you want to say that people working for the University of California all gave the small donations you are talking about, how did it add up to 1.59 million? Goldman Sachs was Obma's second-highest donor, with $994,795. It was followed by Harvard University, then Microsoft with $833,617 (but we know that Bill and Melissa are philanthropists first), then Google with $803,436, then Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Time Warner.
By the way, Richard, "they" have always controlled the government. Who do you think has been in charge all this time? THE PEOPLE?!?
No Worries!
All we have to do now is eliminate political parties and become a direct democracy.
I'm afraid you, and most americans left-right-and-center, have China all wrong. The U.S. thought "Who lost China?" in 1949 and never forgave the Maoist era slogans "Down with U.S. imperialism and their running dogs!" Now China (and India and the rest of the third world) are trying to feed their people thru self-determination and South-South relations (including Russia) and just get poked in the eye by knee-jerk progressives who do the corporate media and CIA's job for them by echoing the dominant narrative. China and others are defensive against assymetrical warfare arrayed against them (more later). Chinese people work hard and save! The joined-at-the-hip relationship comes from US and multinational foreign direct investment which chooses to offshore for cheaper labor to make more profit, so China takes the jobs! But has its own plans to get out from under.
Pls read Lynn Joiner's Honourable Survivor: Maoist China and McCarthy's America and the Persecution of John S. Service. Then get back to me.
Oh yeah. China asks about the cost of healthcare, because the government actually has longterm plans, step-by-step, for providing healthcare for all. The next time you eat in a Chinese restaurant, go into the kitchen.
Here's a twist, Greg. If you look at a law dictionary, one definition of "income" is "profits." "Profits," of course, are the funds retained by a corporation after meeting "expenses."
The "income tax" tax's a corporation's profits, WHICH THEY DETERMINE. I would be happy to tell a jury that I made no income this year, only revenue which covered expenses, and site this case as evidence that if a corporation can do it, then any other kind of person can do it too.
After this ruling, I doubt you'll be able to find a juror, let alone a jury, which would disagree.
(although there's one slight flaw... what if corporations start serving on juries?)
So if we currently live in "The best democracy money can buy"... can I now assume that the word "money" includes the Yen and the Riyal. Maybe in 10 years the parents in China will be heard saying to their children at the dinner table... "Now eat all your bok choy kids... there are starving children in America" ?
Wow--and I thought the biggest thing to fear from Alito and Roberts would be revoking Roe V Wade...
That decison is quite unbelieveable. How does anyone come to a decision that a corporation is the same as a person not to mention supreme court judges?
ALL RIGHT! Now Hugo Chavez can use CITGO to spread the Bolivarian revolution to the USA.
Excellent article, and I am very scared. Moreover, I want to know why I should continue to vote anymore, after this loathsome, deeply flawed, hideously unethical decision of the Supreme(ly Corrupt) Court???
I don't want to vote anymore!!!!!! I feel too duped. I've Always felt too duped, but this takes the cake. This really does. Color me: Changed Out and Hope Less.
Or if corporations are people, and hence people are corporations, then if (God forbid) some nutty guy takes of the top of Justice Roberts' head with a 50 caliber rifle in order to get a liberal appointed, should they be afforded the protection of "Limited Liability" and held not "personally responsible" for their actions?
http://brasseriebreschard.blogspot.com/2010/01/obama-resigns.html
Obama Resigns
AP 01-21-10 10:35 PM
In a fit of rampant bi-partisanship, Barack Obama announced today that, "I intend to become the first President (not about to be impeached), the first Black President, the first Hawaiian President, of these United States, to resign from office."
Realizing, at long last, that after one year in the White House his only remaining supporters were paid employees of the war/medical/pharmaceutical/insurance/money laundering machines, today President Obama finally made a proposal upon which both sides of the aisle could agree.
"I mean, seriously folks, why on earth did you ever expect someone with as little experience with the top levels of government to be anything other than a poster boy for military industrial complex? They’ve been at this for a long, long time. I was in the Senate for what, a couple of weekends? Truly, I am sorry. The accommodations were wonderful and Michelle and the girls had a great time, but we are so out of here. To tell the truth, I’d rather be on the beaches of the great state of Hawaii."
News of Obama’s resignation was greeted with relief. "Joe Biden’s no great shakes but at least he isn’t going to listen to anything the Republicans have to say." said a senior Senator. This seemed to be the general consensus of most Democrats on hearing the news.
From the other side of the aisle, former Presidential candidate John McCain wished his one time opponent well and "Thank God Barack is doing this. He scared the hell out of us. I mean, was he sleepwalking or what?"
Reached for comment the President presumptive, Vice-President Joe Biden, mentioned something about trains not being available for the additional commute.
Good thought, but Wal~Mart will not reach the age of 35 until late in 2012.
Wow! That's important news to be sure. If only the MSM would cover the real news like you then maybe we wouldn't be in such the mess we are in today. However, you seem to go a bit easy on president Obama in your latest article. Although he may have not taken any PACs the contributions he did receive were mostly from bankers and huge corporations.
Also, maybe you could do a piece on president Obama's failure to keep any of the promises he made on the campaign trail. And that, in fact, he seems to be continuing the same foreign and domestic policies that have plagued our country since the days of ex-president Regan.
Finally someone is standing up for the corporations whose voice and influence in American politics have been muzzled for so long. Our health care debate and bank reform proposals (just to name two) are too dominated by the selfish desires and needs of ordinary people. All they seem to care about is getting decent health care coverage, not going bankrupt when a loved one becomes sick, and not getting screwed by the bank's exhorbitant credit card and overdraft fees. We need to get away from these petty human concerns and leave it to the corporations to decide these important matters. After all they know best what is good for us and good for America.
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." MLK, Jr. ...
The UP-side of this egregious decision by the corrupt Supreme Court Justices is that it shines a spotlight on the flawed legal doctrine of "corporate personhood" which is the foundation of the corruption of the political system and MUST be abolished in the U.S.
If a corporation is a "person" says the supreme court, then one person ONE VOTE. All shareholders and CEOs etc are now ONE PERSON. Therefore that corporation (2 million +) have only one vote. in any election.
It is up to congress to uphold this fundamental law of democracy. ONE PERSON ONE VOTE. Citizens need not fear that ruling, even though Wal-Mart buys a senator, all they have is one vote: PERIOD.
I told you first!!!
Snobol1
Dear Mr. Palast,
Your points are well taken. There is one issue concerning your assertion that China holds $2T of US debt. Could you please provide a reference for this figure?
The Treasury's latest data of January 19, 2010, for US debt held by China is $789.6 Billion. This is at odds with your $2 Trillion figure. Could you please clarify?
Thank you for your time.
And like Wednesday Adams, I am AFRAID, I AM VERY AFRAID. You are the bomb and a great teacher !
I wish I could say I'm surprised. I wish I could say it's not as bad as it seems. I wish I could say these are the unfounded knee-jerk reactions of a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist. But they aren't.
This is no longer a democracy. It is a corpocracy. It has been for some time, but this Supreme Court decision has done away with the need to hide it behind a veil of democracy. I could go on and on about the potential and far-reaching consequences of this radical act of judicial activism, but I won't.
For those interested in reading my rant in its entirety, you can find it here: http://www.alyssonfergison.com/supreme-court-knockout-blow-to-democracy/
What a deplorable day it is when the US Supreme Mafia Court places Corporate interests ahead of the common man! Nothing like Judicial cutting in line. Next is the right to bare arms. Corporations can kill you but you can't kill them!
Court to Main Street - F*CK YOU!
Well, if corporations are now "natural persons," does that mean we can now sue just like we would an individaul the Delaware corporation of the United States of America? What about the Delaware corporation of the Supreme Court? Or, the Delaware corporation of the Congress of the United States? Hmmmmm . . . .
"Court ruled that corporations should be treated the same as humans." - Shouldn't someone start prosecuting AIG execs for attempted murder?
I think someone ought to do exactly that. Incorporate under the name Al Qaeda, Inc., print up some checks and make donations to every Senator and Congressman that doesn't oppose this insane interpretation of the law and then make a big stink when they cash the checks.
News Headline:
" 60 Senators accept donation from Al Qaeda."
With this new policy handed down by the Supreme Court, corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money carrying out political activities. The are many troubling aspects of this situation. Corporations control far more assets than even the richest of individuals, even whole countries which means that they have the financial assets to buy anything and anyone they wish. Just to place the power of corporations in an appropriate global context here is some information from a report from the Institute for Policy Studies in 2000:
Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations; only 49 are countries (based on a comparison of corporate sales and country GDPs) (See Table 2). To put this in perspective, General Motors is now bigger than Denmark; DaimlerChrysler is bigger than Poland; Royal Dutch/Shell is bigger than Venezuela; IBM is bigger than Singapore; and Sony is bigger than Pakistan.
---------
Andy
Obama most certainly did receive huge donations from corporations. Just under one million dollars from Goldman Sachs alone. Makes it hard for me to take anything in this article seriously if the author can't even get that correct.
Can't americans do the religious appeal?
Coorporations don't have souls, so they are not persons and should never have the same rights.
UBS used to stand for Union Bank of Switzerland before the merger with Swiss Bank Corp. Now it's just a brand name.
Obama took no corporate money? Uh....what? I think you need to so some more critical research of Dear Leader Obama before you spout such an ignorant claim.
"Manchurian Candidate"? Overblown or a bad joke - what has happened is an endorsement by the Supremes of what has been going on anyway. The displacement of votes by US corporate dollars. That's bad enough.
IMHO Palast should be ashamed to tap into anti-Chinese or anti-Muslim sentiment in this way. Tends to deflect attention from the real beneficiaries of such a stupid ruling.
Thank you to Greg Palast, as always, for continuing his efforts to provide relevant news to the people.
This latest Supreme Court decision has sealed one of my own: to get the hell out of America. I am saddened by the events of the last 10 years, really, watching the political pieces move this nation toward self-destruction. Alas, we cannot forget the most powerful pawn, the people, that have been rendered impotent. We want the politicians to be held accountable for their actions, but refuse to be held responsible for our lack of action...
No democracy or republic in the history of government has lasted longer than three hundred years, I believe: we are due for demise, is all.