Fifty Years Ago, the Supreme Court Said Money Is Speech
>Last week was the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision enshrining the idea that money in politics is not corruption, but constitutionally protected speech. States and cities across the US are battling the rotten legacy of that decision.
Yes, but did the Court pay money to turn the words of its decision into legally-significant speech?
Because otherwise, it seems a bit self-refuting.
Even though I think it’s a huge problem to consider pacs or donations speech, there are some legitimately thorny issues here. How do we define speech in a way that allows us to clamp down corruption but does not interfere with the free press? And if we do find a ruling or law that walks this line, do the rich simply find another avenue to exert influence?
Not that these fights don’t matter–shifting the balance of power towards the people and away from the rich is a good thing. But I have come to believe that extreme wealth is simply incompatible with democracy. When you have enough time and money you can always find a way to subvert the rule of law, and it’s usually in your interests to do so. But of course this leaves us with the question of how to destroy the political power of the wealthy in a political system that is now heavily rigged against us. I know what some people will say but I still haven’t seen a really good answer to this question.
Maybe syndicalism but labor power has been heavily restricted so this would require more willingness on the part of unions to break the law, and a much clearer and more radical vision for our political system. Right now I don’t see this has much popular support. And the time to build this support is limited as fascism tightens its hold and automation and AI threaten to undermine the bargaining power workers hold today.
Easy step we can do. No contributions to individuals running for an office. Any money goes to a common fund that is distributed amongst the candidates. Equally. With a maximum amount per person correlated to the number of parties involved in the election.
Example: mayoral race with 2 parties and a fund of $500,000. Each person receives 250,000 for their campaign.
Same race but with $1,000,000 in the fund? That’s right. Each member gets 300,000 to use.
3 parties involved with that 1M fund? 333,000 per person but goes to 500,000 when the funds available allow for it
Catch: all donations go to this fund and all money used from this fund must be accounted for. Anyone found to be using their own money or any donations that did not come from the fund constitutes an automatic forfeiture of their campaign and any unspent money of their allotted amount gets returned to the funds.
Said returned funds do not get distributed to the other campaigns.
Any unused money of the fund at the end of the election is used by civil services budgets.
So equal funds for all parties, even those with minimal support? Interesting idea, I’d like to see how it works in practice.
However, this won’t solve the PAC issue.
A group designed to raise money for a candidate is not allowed. Anyone who uses that money forfeits their campaign.
I thought I covered that
The best a PAC could do would be to flood the common coffer. Which means every candidate benefits up to the maximum allowable.
The numbers I gave were purely for example sake. I’m thinking total maximum as a function of the place to be governed overs median salary or gdp. Idk. Something tied to the areas economic and social health to incentivise improving the average person’s lot in life instead of the richest few
Maybe I’m oversimplifying it, but “Money is Speech” is less of a problem than “Corporations are People” from Citizens United. Because the latter takes rights that this country historically reserves for humans and gives them to organizations (that are themselves composed of humans).
Simply reverse that, and you can restore limits on these organizations. Billionaires can still spend money how they are fit, but unless the billionaire does it all himself, at some point he will need an organization to do it, and that organization can have constraints.
This is a popular opinion but corporate personhood has a lot of implications beyond political activities which need to be considered.
For example, if corporations are not people, how does the first amendment apply to news outlets?
Abolish capitalism.
And women used to have federally protected rights over their own bodies.
Things can change.
Expand the SC and revert this dipshit decision.
This and Citizens United gave the rich and Russia all they needed to destroy democracy.
Fuck now we got trump crypto openly taking money as corrupt as possible from countries all over the world, especially Saudi Arabi.
It’s easier and more comforting to imagine that there is some villainous foreigner responsible for all of the evil you see in the world, but actually, America is the home of evil. The truth can be painful, but it will also set you free.
If you can recognize that the global ruling elite don’t care about countries except to use them against eachother, you begin to see that Russia and China are just convenient scapegoats for capitalists in America. In Russia, they blame America and China. In China, they blame Russia and America.
The truth is, they are all playing the exact same game. We’re the pawns in that game.
Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia. Orwell saw the pattern back then. The dynamics and details have shifted greatly, but the essence remains.
I do think you guys should stop quibbling over the detail of who is responsible for the fall of US democracy, though. Russia was an integral component, as the other guy says, and you were right about Russia not being the top of the chain of responsibility. Capital is at the top. Billionaires, corporate execs, the capital class. (Not the Jews, by the way, even though Israelis are prominent in the framework. Jewishness is not the useful part there, it’s the fact that Israel is a colonial project, an outpost of capitalism in the Middle East. The Epstein Files, if anything, has shown us how that works.)
You are both right, and you both agree on the important bit. As do I.
I hope we don’t repeat the mistake of not prosecuting the wealthy. By refusing to take down the bastards, the Roosevelt administration basically gave permission for fascism to grow.
This isn’t a “grrr, Russians r bad and evil 😡 USA number 1! 😲🥵🍆💦” statement, it’s a “we know he’s on one payroll, but just exactly how many is he really on” statement. Because it’s been known for ages that he has connections to Russian organized crime. The FBI has been trying to get charges to stick on it since the 80s.
They own a lot of Trump property and he’s been given tons of “gifts” by them over the years - including boats, airplanes, and cars. It’s believed that a lot of his failed businesses were money laundering schemes for Russian crime syndicates (every single one of his businesses except his father’s real estate empire have gone bankrupt). How else do you explain bankrupting not just one, but two casinos? They’re practically designed to print money! And then there was the whole “Trump Beauty Pageant” thing. You know, the one where he would fly around the country in his private jet, just him and a bunch of underage girls. Oh, and Jeffrey Epstein. I almost forgot that he went along for the rides, too. Can’t forget that his favorite part was “when he would open the door on the girls while they were in the dressing room getting ready.”
Anyway, getting a bit off topic there. Not only would it benefit Russia to have an egomaniac leading the country (don’t correct your enemy while they’re making a mistake and all that), but it would be of great use to have a man willing to smuggle confidential documents to Mar A Lago and sell them for the right price in that seat.
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