Supreme Court Overturns Campaign Limits

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government may not limit spending by corporations or other organizations to political candidates. The majority said, "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech." With today's Court decision, the floodgates of corporate money have been opened and from now on we actual citizens will be drowned in a flood of corporate propaganda. So much for democracy as practiced in the United States.

Besides the interesting question of how an "association of citizens" might be "jailed", the more important question is how a "citizen" is defined by the Constitution.

Regarding freedom of speech, the First Amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".

A "citizen" is defined by the Constitution in the Fourteenth Amendment as such:

"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside".

Now the question is how did a corporation become a person or a citizen and therefore have the rights of citizenship?

Quoting from David Korten's The Post-Corporate World, Life After Capitalism (pp.185-6):

In 1886, . . . in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a private corporation is a person and entitled to the legal rights and protections the Constitution affords to any person. Because the Constitution makes no mention of corporations, it is a fairly clear case of the Court's taking it upon itself to rewrite the Constitution.
          Far more remarkable, however, is that the doctrine of corporate personhood, which subsequently became a cornerstone of corporate law, was introduced into this 1886 decision without argument. According to the official case record, Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite simply pronounced before the beginning of argument in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company that,  "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does."

The court reporter duly entered into the summary record of the Court's findings that

"The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteen Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws".

 

Thus, by the decision of a single Supreme Court Justice, without argument of any type, and without a vote of the full Court, a corporation became a person, hence, a citizen of the United States, presumably with all the rights of citizenship. Even more preposterous, this decision has never been questioned or brought back to the full Court for reconsideration.

 

The Decade of the Triple Zeros

Goodbye to “The Triple Zeros” decade of the 2000’s. I grade Foreign Policy a Big 0 because of two senseless and unending wars as well as Al-Caeda, still threatening the U.S., is now scattered from the Philippines to Africa. I give our Economic Policies a Big 0 since we began the decade in the black for the first time in decades, but ended with the Big Recession and the largest budget deficit in history. The third Big 0 goes to our Environmental Policies, or lack thereof. My first two great-grandchildren, born in 2009, very likely will face a world of rising waters, rising temperatures, rising debt and rising violence. My hope is that, by some miracle of human understanding and change, the decade of the 2000 teens may begin a reversal of these patterns of impending disasters.

Pigs with Lipstick

Sure, Barack Obama was “taken out of context”, as he says, buy why on earth is he so defensive and almost apologetic about it. It is time to talk about the context, and not about Sarah Palin. The context he was talking about was and still is ‘THE ECOMONY, STUPID!’ The Pigs are the so-called investment banks in New York, which were made FAT having been fed by “THE FED” and the Washington establishment. The lobbyists put the lipstick on the Pigs to deceive the people into believing that this is good economics and that the common people will benefit. Well, the common people are being screwed and we are all being slaughtered along with the Pigs in New York.

It all started with Ronald Reagan and his “TRICKLE DOWN” theories of economics. Sure, there was a recession and rapid inflation during President Carter’s administration, but it started when OPEC cut the supply of oil and the price of gasoline went from 35 cents/gal. to $1.35. Carter proposed placing a $3.00 tax on each barrel of imported oil, but this was pooh-poohed by the moneyed interests. If that tax had been instituted in the ‘70’s, it would have led to much less dependency on oil and the rapid development of alternative sources of energy and this country would be in far better shape that it is today. Furthermore, the budget deficit of about $60 billion which Carter inherited was steadily falling during his administration and he predicted it would be balanced by January, 198l. In May of 1980, during the primary race for the presidency, Ronald Reagan said he would “CUT TAXES”, and the dance ended. The national debt when Carter was president was about $500 billion and this was from the residual costs of fighting WW II, the Korean War, the war in Viet Nam and the military build-up of the long years of the Cold War.

So what did President Reagan do? He cut taxes and deregulated the financial industries and every Republican administration since than has followed his lead. What has been the result? A severe recession in 1982-83, the Savings and Loan crisis costing American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and leading to the recession of 1991-92. President Clinton raised some taxes and made some other reforms, brought the economy into balance and even began showing a surplus by the end of his administration. During the 2000 primary race, George W. Bush took the same cue from Reagan and said he would “CUT TAXES”. The Market immediately began plunging leading to another recession. However, in spite of this, enough people still fell for this line and Bush was elected and then re-elected. All during this time, the U.S. Treasury has churned out the dollars hyper-inflating the economy leading to first the “HIGH TECH BUBBLE”, and then the “HOUSING BUBBLE”, and now, another recession, or maybe even worse this time. Meanwhile, the national debt has multiplied some 20 times, from the $500 billion to nearly TEN TRILLION DOLLARS. This means that every man, woman and child in the United States owes approximately $30,000! Can they ever pay that debt? Of course not! What will happen? Well, I expect no one knows or at least they are not talking about it. But I think we should start talking about it. Falling dollar and rampant inflation? Much of this money is owed to Japan, China and the Arab countries and the only recourse we and they may have to settle debts is by selling off American assets. This is already happening. I hate think where this might end. We may all be working for the Asians and Arabs at minimal wages.

Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq

In today’s Guardian (UK), Simon Tisdale, quotes unnamed U.S. Administration officials in Washington and Baghdad stating they have evidence that Iran is planning a ”nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny in Washington and a US retreat”. They say that this is an attempt by Iran to “increase the propaganda and increase the violence prior to Petraeus's report in September [when the US commander General David Petraeus will report to Congress on President George Bush's controversial, six-month security "surge" of 30,000 troop reinforcements]".

While it has been well known that Iranians has always considered al-Qaida and the Taliban to be among their most fervent enemies, US officials, without giving any of the proof, “now say they have firm evidence that Tehran has switched tack as it senses a chance of victory in Iraq. In a parallel development, they say they also have proof that Iran has reversed its previous policy in Afghanistan and is now supporting and supplying the Taliban's campaign against US, British and other Nato forces”.

What seems more likely is that the U.S. Administration, “sensing a chance of” defeat in Iraq and having increasing concern about the Taliban in Afghanistan, are preparing a propaganda barrage against Iran onto the American public and the Congress in preparation for General Petreaus’s report to Congress in September on the controversial “surge” Iraq. Most independent analysts have been predicting that this “surge” cannot succeed, as did I, (see: 10 Feb. 2007. “The Coalition cannot succeed in quelling the violence in Iraq”), and in fact violence throughout the country appears to be further escalating. No matter how positive General Petreaus seeks to portray his report, increasingly, it seems impossible to anticipate the proclamation of “success”. The purpose of this propaganda, of course, would be to put the blame for the failures of the Administrations wars in Iraq and Afghanistan squarely on shoulders of Iran, probably to try to justify military action against that country. Let us pray that the Congress and the American people do not fall for this ploy.

Lloyd Young
lloyduyoung@yahoo.com

The Coalition cannot succeed in quelling the violence in Iraq

I think that the Coalition cannot succeed in quelling the violence in Iraq, nor could the Iraqi people alone do this should the Coalition forces leave forthwith. The only possible solution I can see is for the United States to announce its inability to bring stability by military efforts and call a conference of all parties who have a direct interest in helping the Iraqi people to stabilize the country. I do not think any of Iraq’s neighbors want this civil war to continue as it very likely could spread to involve them. Therefore, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and Iran should all be involved in helping the Iraqi people find an equitable solution to the sectarian conflicts there. The war in Iraq cannot be separated from the greater Middle East conflicts including Israel-Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan as well as the larger “War on Terror”. Therefore, these must be settled at the same time. Hence, the Quartet, (United States, United Nations, European Union, Russia) and perhaps China, must work together with all the countries of the Middle East to solve these other problems as well. Iran and the Arab League have both showed willingness and offered plans in the past to resolve these conflicts, including the questions of nuclear weapons. I think that Israel must accept that it must withdraw to its 1967 borders in accordance to U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, and the other commitments that Israel has made in this regard. In addition, Israel should become part of a Middle East nuclear-free zone.

Through all of this, peace, security, democracy and the welfare of all the people should be the goals. World focus must move from fighting for the control of oil and gas, to finding alternative sources of energy. A nuclear free Middle East can become the initial effort for a nuclear free world and then we can work to stop all wars and get on with saving the planet from global warming and the other threats which face future generations.

"Only the US hawks can save the Iranian president now"

In today’s Guardian, Ali Ansari points out clearly and succinctly how, although the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmedimejad is deemed to be a very incompetent and bad leader, not only by most people throughout the world, but by his own people, President Bush and his hawkish advisors in Washington may yet save his downfall and impeachment at home. In the article, “Only the US hawks can save the Iranian president now”, Ansari, director of the Iranian Institute at the University of St Andrews, lists Ahmedinejad’s failures at home, e.g., lowering interest rates resulting in inflation for the poor and causing the wealthy not to save and/or sending their money abroad as well as dishing out oil money to the poor rather than investing in infrastructure and creating new jobs for the many unemployed young people. Add the this his strange religious convictions and the well known antagonistic remarks and threats to the outside world, and he has few friends or supporters left in Iran. His saving grace may be the accusations and actions against Iran coming from Washington. Iranians like all other people do tend to unite behind their leaders and come together to meet external threat.

"Surge" sounds like much "more of the same"

Sunday, January 21, 2007

“A NEW WAY FORWARD IN IRAQ” SOUNDS LIKE MERELY “MORE OF THE SAME”

President Bush’s “new strategy in Iraq” officially called “A New Way Forward”, but most commonly called the “Surge”, is designed to replace the old strategy of “Stay the Course”. Stay the Course, we all know, has not worked to achieve “Victory”, but has worked very well in to create chaos, civil war, death, and, most probably, thousands more terrorists than have been killed in the operation so far.

President Bush, no doubt, will review this new strategy for us in his State of the Union speech this Tuesday, while attempting to divert our focus from Iraq to domestic proposals such a health care for the uninsured, etc. We already know about the “Surge”, 21,500 more American soldiers in Baghdad, and a “democratic and unified” Iraqi government which will add thousands of Iraqi troops to be the main forces to “clear, hold, and build” Baghdad neighborhoods, and eventually take full control so that our troops “can start coming home”. Of course, he will say nothing of the permanent U.S. bases being constructed there which are designed to maintain our forces for decades to come, or that the necessity for a “unified” Iraq is to ratify and enforce the Iraqi laws that open Iraqi petroleum production to British and American oil corporations and the general economy to multinational corporations.

Will the “Surge” work? Not likely. As a number of American generals who have served in Iraq have already said, more American soldiers are more targets for the insurgents. The Iraqi forces are already involved in the sectarian violence (civil war) and, since 80% of the new forces are to be from the Kurdish “Peshmerga” forces, a new ethnic group will be inserted into the conflicting mix in the Iraqi forces, one that does not even speak the language of the others. Furthermore, Maqtada Sadr’s anti-American political allies in the Iraqi legislature have just announced that they are ending their 2 month boycott of the Iraqi legislature, joining other members of the Shia alliance. At the news conference, parliamentary speaker Mahmoud al-Mashadani said, "This is a new beginning,"…."We want to say to the world that an Iraqi solution for Iraqi problems is the key, and others must support these solutions." Does that sound like the Iraq government and President Bush’s new policy are on the same track?

I will listen to President Bush, of course, but right now I am much more interested in hearing the Democratic response of Sen. Jim Webb, D. Virginia. As reported by Francis X. Clines, “For the senator, the way out of Iraq is “from the outside in” — the full-scale regional diplomacy eschewed by the administration — rather than from inside Washington’s misplaced sense of being the center of all solutions.” (Italics mine). I am hoping that Senator Webb will clearly enunciate a much more realistic “new way forward” for the entire Middle East which can become the Democratic alternative and ensure that our troops can really come home at last.