Politics is not for the people, unless you are rich.

With the citizens united decision in the supreme court fast approaching I can only hope that the justices do the right thing and get the money out of politics. People like Sheldon Adelson are set to spend 100 million dollars on the republican party in this years election. How can the average person hope to have his/hers voice heard? Do you think the Supreme Court will do the right thing? I personnel hope so, I am not holding my breath.

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Originally posted by Opfor
With the citizens united decision in the supreme court fast approaching I can only hope that the justices do the right thing and get the money out of politics. People like Sheldon Adelson are set to spend 100 million dollars on the republican party in this years election. How can the average person hope to have his/hers voice heard? Do you think the Supreme Court will do the right thing? I personnel hope so, I am not holding my breath.

politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...

This is why the money needs to be taken out of politics. What does this guy expect to get for his hundred million?

citizens united, will go down in history as the death nail of America.

it is sad because they create the money, they create our society's need for currency...

Us normal folk would be glad to barter.. hell, we do it all of the time "I fix your sink, you give me some free meat" etc etc.... It's not about compensation, it's about just helping each other live life easier... But alas, their worthless Dollars make us suffer.

We are taught any of us can be a politician, any of us could be president because "Abraham Lincoln grew up in a one room log cabin in the Kentucky wilderness" (now, we will have children believing he actually fought vampires)

No, it takes millions upon millions to simply campaign. Bull-f###ing-#. And that doesn't count paying off the press to get positive news coverage..... And voter fraud.... and Anti-commercials... and paid attendees to rallys.. and to keep old voices hushed.


And according to Citizens United, Money=Speech........ Legalizing Bribery while we TRUE WARM-BODIED, FLESH FILLED CITIZENS are punished for trying to cope with this awful world. All makes me sick to my stomach.

I grew up wanting to be a politician... so so badly (think Leslie Knope, anyone? lol), because I care about true freedom. Not the freedom to extort workers, and shimmy past crucial regulations.... But the freedom for a person to wake up and not be required to slave 8-12 hours of sunlight, to be able to grow our own god-created non gmo plants, to revere and respect law enforcement instead of fearing and being punished.. I care about my home, and I see it going downhill because the people my age don't see the hope... And these people who are supposed to represent us don't even care. They care about bantering on budgets and marriage and contraception..... How about the latter shouldn't concern them, no law is finite, and if we stop funding this f***ing war and modern weaponry, we won't dig our grave deeper. PROBLEM SOLVED......

I'm still going to try and start locally.. if by the time I am ready there still is a working gov't... But need to do some major self-exploring so I know in my heart I can serve honest and true and deny all that those before me could not. At least our county has less than 50,000 people, so there won't be much traveling in campaigns... well if you count $10 in gas as traveling


Keep talking, people, we gotta take these cold-blood nasty leeches OUT! Show them their money is nothing but paper. Wealth is worthless when you are self-sufficient..... Throw them in the wilderness for a day or two, that'll make a great reality TV show for true entertainment.

reply to post by Opfor


Well don't hold your breath long if you decide to! There is no way for the American people to voice their opinon and be heard unless everyone flocks together to do so...

With the laziness in people in today's society, this will never happen....Who wants to get off the couch from watching Jersey Shore or some crap to do something to better their future generations?

It will always be corrupt as long as there is corrupt money.....The only person capable of changing that, and it is a longshot is Ron Paul....Before him was JFK...And look what happened to him!!

Originally posted by Opfor
People like Sheldon Adelson are set to spend 100 million dollars on the republican party in this years election. How can the average person hope to have his/hers voice heard?

There's a difference between spending 100 million dollars on election campaigns vs. spending 100 million dollars on election campaigns and it actually doing anything.

I hope they maintain their decision and then overturn the nonsense that corporations are people.

This is problem, reaction, solution and I think a lot of you are advocating the controlled reaction without realizing it. I'm not knocking anybody, all of the posts so far have heart in the right place. On top of that, it is not very obvious. Not obvious but obviously effective.

Who here believes that the supreme court granted corporate person-hood? If you believe this, you are incorrect.

In citizens united, the supreme court ruled that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act that restricted expenditures by corporations and unions violated the First Amendment's protection of free speech. Why?

First we need a basic understanding of the roles of the 3 branches of government. Foremost being that the supreme court does not write legislation or pass laws.

Then we need to understand why corporations have first amendment rights. The supreme court did not give any rights to corporations. They upheld first amendment rights that the legislature and executive had themselves granted.

The mainstream media will tell you that the supreme court is bad, or that the constitution is bad, or that free speech is bad and we must change it. What they will not tell you is that the legislative and executive branches wrote and passed the law into US CODE that gives corporations 14th amendment rights of equal protection, and thus 1st amendment rights.

U.S. Code Title 1, Chapter 1, Subsection 1

In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise— the words "person" and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals

So how does that grant corporate person-hood and first amendment rights?

Amendment 14 to the United States Constitution: Section 1.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

All that has to be done is to remove united states code Title 1, Chap 1, SS 1. But this has not been the focus of the debate, has it? The focus has been to denounce the supreme court for not setting the precedent beyond their constitutional power by revoking free speech rights that the congress and the executive signed into law. Americans need to be weary of that kind of precedent.

All that has to be done to do away with this silliness is a presidential signature to nullify the code. It is that simple. Obama could get rid of corporate person-hood in the time it would take him to place his signature on a piece of paper.

That being said, has the debate actually been about renouncing corporate person-hood? Nope. It has been about weakening the very foundation of free speech and attacking the first amendment. The next play in this insipid game is to amend the first amendment in order to attack YOUR free speech.

This is actually a brilliant strategy. The legislature and the executive gave corporations 14th amendment rights using united states code knowing the people would eventually disapprove. Then they write and pass the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in conflict with the corporate personhood that they have already granted. When BCRA is challenged in the court, the debate is steered towards weakening the Constitution (which grants actual rights) and not united states code that grants color of law rights to corporations.

This is problem, reaction, solution. People's will is deliberately being steered down an increasingly narrowing road so that they might agree to their own destruction. Don't fall for it.

Originally posted by imherejusttoread
I hope they maintain their decision and then overturn the nonsense that corporations are people.

That would be the easier, logical and above all, safer route.

reply to post by Opfor


We need to oust the capitalists from politics.

Capitalists are the only ones with the wealth to influence politics to their benefit.

Politics is not politics anymore, it's a soap opera designed to hide the truth.

Na, politics is just show business for ugly people like me. We can pretend all day that voting means something when we all know deep down it doesn't mean much. Deciding between two people isn't power, you don't even get to choose which two people are going to run in truth. Real power isn't deciding from what's on the menu, it's dictating what goes on the menu.

I doubt the SCTOUS is going to overturn Citizens United anytime soon. With Romeny getting the blessing it;s likely it won't be overturned in the next 10 years (or even 20).

reply to post by METACOMET


You are the voice of reason in an otherwise emotionally charged thread, my friend. Given that Congress has defined corporations as a "person" three different times, here, here and here it is massive ignorance and mass hysteria that keeps perpetuating the canard that the Supreme Court "made corporations a person".

You are spot on the First Amendment reasoning that the SCOTUS relied upon to render their ruling and the victory was a victory for every single living flesh and blood "person" in America.

Had Congress not overstepped their bounds with the BPCFRA the SCOTUS would not have been forced to strike it down.

The rule of law must always come first, and the hatred towards powerful corporations is understandable and palpable, but advocating the unconstitutional empowerment of government just to assuage ones hatred of corporations is lunacy.

Even worse is the motive behind the Citizens' United reaction, which apparently underscores the masses belief that corporations spending millions upon millions of dollars on political advertising is some sort of mystical hypnotism and we "regular" people have no power to break its magic spell and the more money corporations spend on political advertising the more we fall under their spell and like zombies we stumble into the voting booths and vote based upon the magic spell of expensive political ad campaigns. We have no personal power and need a nanny state to ignore their Constitutional restraints and save us from our zombie proclivities.

Sigh.