has Given Us a Great Opportunity
by Dave Lindorff
Flash! The Supreme Court’s latest 5-4 decision overturning the over 60-year-old ban on corporations giving money to political campaigns is not the end of democracy as we know it, or the onset of fascism in America, as some of hyperventilating progressives have been claiming.

Sure it’s an outrage to say, as the court majority did, that corporations have the same rights as people. But let’s face it: Corporations have long dominated the American political scene. They didn’t need to be free to donate in their own corporate names. They have had their political action committees to do the job, and that’s worked just fine for them, as witness the current state of the two pro-corporate parties in Congress, and the string of blatantly pro-corporate presidents we’ve had for as far back as I can remember.

In fact, the way I see it, this latest decision is a huge improvement. Having been granted the same First Amendment rights as individuals when it comes to free speech, corporations now can honestly and openly buy elections and lobby in their own names, instead of hiding behind such deceptive PAC names as the American Solutions for Winning the Future (oil industry) or Grassroots Arizona (real estate interests).

Now perhaps American voters will be able to see more clearly just who these companies are that own our politicians. We will be able to understand much more easily how our own interests are being trampled by the money and power of corporations.