I had a short conversation with a couple right wingers on the potential aftershocks of the Citizens United decision last night, which I will reprise below. I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that the new atmosphere we will find ourselves in will be bad for everybody -- not just Democrats/liberals/progressives.
This will be difficult to establish in Republicans' minds -- since the initial pushback is coming from the left, and the Republicans would be the logical beneficiaries of the rule changes the decision brings. At least, they would at first -- however, advancement of corporate interests over the people's doesn't respect political divisions any more than it does borders of nations.
That's why I believe that ultimately this struggle is bipartisan.
more below.
I'm writing from Alaska, for what that is worth -- and I'm far from being the most enlightened thinker on this site.
I'm 49 years old and have lived in Anchorage since I was 12, except for a couple of extended stays in Tacoma and Seattle. Where I'm from, Republicans are a fact of life, and have been so for as long as I can recall.
Ironically, according to legend Hawaii and Alaska were admitted to the union at the same time because it was assumed that Alaska, strongly Democratic at the time and Hawaii (Republican) would maintain a balance with each other and not tip the scale in the US Congress one way or the other. It took about 15 years for them to switch, and Alaska has been red and Hawaii blue pretty much ever since.
The people who wrote Alaska's constitution were very astute, and wrote in sweeping protections for the people's interests, in regards to ownership of natural resources. Thus, the character of the relationship between Big Oil, and the people of the state and their representatives in the State Senate and House is a lot different than in Texas, Louisiana and other oil producing states. That is just how it is -- and a situation I don't think Alaska needs to be ashamed of.
The 1968 discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay, and the ten year flurry of activity that ensued, including construction of a pipeline across the entire state permanently changed the state. Most would agree that the state is now too dependent on revenue from this finite resource, and we need to diversify and prepare for a new era where oil and gas production will wind down.
Nevertheless, at present the ongoing negotiations with Big Oil are in sharp focus; and politicians, academics and stakeholders are naturally spending a lot of time on crafting the financial and physical constraints that Big Oil has to meet to keep operating in Alaska.
Alaska is physically larger than the five largest states in the lower 48 combined, but less populated than all but one or two other states. Two thirds of the 650,000 people live in Anchorage. Most of the state is sparsely populated and virtually inaccessible.
Alaska Natives have fared somewhat better than North American Native peoples, as far as protecting their language, culture, traditions and identity from the imposition of white culture since Russian and English explorers moved in 200+ years ago.
And Alaska is on the front lines of global climate change, even though our Republican Senator and Congressman do not acknowledge that. The elders in Barrow know about it, though; as do the residents of coastal villages in western Alaska that have been settled for 12 centuries and are now washing into the ocean.
Until the mid-'90s or so, Outside money in Alaska elections was relatively rare. Most people here, across the political spectrum do not look kindly at infusions of cash from people and corporations who don't live/operate here. We have quickly learned that an organization called, say, "Alaskans for Repsonsible Development" may be neither Alaskan or responsible! And more often than not (but not every time) Outside cash has failed to influence Alaska voters.
Campaigns have gotten increasingly competitive, though, here as elsewhere, and in recent years a candidate for Alaska's sole US House seat or two Senate seats has spent in excess of $10 million per race, 90 percent of it coming from outside the state. That's generated a lot of anxiety, though not enough yet to get anyone to propose public financing of campaigns.
OK, so with all that as background, take a look at the exhanges following. We were talking in a comment section on a thread in local blog Progressive Alaska. Progressive Alaska is written by Philip Munger, an Alaska renaissance man who has worked as a commercial fisherman, private prison administrator and radio producer. I think he said he is a reformed Republican. He looks like he would win a bar fight but he also composes classical music and grows his own food.
I've added some remarks to help with understanding of local issues I used to demonstrate points I was making.
I'd like y'all to tell in the comments what you think of my outreach attempt with the other commenters -- and why or why not you feel that conservatives could be our allies on crafting a response to the Roberts court's ruling.
Here's the conclusions I drew from it:
- They really do not like to be called "Teabaggers". Maybe we should offer to never use that again, in exchange for them dropping "Democrat Party". This sort of sniping, and dinosaur logos and the like, as cathartic and amusing as it is for us, does not ultimately build bridges.
- The conservatives are sympathetic and share our concerns, at least in the sort of worst case scenarios that I painted.
- The particulars of any alliances formed for the purpose of pushback must be carefully forged, since (as previously noted) Republicans will be the initial beneficiaries of the changes, and (as others have noted) the corporations might turn the screws slowly at first.
- The public perception of which party (or party fracture) "owns" a solution is a lot less important to me than solving the problem.
- Anonymous: "Today's decision by the Bu$h appointees to the Supreme KKKourt that corporations are free to buy elections"
Yes, it's disgusting that unions and shadowy foreign donors can no longer buy elections for the Democrats election. Next thing you know they'll ban ACORN from letting dead people vote.
I started out pretty snarky and on the defensive:
- Clark: i guess you cons are OK with judicial activism, as long as it benefits the largest corporations in the world. because, you know, their interests and yours are 100% in alignment!
- Anonymous: "i guess you cons are OK with judicial activism,"
Ha, ha, yeah, voting for free speech is "judical activism" is it ? Try again.
And I suppose that NBC, ABC, CNN, AP and the other corporate Obama-networks and the unions and the trial lawyers and George Soros and ACORN have our interests at heart !!
- Clark: you have no idea what you're enabling, by agreeing with the supremes' 5-4 decision. read the dissenting opinions, read around the net about it a little [while you still can] and get back to me.
hint: it isn't about free speech, it isn't about populism, it isn't about getting government off your back, it isn't about left and right wing ideology. it's about ceding complete control to international conglomerates that operate with impunity and with no particular alleigance to any nation or interest, other than their own profit.
- Anonymous: "it's about ceding complete control to international conglomerates"
So, it's OK for the corporate NY Times and WaPo to tell us how to vote but that right can't be extended to other corporations ?
Speaking of international conglomerates how come you guys never seemed to mind George Soros pumping millions into the US political system ? Seems to me if the NYT, Obama and Daily Kos are against this it can't be all bad...
- Anonymous: OK...lets see. Corporations will have the right to advertise on behalf of their favorite candidate or against another.
Does giving them the right to free speech force anyone to vote a certain way?
The right has been ignoring the ads and editorials of unions and lefty papers now for decades. Now the left will have to start thinking for themselves as well.
local background on the following: State House Representative Scott Ogan (R-Wasilla) collected $40,000 (around '02 or so, as I recall) in "consulting fees" from Evergreen, though he couldn't say what the consultation really entailed -- though people suspected it was helping pave the regulatory way for Evergreen to start drilling for coal bed methane, at various places around the Mat-Su Valley, on both public and private land. He was flooded with complaints from constituents who were outraged to find out they didn't own the subsurface rights to their land and wouldn't be able to prevent Evergreen from drilling. Ogan resigned rather than face the music.
- Clark: no, you guys really don't get it. it's nothing to do with a left-right agenda at all. it is the court saying money equals speech, and corporations can shower as much of it as they like, easily drowning out the voices of individuals, on any issue at all.
a fan of private property rights? gun ownership? remember the evergreen/subsurface rights that lost scott ogan his house seat? a corporation with a pervasive influence [that this decision paves the way for] could set up a drilling rig, or seize your real estate without compensation or even advance notice. and pre-emptively prevent you from having any recourse.
think chevron and exxon won't treat alaska the same way they deal with third world nations, given a chance?
democrats/obama aren't the people you have to worry about
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- Anonymous: "It is the court saying money equals speech, and corporations can shower as much of it as they like, easily drowning out the voices of individuals,"
But why is that different from the corporations who control the AP, NYT, LA Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN etc. etc. using their money to sneer at the Tea Party Activists and run defense for Obama ?
The cries of "unfair" from the Left would be taken more seriously if they'd questioned all the foreign donations Obama got during the election campaign in 2008.
local background: Pete Kott (R-Eagle River) and Victor Kohring (R-Wasilla) were convicted in the '06 Alaska corruption scandal, for taking bribes from Bill Allen, head of oilfield services contractor Veco, Inc. All three are serving time.
- Clark: look... this ruling is bad for everybody. you should not let the idea of corporate rule seduce you, or allow the country to be divided and conquered any longer. i'm trying to reach out here... i am not having this conversation for partisan political purposes.
the eventual implications will overwhelm all else -- it isn't so much that MSNBC, wapo, et al will be undoing the right wing agenda by dispensing misinformation, being in a position to offer undue influence, etc. they, and right wing news outlets alike will be powerless to find out what is really going on. even if the conduit of anonymous informants, whistleblowers, the freedom of information act, and aggressive investigative reporting are intact, with decisionmaking ability shifting from government to corporations with international presence, oversight will become impossible. and the rules will not be able to be changed later, because we will never again be able to elect anyone who is beholden to the people, in the environment that will be created if the rule changes stand.
think it was bad that taxpayers bailed out banks, and half the money was doled out in CEO bonuses? get ready for a lot more of that, except you won't even know about it.
the crimes that kott, kohring and allen are doing time for [prosecuted by a republican administration -- that ought to be enough to tell you this isn't partisan] won't even be illegal. well, not exactly -- but the effect will be the same. future politicians will be coerced to revise the rules, and those who won't cooperate will be replaced at the next election.
our system is only functional because there are checks and balances. this ruling removes more than a century of carefully constructed mechanisms specifically designed to keep corporations from driving quality of life, freedom and the expectation of happiness into the ground -- as they were doing in the late 19th century.
- Anonymous: Clark, I'm not completely disagreeing with you but how is openly giving corporations free speech rights any different from what's going on now ?
Obama was elected on the backs of foreign billionaires and corporate trial lawyers. The MSM have backed him to the hilt and Big Pharma helped back his Healthcare bill BUT despite the bias of the MSM and the insults hurled at independents by sites like this one ("crazy teabaggers") the people of Massachesetts stood up and voted No ! Despite the money of the media corporations supporting the Dems, a people's social networking movement effectively countered the Big Money and got Scott Brown elected. I just don't see why corporations can't now OPENLY have free speech ?
- Anonymous: This ruling shouldn't change anything in America if only the people had an honest impartial media. In a democracy a fair, free media are essential to keep both corporations and government in check. Sadly, during the 2008 election we saw the majority of the media discarding any pretense at even-handedness and actively pushing for the election of Obama. The MSM has lost the people's trust and we have all lost an important safeguard.
(I got Exxon's numbers from a Joe Conason piece that was linked here.)
- Clark: at 19. the difference from now, in part. exxon mobil's political contributions in '08 amounted to $1 million, because all had to come from their employees, with a maximum limit per employee, run through a PAC with every dollar accounted for, and subject to fines if any violations were found by independent government audit. after the supreme court ruling, they will be able to dedicate any portion of their money on hand [they made $45 billion in profit in '08] toward getting rid of any candiate they do not like. an overwhelming infusion of cash like that will be impossible to defend against -- not even george soros, bill gates or richard mellon scaife has pockets nearly that deep.
ordinary citizens and their representatives in the alaska house and senate, on the left and right may disagree about how taxes on big oil should be determined and structured -- but this could create a situation where we're no longer in a position to decide. it's beyond being a colony -- it's a takeover.
there are good reasons our predecessors tried to keep this from happening. it is consistent with founding principles of the nation.
- Clark: under the old rules of engagement and oversight, exxon dodged and weaved for 20 years before paying out ten cents on the dollar in reparations for the exxon valdez spill. if we let them buy our government, if we get anything at all from them after the next major spill, it will only be out of the goodness of their hearts.
Unless I'm getting him mixed up with someone else, the next commenter is a strong Palin supporter...
- Zip Nolan: Interesting discussion here. clark makes some strong points but I'm optimistic that a well-informed, organized and passionate electorate can still out vote big spenders (whether they all are corporations or the unions).
Sadly, the President has already shot himself in the foot on this one...how can he critique this ruling when he broke his promise on Campaign Finance and then spent a crazy $750 MILLION on getting elected ?
- Clark: i don't necessarily agree with his approach, but obama was competing in the environment as it existed then. there were many of us asking him to not accept corporate money for the campaign, believe me.
we could switch to public financing of elections, and regulate the amounts collected and from where/whom. this could also easily be done in a fair, bipartisan fashion.
it wouldn't have been fair, applied to obama only.
it would potentially make third party candidates and nonpartisan candidates a lot more viable.
Finally, a request. Let's not turn this into a Sarah Palin thread. Or if you must discuss her, react to this brilliant post (that I also found via a link from Progressive Alaska) by Wasilla-based freelance photographer Bill Hess, about his experiences at a Palin book signing. Hess has also been living for three plus decades among people about 180 degrees opposed to his viewpoint, and trying to behave sensibly and collaboratively.