The US is Unconstitutional

"I'm Joe, I'll be your economic manager"

I'm not a worshiper of Larry Lessig, but do listen because he's got a lot more law knowledge than I have, etc.

His new book -- Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It-- makes a point that needs to be heard and not immediately ground into teabags: The idea of the good framers of the US was to defend the people from undue power, money and influence -- the Constitution says folks in Congress are barred from accepting gifts from kings, foreign sovereign powers, etc.

Alas, they did not envision the new kings of Wall Street and Finance.

The frame has been subverted, Lessig describes, as Congress people now spend most of their time sucking up to the .5% who fund Congressional campaigns -- this is mostly corporate wealth, sucked from consumer-taxpayers.

That makes nearly every human being in the US the other 99.5%.

So while we were watching Friends, or playing Wii, an actual coup a la X Files was taking place. Thugs with money reached around the defenses of the people and powned Congress and D.C.

As a dear friend put it a few years ago, "The pigs won."

We now enjoy a representational system that represents .5% of the "people." And, if representation means anything at all*, this suggests that the actual people have been left undefended against undue power, money, and influence. This would appear to be unconstitutional.

Because corporations have become the uncrowned sovereigns, economic planners, and socialist-too-big-to-not-bail-outs of the US. I'd wager that the only difference between the corporate state that is now US, and the totalitarian state of Stalinist Russia, is that our totalitarians are distributed behind a bunch of screens of economy-planners that say EXXON, MOBILE, Bank of America, Citibank, and American Express.

Nice work, "Dickie" -

"Dick" Fuld, Lehman Bro.

Express this: The current US political system is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has abetted this metamorphosis. Media has missed it only entirely. OccupyWallSt has not.

Another Lessig interview.

*The opposite of representation is the casino -- unsullied chance. This is the preferred system of Wall St., Las Vegas, and the Mob.

The corporate form

The corporation is legally bound to put its bottom line ahead of everything else, even the public good.

Speech is money

"The ads will get more honest," said Keating, director of the Club for Growth, (@#$@) a group supports candidates who call for lower taxes and smaller government. "Instead of having all this nonsense about 'Call him,' they'll tell you what to do: Go vote."

But honest ads were only a collateral issue on the court's agenda. The objective of the five-justice majority was to free up the speech rights of corporations, overturning statutes and previous court rulings dating back as far as 1947. Corporations, legally considered persons under a Supreme Court cases from the 19th Century, have more limited First Amendment rights than what are known as "natural persons." National Potlach Radiation

Wouldn't an inquiry into the history and nuance and logic of "speech rights" be more relevant than asshat speculation of possible effects?

Except of course sensible speculations:

I congratulate Wealth Bondage on their Supreme Court Victory. Democracy is Game over, I guess. But maybe the polictical ads will be of higher quality now that they can be financed to infinity. I don't mind being ruled by propagandists, but I do prefer high production values, and star power. Gifthub

NPR's Ken Rudin cites Chris Good, blogging at The Atlantic:

...the accounting firewall is gone, and Wal-Mart or the Service Employees International Union, for instance, can spend their corporate money directly on candidates.

Again, the shiftless refusal to examine the basic components irks. Prompting this National Potlach contribution from me:

What is "corporate money"? The whole fictional realm of corporate citizenship, personhood deserving of constitutional protection and rights, etc. needs insight, critique, common sense. Who owns corporate money anyway? The shareholders? If so, why would a shareholder wish to bestow his money on a politician unless s/he believes the politician will work to advance the corporate interests? And what are those interests other than to make money? Therefore what we are talking about, it seems, is the legitimization of a new kind of investment - buy a politician and see your ROI skyrocket. Beats the pants off sub-primes and derivatives.