Citizens United revisited

At In These Times, Joel Bleifuss sums up the damage caused by The United States Supreme Court decision of Citizen's United:

In a political system where profit-driven corporations control both the nation’s dominant political parties and the legislative agenda, it is unlikely that any policy initiatives that disadvantage corporate interests will thrive. Citizens United creates a rocky road indeed for universal healthcare, legislation to combat climate change, a clean energy policy, an economy geared toward butter rather than guns, a tax structure that provides funding for human needs, an agricultural policy that serves family farmers, ethics legislation to regulate lobbyists, prohibitions against environmental toxins and an economy that provides a living wage to all willing workers.

. . .

And by curtailing transparency, the decision “profoundly affected the nation’s political landscape,” the Center for Responsive Politics wrote in its analysis of the November 2010 general election. Citizens United allowed nonprofit 501(c)4 and 501(c)5 organizations “to spend unlimited amounts of money running … political advertisements while not revealing their donors.” Among the center’s other findings:

• “Corporate donations are likely higher than reported, as conservative nonprofit groups spent $121 million [in the 2010 general election] without disclosing where the money came from.”

• Since the 2006 midterm elections, the percentage of spending from undisclosed donors has risen from 1 to 47 percent.

• In 2010, 72 percent of political ad dollars from outside groups would have been prohibited in 2006.

This article examines several approaches being floated for combatting the destructive effects of Citizens United, including ways of amending the United States Constitution.

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Telecommunications industry working overtime to misrepresent net neutrality

I don’t believe that money is speech, but I’ve repeatedly seen that money motivates dishonest speech, much of it uttered by paid “experts.” This money-motivated dishonesty is a recurring problem regarding many issues, including the topic of this article, net neutrality. On August 8, 2011, I was pleased to see that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published my letter to the editor on the topic of net neutrality.  Here’s the full text of my letter:

Maintain neutrality We pay Internet service providers to move data from point to point. We don't pay them to steer us to selected sites (by speeding up access times) or to discourage us from using other sites (by slowing down or blocking access). Nor do we pay them to decide what applications we can use over the Internet. I should be free to use Skype even if it competes with the phone company's own telephone service. Giving Internet users this unimpeded choice of content and applications is the essence of "net neutrality," and it has inspired unceasing innovation over the Internet. The Senate soon may vote on a "resolution of disapproval" that would strip the Federal Communications Commission of its authority to protect Americans from potential abuses. If it passes, net neutrality would be at serious risk. Congress is under big pressure (and receiving big money) from companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, who want to become the gatekeepers of the Internet. They would like to carve up the Internet so that it would become like cable TV, with tiered plans and limited menus of content that they would dictate. Phone companies should not be allowed to dictate how we use the Internet. I urge Sens. Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt to support net neutrality by voting against the resolution of disapproval. Erich Vieth • St. Louis
I wrote this letter as a concerned citizen.  I have long been concerned about net neutrality.  I have seen ample evidence that increasingly monopolistic telecommunications companies have no qualms about forcibly assuming the role of Internet gate-keeper.  As for-profit entities, their instinct is to limit our Internet choices if it would make them ever greater piles of money. Call me a pragmatist based on America’s television experience; telecommunications companies want to control how we use the Internet much like cable TV companies shove users into programming packages in order to maximize profit. On August 18, 2011, I noticed that the Post-Dispatch published an anti-net-neutrality letter. Here is the text of that letter: [More . . . ]

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For one Republican, reason prevails.

I'm sorry to say that this reasonable approach to Muslims shown by Jersey Governor Chris Christie (i.e., the lack of bigotry) is all too rare among Republicans. Lawrence O'Donnell reports:

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Christie's words shouldn't be inspirational, but they are in this climate of Republican bigotry.

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Free Speech Above All

Johann Hari on Religious Censorship This video is an impassioned declaration on the importance of not allowing "sensitivities" and an unwillingness to offend become a force against free speech.  It is also, underneath, an argument for rejecting the pseuodthink of irrational defenses of absurdity.

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