Bill Moyers explains the concerns of Occupy Wall Street

Bill Moyers recently gave the keynote speech at Public Citizen's 40th anniversary Gala. In addition to the video of that speech, I have transcribed various excerpts from his excellent speech. During his speech, he made it quite clear that he fully understands the concerns of the occupy Wall Street protesters. Except for the bracketed material each of the following is a quote by Bill Moyers at the Public Citizen 40th Anniversary Gala: While it's important to cover the news, it's more important to uncover the news. One of my mentors at the University of Texas told our class that "news" is what people want to keep hidden; everything else is publicity. And when a student asked the journalist and historian Richard Reeves for his definition of real news, he answered, "The news you and I need to keep our freedoms." - [We now have what historian Lawrence Goodwin has described as] "a mass resignation of people who believe the dogma of democracy at a superficial level, but who no longer believe it privately." - We have a decline of individual self-respect on the part of millions of people. - We hold elections knowing that they are unlikely to produce the policies favored by a majority of Americans. - The property qualifications for federal office that the framers of the Constitution expressly feared as an unseemly veneration of wealth are now openly enforced, and the common denominator a public office, including for our judges, is a common deference to cash. - Barack Obama criticizes bankers as fat cats and then invites them to dine at a pricey New York restaurant where the tasting menu runs to $195 per person. And that's the norm. They get away with it. - Let's name it for what it is: Democratic deviancy, defined downward. - Politics today is little more than money laundering in the trafficking of power and policy. - Why are the occupiers there? They are occupying Wall Street because Wall Street has occupied America - Citizens United: Rarely have so few imposed such damage on so many. - [At the 12 minute mark of the video, Moyers discusses corporate personhood and the laws damaging public welfare resulting therefrom] - The Roberts Court has picked up the mantle: Money first, the public second, if at all. - [At the 14 minute mark: the damage done by Citizens United]

Continue ReadingBill Moyers explains the concerns of Occupy Wall Street

Dismantling Citizens United

Electoral politics have become the playground of billionaires and corporations bent on ruling, not governing. Identifying and getting out the voters in elections for political offices against the rich and corporate interests is noble but, under our current corrupt political fundraising system ordinary citizens don’t and won’t have the money…

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John Nichols of The Nation discusses the state of the media

Two nights ago, I attended a fund-raising event to support what is very much a grass roots organizing group, Grass Roots Organizing (GRO). John Nichols, Washington Correspondent for The Nation, was the keynote speaker. After the scheduled program (I'll be posting on that too), Nichols agreed to sit down with me in the empty ballroom to discuss the state of the media in the United States (see the video below). The bottom line is that these waters are fraught with danger, and media reform advocates too often find themselves playing defense, even with Democrat control of the Presidency and Congress. Nichols is in a good position to know about media issues, given that he co-founded Free Press with Robert McChesney. BTW, Free Press will be holding its 2011 National Conference for Media Reform in Boston from April 8-11. In a second video clip (see further below), Nichols discussed the travesty and the danger of the United States Supreme Court case of Citizens United v. SEC.

Continue ReadingJohn Nichols of The Nation discusses the state of the media

Problems with heavily monied judge elections

At Raw Story, Adam Skaggs warns that bigger money than ever will be pouring into judicial elections in light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Citizens United. He also offers some good suggestions:

[S]tates should adopt public financing systems for judicial elections (something West Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, and Wisconsin have already done). Public financing gets judges out of the unseemly business of dialing for dollars to make sure they win. States also need to adopt stricter disclosure rules, so the public knows which individuals and groups are spending in judicial campaigns. And states should institute new disqualification regulations to ensure that, if a judge is assigned to hear the case of a major campaign supporter, he or she must step aside and let a wholly impartial judge preside.

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Clarence Thomas wants only sterilized criticism.

Clarence Thomas is upset that many people have leveled intense criticism at the U.S. Supreme Court in light of the Citizen's United decision:

Questioning the Supreme Court and other government branches needs to stay within the range of fair criticism or "run the risk in our society of undermining institutions that we need to preserve our liberties," Justice Clarence Thomas said Thursday.
Dear Justice Thomas: If you don't like the criticism, there are several things you can do about it. You can resign. Or you can quit supporting the conservative wing of the Court when it makes decisions that undermine the institutions that we need to preserve our liberties. What did you possibly think would occur when you invited corporations to pour unlimited money into the elections of our politicians (as if it weren't bad enough already). Consider, too that Citizen's United will allow corporations to purchase state judges too (and consider this revealing look at the "judicial philosophy of John Roberts, with whom you've aligned yourself). Didn't it occur to you that you could have invoked stare decisis, and at least not made the problem worse? And answer this: Why should people continue to have respect for the United States Supreme Court when it delivers repeated crippling blows to the ability of the People to run their own government? Do you think that letting corporations buy politicians was the "original intent" of the Founders? Can you think of any liberty that is more fundamental than the ability of the Citizens to elect representatives who will be honestly responsive to them, not corrupted by huge amounts of money? But you really don't want to hear any of this. You'd rather that people simple pretend that you are doing a great job now matter how badly you screw up.

Continue ReadingClarence Thomas wants only sterilized criticism.