(We'll pause here while you rinse with mouthwash. As a public service, here is Olbermann Watch .)
Let's walk through the liberal/progressive house of horrors one by one.
Hobgoblin #1 -- Not all speech is equal. That's the Left's bottom line reasoning. The court was asked to decide whether a movie criticizing Hillary Clinton in her 2008 bid for the presidency was journalism or was it express advocacy, covered by McCain-Feingold. The court, wisely, answered What's the difference? It's speech!
Is what John Nichols does protected speech but not Jim Pugh? That specially privileged class who call themselves "journalists" are free to spread the most outrageous lies, the most malicious innuendo, the most partisan propaganda all over Page One -- never mind the editorial page -- the day of an election. Remember Dan Rather's faked-up National Guard hit job on George W. Bush before the 2004 election? But Jim Pugh is gagged 60 days before an election?
A Foron who identifies himself as "Average Joe" does not like my comparison of Nichols with Pugh.
"You're comparing advertising, which is commerce, to the freedom of the press, which is speech."
News flash: advertising IS speech! If you think that John Nichols* doesn't cherry pick his facts to support his amazing conclusions then you really are blindered and blinkered. Remember Russ Feingold holding up his hand and saying he knew this state like the back of his hand? That was one of Feingold's television advertisements in his first run for Senate 18 years ago. (* Sorry, John, I had to pick on someone. Consider it recognition of your exalted influence.)
Hobgoblin #2 -- The Court's 5-4 decision gives corporations too much power. It's just the reverse: the Court's decision is a victory against government control of speech no matter its funding source. It was the U.S.Department of Justice that tried to ban Hillary: the Movie from public viewing. (During arguments last year, the government said that yes, even books could be banned.) That, my friends, is called "censorship."
A law that restricts one corporation from speaking could restrict another -- namely, newspapers themselves. Citizens United is worth reading . Chief Justice Roberts writes:
The Government ... asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concern. Its theory, if accepted, would empower the Government to prohibit newspapers from running editorials or opinion pieces supporting or opposing candidates for office, so long as the newspapers were owned by corporations - as the major ones are.
It is only by legislative grace that John Nichols is permitted to write freely 60 days before an election; McCain-Feingold legislates that exemption, thus creating the presumption that Congress had the power gag the press, or Oliver Stone, or Michael Moore, or Keith Olbermann.
"When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves."
Hobgoblin #3 -- Citizens United is a boon to corporations. It remains to be seen who benefits the most but can we understand one thing? Contrary to liberal/progressive theology, the Constitution of the United States was never intended to pick winners and losers. People do that, individually and collectively. Not the government!
Citizens United puts everyone on a (nearly) equal* constitutional plane: The afore-mentioned, corporations, worker unions, fraternal organizations, public advocacy organizations -- all have an equal protection under the First Amendment. And that is all a corporation is -- a voluntary association of individuals engaged in commerce. (*Corporations and unions still cannot contribute directly to a political campaign.)
Jim Pugh is a journalist as John Nichols is a journalist as Blaska's Blog is a journalist as David Newby of the South Central Federation of Labor is a journalist.
Another Foron, DCB, argues:
Real people understand the difference between real people expressing the opinions of an actual person, and a tool speaking on behalf of profit margins.
I am forever amazed the lengths to which self-identified free speech advocates will go to stifle speech with which they disagree. I'm a real people, DCB, and an actual person, to boot. If John Nichols is permitted to speak against profit why cannot Jim Pugh speak on its behalf?
Hobgoblin #4 -- Liberal/Progressives have their own voodoo that you do. Corporations are the Left's all-purpose boogeyman. The "C" word encapsulates all the Left's fears, explains all their failures, provides a conveniently amorphous target for their hate and rage.
There are few if any corporations in Haiti. Does that speak well of Haiti?
Corporations are merely the organizing structure for the people (managers, workers, investors) who provide our electrical power, who manufacture the computers we're hacking away on at this moment, who process the lumber to shelter us, the food to feed us.
Government did not devise retirement pensions -- corporate businesses did. The same with job training and paid vacations and health insurance. They make possible one of the highest standards of living in the world, one capable of freeing Europe and rescuing Haiti.
Who owns these evil corporations? You do if you own mutual funds, have a 401K plan, if you are enrolled in the Wisconsin Retirement Fund.
The Wall Street Journal today chuckled at Justice John Paul Stevens' argument in dissent that corporations lack free speech rights because the Founders disliked them.
"If so how came there to be so many of them?" Justice Antonin Scalia jibed.
Finally, Keith Olbermann, if corporations are evil please to tell who owns your cable network, MSNBC? (Cue the Church Lady.) Could it be NBC-Universal Incorporated, which is owned by General Electric, Incorporated. And Microsoft, Incorporated?
Hobgoblin #5 -- Corporations are all the same cross-burning, worker-screwing, public-poisoning vampires. Huh? Apple Computer and, here in Wisconsin, Epic and Weather Central, to name only a few, are political liberals.
The Capital Times today wails
The American people will pay dearly for this decision when, more than ever, their voices are drowned out by corporate spending in our federal elections.
Whose voices will be "drowned out?" Not mine, for here is more heartbreak for my liberal/progressive friends: Your Marxist fixation with class warfare is not shared by the majority of Americans. Unionized workplaces exist today mainly in government. (No wonder government is the Left's employer of first resort.) Most workers share the goals of their companies -- even own stock in their companies. Advancement to the managerial class is fluid.
For what it's worth, the tea partiers (and the Wall Street Journal) are opposed to corporate welfare practiced by George W. Bush AND Barack Obama.
Hobgoblin #6 -- McCain-Feingold brought transparency. There is something wrong with a law that makes freedom of speech too complicated for any but $100/hour law firm specialists. As CNN reported , "Navigating the complex, ever-evolving landscape of election money rules has spurred a cottage industry of financial, political and legal armies, ready to do battle over the money and the message."
And don't get me started on the 527 Committee front groups like One Wisconsin Now.
Hobgoblin #7 -- Too much money is being poured into political campaigns. Mike McCabe and his allies at Fighting Bobfest make the sound of crickets when billions are poured into violent and misogynistic rap music, pornography, and torture movies. What is too much and who decides?
"The court's decision will be predictably lamented by people alarmed by the prospect of more political money funding more political speech," George Will said Thursday. "The Supreme Court has now said to such people approximately this: The First Amendment does not permit government to decide the "proper" quantity of political speech.
Hobgoblin #8 -- The people of America are ignorant sheep. Olbermann speaks for the Left when he calumnies "those poor dumb manipulated bastards, the tea partiers."
Give people some credit. They can make their own decisions. This nation elected Barack Obama and a liberal Congress just over a year ago. So, they've changed their minds. That's what upsets my liberal/progressive friends the most -- that someone may say something with which they disagree. They define those things as "special interests."
Ever notice how the Left cheered "the people" taking to the streets until they became Tea Partiers? Again to the Wall Street Journal this morning :
The reality is that free speech is no one's special interest.
Or everyone's.
Today's Chuckle
Not as hilarious as the Ben Affleck impression on Saturday Night Live in November 2008 but still good:
