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President Obama was right on target during his state of the union speech, when he upbraided the Supreme Court for its decree that corporate money must be given “free speech rights” equivalent to those of human beings. This flight into laissez-faire fantasyland is unprecedented, leading Obama to say that it “will open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.”
Obama’s outburst caused assorted right-wing politicos and pundits to fall into a collective faint, gasping that a president has no business publicly chastising Supremes. One who practically fainted on the spot was Justice Sam Alito, among the most extreme of the court’s corporate cultists. He was caught on camera mouthing the words “not true,” even as Obama dared to speak the truth to his face.
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Alito and company are claiming that their fabrication of a free-spending “right” for corporate giants merely assures that these moneyed interests get a fair share of influence in America’s political system. Now that’s surreal! Corporations don’t want a fair share – they want “the lion’s share.” How much is that? Aesop explained it ages ago in his famous fable:
“The cow the goat and the sheep,” Aesop wrote, “went once a-hunting with
the lion, and they caught a stag. And when they came to have their part and
share in it, the lion said to them:
‘My lords, I want you to know that the first part is mine, because I am your
lord; the second because I am stronger than you are; the third because I ran
more swiftly than you did; and whosoever toucheth the fourth part, he shall be
my mortal enemy.’
And thus the lion took for himself alone the stag.”
Like Aesop’s lion, our corporate lords want it all, and now they have a five-member majorities of Supreme Court corporatists who are not just willing, but eager, to give it to them. This decision is just the beginning.
“Supreme Court flap,” Austin American Statesman,” January 29, 2010.
“Revenge of the Cyborgs,” The Austin Chronicle, January 29, 2010.
“State of the Union: The Slam, the Scowl and the Separation of Powers,” www.abcnews.com, January 28, 2010.
“Alito disparages Obama’s Supreme Court criticism,” www.yahoo.com, January 28, 2010.