January 31, 2010
Posted by yaman
What public discourse? On corporate political speech
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning political speech restrictions on corporations and unions, a chorus of voices from the Democratic Party has attacked the decision. Notably, President Obama claimed in his State of the Union address that the ruling “will open the floodgates for special interests… to spend without limit in our elections.”
I think we are missing the point. The fact is that corporate, special, and powerful interests already have effective control of our political system. As Jon Stewart’s coverage of the State of the Union effectively shows, our public discourse is already in the shits. Fox offered only vapid criticisms, saying the President was not acting “presidential” — whatever the hell that means. MSNBC the most desperate praises; and CNN the most useless collection of raw data from Twitter. This is the discourse we desperately need to save, say the Democrats?















