On the positive side: the SCOTUS ruling just made political parties irrelevant.

[branders seine]

The only way to influence the governmental agenda henceforth will be to form a corporation that can buy or coerce legislative votes and executive compliance.

This is really the system we've had since 1980-ish anyway.

[begin_within]

1. Aren't political parties pretty much irrelevant now anyway?

It almost doesn't matter what party is nominally in power, the corporations still get what they want.

[branders seine]

7. this has been inevitable since the idiotocracy put reagan in power

[endless october]

2. is this any different than the status quo really?

just look at the fucking health insurance bailout bill.

just look at the bankster bailout 'n bonus movement.

[Mz Pip]

6. That's what I was thinking.

Corporations have been buying candidates all along. Look at all those 527 issue ads.

[NightWatcher]

3. doesnt it mean more and more outlandish ads pushing wedge issues

24 hours a day of vote for Joe the Puke because the Democrat is in favor of pulling baby's fingernails out.

then after the fight and Joe wins, Joe does whatever he wants for the corps that bought him. Elections will become MORE insufferable

[thereismore]

4. Yes, but it isn't that good, because the corporations officially took over.

With this ruling, I don't see any campaign finance reform happening that would be "constitutional." This is a fucked up political system. We are turning into Pinochet's Chile or 1930's Italy.

[branders seine]

8. No doubt about it. This is a corporate coup.

Voting is irrelevant. People have NO rights at all, except those some coproration decide to give them.

[phantom power]

5. Hey, that's kinda sorta parliamentary!

Except for the bit where citizens no longer have franchise.

:woohoo:

[Blasphemer]

9. Remember the movie "Meet John Doe"?

A Capra Classic - A reporter (Barbara Stanwyck) writes a "John Doe" letter where John Doe threatens to kill himself because of poor economic conditions. The story becomes huge news and all of the newspaper editors and politicians get involved. They are forced to come up with a John Doe to claim ownership of the letter (Gary Cooper) and the chain of events eventually leads to "John Doe" societies forming all over the country, championing the everyman and the working class and people were making donations to the cause. Naturally, the corporate elite can't have any of that and they decide that they either need to take control of the movement or squash it completely by exposing the original lie. That movie was made in 1941 and it is as prescient now as ever. The "John Doe" societies should have incorporated.

[T Wolf]

10. Actually have seen that on TCM a couple of times in the past year. Great movie and

depressingly accurate.

[Blue Meany]

11. It probably means to get anything progressive done, we need

to play one industry off against another. This is the strategy that should have been used for health care. Companies have been voting with their feet for a long time, taking their production overseas (sometimes just over the border to Canada) to avoid the costs of health care. If they could be convinced to band together and demand some regulation or of pharmaceutical prices, for-profit health care treatment, and the insurance industry it would help most other industries and the American economy.