Juan Cole: Is the Supreme Court Decision so Important in a Web 2.0 World?

[n2doc]

Can Corporations Compete in 'Pull' Media World Anyway?
Of course, I-- like many social critics-- am dismayed at the Supreme Court ruling striking down elements of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act, and essentially giving corporations carte blanche to pay for attack videos against candidates they do not like and to release them late in a campaign.

But some of the hand-wringing about the decision seems to me excessive for a number of reasons. Here I am going to put on my hat as a blogger and as someone who has been deeply involved in the rise of internet communication, if in the narrow corner of foreign policy blogging.

The first thing to say is that it is not as if corporate interests were not already deeply involved in the electoral process. For instance, it has come out that five insurance companies funneled big money into attack ads against insurance reform. How? They just gave it to the Chamber of Commerce, which shares their view that 37 million Americans shouldn't get sick and if they do they should die quickly (as Rep. Alan Grayson correctly put it). Since there are so many already-existing work-arounds, the SCOTUS decision is less of a change than it might seem.

Moreover, the difference between Goldman, Sachs making a video and buying time for it on television, and a group of middle managers at firms like Goldman, Sachs forming a PAC and doing the same thing is not entirely clear to me. Because the top one percent of individuals in the US owns over 40% of the country's privately held wealth and takes home 20% of its income every year, those roughly 1.3 million persons already had lots of means of influencing campaigns. Videos are not that expensive to make and even television time is inexpensive for executives in a firm that gives out $40 billion in Christmas bonuses. In other words, given the extreme maldistribution of wealth in the US, the corporate sector already had things stacked in its favor through wealthy persons employed by corporations. Jeffrey Toobin on CNN pointed out that in a congressional race, a million dollars is a lot of money, but would be chump change for a corporation. But it would be chump change for a lot of corporate executives, too.

more:

http://www.juancole.com/2010/01/is-supreme-court-decision-so-important.html

The main hole in his argument (to me) is that Executives are too cheap to use their own money most of the time. But they are more than happy to use their companies money.

[elleng]

1. Corps already own us;

its just a matter of degree change.

And Juan, media as in TV + radio matters A LOT; I bet that MOST still get their 'news' b.s. from tv/radio, NOT the net.

[FreakinDJ]

2. Corp = A Sheild for Civil Suit Liabilities