Have you heard of Citizen's United? How about McCutcheon?

The 2010 Supreme Court decision known as Citizen's United gave corporations the same rights to free speech that individuals have. It also equated money with speech.

Look at this chart showing money in elections before and after Citizen's United.



Did you know that the Supreme Court is deciding on a case right now known as McCutcheon which may lift the limits on the amount of money that individuals can donate in an election. Can you imagine what might happen?



My husband, Abel Collins, sat down with Noam Chomsky the day that McCutcheon was in front of the Supreme Court. This article that Abel wrote discusses the implications. What do you think?

The positive spin I can put on this Kleptocratic setup we're sinking into is that as national politics stinks worse we have a chance to put our own voice out there. Who pays attention to political TV commercials? Less and less credibility as time goes on. The voice of real human people means more and local politics means more. Here on permies members gain influence by saying things that make sense and being helpful. Corporations can't buy that kind of credibility. In local politics, real people make really important decisions. Your town council, city council, state legislature, these are people you can find! You can gather a group together and tell these people hw to represent you. You can invite the local press to cover your meeting and they might write an article about it!

Better yet, run for local office yourself!

Matu,

Thanks for bringing this up its one of the things that's been on my mind for some time now - and with the midterms coming up this fall the timing is perfect.

I wanted to include a (rather long unfortunately) link to an 'intelligence squared' debate - where the pro's and con's of this decision are debated. I found it to be rather stimulating. The Idea of a Permie-PAC has also been on my mind.



Treads the line between Informative and Entertaining fairly well for what I'm fairly certain was a network TV show

I worry about this from a different angle . The money being spent is used for manipulation of the voters or those we have elected . Some call this campaigning and lobbying . I am 54 years old and cannot remember a presidential campaign that was not sound bites , posturing for the press , photo ops , making broad over generalized promises , and lies upon lies . They have only become masters at this as time has moved on . People like Karl Rove are essential to the candidate who wants to succeed . For all this I have to lay the blame on the electorate . Local and national election voter turn out ranges from 38 - 58 % . That's dismal . People are willing to accept text messages , robo-calling , 10 second sound bites , and evasive answers at on-line town hall meetings as substantive information that will sway their decisions . This is nothing but intellectual laziness on the voters part . No matter how qualified or hopeful the politician they had better not blow their media presentation . The pundits on TV and radio are now the referees in this game . They no longer examine a campaign for it's substance but score the candidates on how well they are manipulating the public . The fact that Obama and Romney spent over a billion dollars in 2012 is incredible . The fact that it takes that to convince a voluntarily gullible population is foreboding .

John Stewart and Aasif Mandvi satirized and sum up their opinions of the Supreme Courts most recent ruling on Last Nights (April 3rds) episode of the daily show.

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/zpxgap/april-3--2014---pele

Guest Athletic legend Pele