From my post of two days ago: “And I think corporate ownership of congress is going to get worse, not better.”
Boy, I’ll say. Yesterday the Supreme Court extended free speech rights to corporations, who will now be allowed to contribute unlimited amounts of money to political candidates and parties.
Some say this’ll be the end of progressive legislation in America, and it may well be. We’ll have to see. Progressive corporations, after all, might support liberal candidates. Then there are the labor unions, who under the latest Supreme Court ruling will also be allowed to contribute unlimited amounts of money to candidates and parties. If working people come to see that the only way they can have any political impact is through unions, perhaps that’ll lead to the revitalization of the labor movement. It’s too soon to tell.
But the consequences for human and worker rights are likely to be dire. You can’t underestimate the significance of yesterday’s ruling. Corporate personhood . . . it’s a huge concept, with all-too-imaginable implications.
A few years ago The New Yorker ran a short story on this very theme. In the story, a grandfather and grandson go for a walk in New York City. As they stroll along, chips in their shoes activate eye-level advertising for products and services tailored to their individual internet surfing histories. Wanting to enjoy a quiet, old-fashioned walk, they take off their shoes . . . and are quickly arrested for interfering with corporate free speech.
Will anyone be surprised if something like this actually happens? Now that corporations enjoy legal personhood, how long will it be before another court rules that it’s illegal to interfere with corporate free speech?
Some easy predictions:
- Unkillable internet pop-up ads
- Hard-wired commercials you can’t fast-forward through with your TIVO
- The death of the federal Do Not Call list
Oh, yeah. It’s already starting.
<snark>I, for one, welcome our new corporate overlords.</snark>