With the Supreme Court decision, will the American flag look more like this?
Friday, April 9, 2010
Being the United States of America
You can imagine my surprise this morning as I worked on my novel to hear a cast member of the 1955 musical "Daddy Long Legs" with the awesome Fred Astaire exclaim, "A person is not a corporation. A person is flesh and blood and feelings!" Yeah, that's what I've been saying! Why doesn't the Supreme Court understand this?
With the Supreme Court decision, will the American flag look more like this?
With the Supreme Court decision, will the American flag look more like this?
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18 comments:
America the Beautiful would turn into America the Buyout. Scary.
Kelly - I sincerely thought twice before adding the image. I didn't want it to be a sweeping indictment of corporate America. But I think the seriousness of the Supreme Court's decision calls for alarm and action.
"Yeah, that's what I've been saying! Why doesn't the Supreme Court understand this?"
Four out of the nine do understand.
I am provoked to say the same, "Why doesn't the supreme court understand this?"
But, that image of the flag is scary!
Zorro - I guess that's not enough when we're talking about a collective body whose decisions are made according the NUMBER of votes, eh? And, we talk about non-activist courts. Pulease! Somebody's advocating for something here against the "flesh and blood" of the people. But the decision is akin to Dredd Scott where th Court advocated for the system of enslavement to the benefit of an economic system against "flesh and blood." Yeah, the Supreme Court may be supreme but it has not always been just. Their latest decision to give multi billion dollar corporations personhood is unjust.
Ajey - The reality is that with our current campaign finance laws corporations already have undue influence in the election process. The Court's decision greatly expands their influence. This is simply unjust.
Its simple. We cannot afford another republican president. The 5 justices who voted in favor of equating corporations and humans were all appointed by republican presidents.
"We cannot afford another republican president."
Some might say this in reference to the increase of the deficit as well. It has increased to its greatest level during Republican administrations.
Justice Stevens, who is considered to be a liberal, but was appointed by Ford and is a Republican, was very upset when the court shut down the recount in Florida in 2000.
Just thought that was interesting.
President Ford was a moderate Republican, eh? I appreciate him. I was just in his neck of the woods in Grand Rapids. I have three siblings there. It is probably one of the most, if not the most, Republican cities in Michigan. A very brilliant and extremely wealthy businessman said to me at dinner the other night in all seriousness that "Glenn Beck will be doing a special on the Republic." He suggested that I watch it. I smiled. In another setting I would have gently ripped into him for his foolishness. Other than that, we got on well. :-)
What is scary and amazing is that there are bright people who don't see through glen beck. We have a free press and still ridiculous propaganda takes intelligent people in. Glen Beck takes his cues from the people who put on fake wrestling matches. I think he knows what he says is fake. But his fans believe him. And many of his fans are very intelligent. I find this very unsettling. For years, liberals dismissed followers of people like Beck as either unintelligent or uniformed. This is just not true. But that is exactly why people like Beck are not jokes, even though they should be.
Yes, Zorro, you have been saying this for some time now. The person that I had dinner with over the weekend is highly intelligent and powerful. He might fund the Tea Parties for the sake of the Republic as he went on to say. He is also a genuinely nice person who believes in just social causes and a worshiper of Ronald Reagan. There are a mesh of contradictions in all of us. My problem is when policies are harmful based on any lone contradiction or ideological stance. I would not support Glenn Beck in any way, shape or form, let alone a candidate he espoused. My brother told this gentleman at dinner with a twinkle in his eye that I wrote for the Huffington Post and directed him to my blog. (Brave man, he is. :-) He smiled and said "I love Democrats too." I smiled back, not affirming or denying a statement which seemed to ask my party affiliation.
Here is an interesting article. In my opinion, a real movement against the status quo would be based on some of the facts in this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html?hp
Good article, Zorro. Many of the points are well known. But I was not aware that those making from $35,400 to $52,100 had not paid income taxes. The article fails by not offering any solutions.
Here's an article about people who identify themselves as being in the tea party.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html?hp
Yeah, anger has no educational or financial barrier, though sometimes how it is displayed varies, such is the case, for example, of white collar and street crimes. But the question that I want to ask is why are the Tea Partiers angry? I'm sure some have reasons for dissatisfaction. I too have been quite angry from time to time over the last two years with regards to issues of globalization and banks. But I think a lot of the anger of the Tea Partiers stems from who the current president is. Racism has no educational or financial barrier either. By the way, I have a Facebook friend who voted for President Obama and she is a member of the Tea Party. She seems to be a kind thoughtful person.
Racism is a big reason for the rise of the Republican Party since Reagan. The reaction to Obama just makes this more clear.
When people speak out against government subsidy, they really are talking about money going to poor people. A few weeks ago, the New York Times has an editorial pointing out how expensive tickets are for baseball games - this is being driven by luxury box seats - many of the luxury boxes at sports stadiums are owned my companies and the cost of these are tax deductible - i.e. government subsidized.
Beautiful, Zorro. By the way, do the poor even go to baseball games anymore? With all of these new costly stadiums, I would assume not. Great American past time, eh?
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