8 out of 10 Americans are opposed to the Extreme Court ruling endowing inalienable rights on corporations and other artificial "persons" and allowing them to make unfettered purchases of campaign advertising during elections, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/17/AR2010021701151.html
In fact 65% of Americans are STRONGLY OPPOSED!
72% of the American Citizenry favor Congressional action to curb the ruling!
Furthermore, this opposition to the theft of OUR democracy crosses partisan lines with Democrats (85 %), Republicans (76 %) and independents (81 %) opposed.
3/4 of conservatives are opposed and most of them are strongly opposed.
2/3 of conservative Republicans favor Congressional action to curb corporate and union spending on elections.
Looks like there's still at least one thing that most rational Americans can agree on, we don't want more special interest influence in our politics.
Showing posts with label corporate propaganda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporate propaganda. Show all posts
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
How to Steal Elections and Influence the People
Benito Mussolini the father of fascism which he also called corporatism must be grinning from the grave through his scrotum clenching teeth as America, who defeated him, now follows in his footsteps. In fascist Italy the legislative body, the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni (Chamber of the Fascists and the Corporations) was made up completely of representatives of Italy's corporations. With Extreme Court's ruling the creeping fascism of the last decade has quickened to a head-long run. Some clues about how the final steps of the corporate takeover of OUR government and OUR representation are to be found below.
A DC lobbying firm has posted advice to it's corporate clientel on it's website:
http://www.klgates.com/newsstand/Detail.aspx?publication=6214
on how to warp OUR democracy and steal OUR elections. Not only that, they're telling the corporatists how to do it as anomymously and as under the radar as possible as evidenced by the following passage:
10) How will corporations likely take advantage of their opportunity to make independent political expenditures?
Just because a corporation may make an independent direct advocacy expenditure doesn't mean that it should. Since the entity or entities financing independent expenditures must be disclosed, a corporation leading the way against a particular candidate risks alienating a significant block of its potential customer or shareholder base. Moreover, upon the first major corporate-funded public communications airing, media coverage is likely to focus on the corporation's involvement in the campaign rather than the content of any advocacy.
Therefore, most corporations will probably proceed cautiously. If such independent expenditures are made, groups of corporations within an industry may form coalitions or use existing trade associations to support candidates favorable to policy positions that affect the group as a whole. While corporations that contribute to these expenditures might still be disclosed, this indirect approach can provide sufficient cover such that no single contributing entity receives the bulk of public scrutiny.
Corporations could further lower their profile in such cases by not making contributions specific to a particular expenditure by that third-party corporation. Such independent expenditures can also take the form of advertisements in "under-the radar" sources, such as ideologically-based talk radio, web-based ads or phone banks. Since state and local laws preventing corporate political expenditures will also likely be repealed as a result of Citizens United, small corporations may also become involved in state and local races through regional media.
They also advise their clients that they needn't be excluded just because they are U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corps as follows
2) Will U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations be exempt? (from the ban on foreign nationals contributing to elections).
Yes. The definition of "foreign national" exempts any person that is "not an individual and is organized under or created by the laws of the United States or of any State or other place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and has its principal place of business within the United States." 22 U.S.C. § 611(b)(2). The Federal Election Commission ("FEC") has determined that this exemption includes a U.S. corporation that is a subsidiary of a foreign corporation, so long as the foreign parent does not finance U.S. political activities and no foreign national participates in any decision to make expenditures. Many of the legislative proposals that "respond" to Citizens United seek to tighten or close this exemption.
So Obama was right and Alito in his flow robes of political hackery was either wrong or disengenous when he shook his head at the State of the Union address.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini, the father of fascism
"When Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." - Sinclair Lewis
America, it was nice while it lasted.
Sean Cranley - Corporate Serf No. 387-22-0812
A DC lobbying firm has posted advice to it's corporate clientel on it's website:
http://www.klgates.com/newsstand/Detail.aspx?publication=6214
on how to warp OUR democracy and steal OUR elections. Not only that, they're telling the corporatists how to do it as anomymously and as under the radar as possible as evidenced by the following passage:
10) How will corporations likely take advantage of their opportunity to make independent political expenditures?
Just because a corporation may make an independent direct advocacy expenditure doesn't mean that it should. Since the entity or entities financing independent expenditures must be disclosed, a corporation leading the way against a particular candidate risks alienating a significant block of its potential customer or shareholder base. Moreover, upon the first major corporate-funded public communications airing, media coverage is likely to focus on the corporation's involvement in the campaign rather than the content of any advocacy.
Therefore, most corporations will probably proceed cautiously. If such independent expenditures are made, groups of corporations within an industry may form coalitions or use existing trade associations to support candidates favorable to policy positions that affect the group as a whole. While corporations that contribute to these expenditures might still be disclosed, this indirect approach can provide sufficient cover such that no single contributing entity receives the bulk of public scrutiny.
Corporations could further lower their profile in such cases by not making contributions specific to a particular expenditure by that third-party corporation. Such independent expenditures can also take the form of advertisements in "under-the radar" sources, such as ideologically-based talk radio, web-based ads or phone banks. Since state and local laws preventing corporate political expenditures will also likely be repealed as a result of Citizens United, small corporations may also become involved in state and local races through regional media.
They also advise their clients that they needn't be excluded just because they are U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corps as follows
2) Will U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations be exempt? (from the ban on foreign nationals contributing to elections).
Yes. The definition of "foreign national" exempts any person that is "not an individual and is organized under or created by the laws of the United States or of any State or other place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and has its principal place of business within the United States." 22 U.S.C. § 611(b)(2). The Federal Election Commission ("FEC") has determined that this exemption includes a U.S. corporation that is a subsidiary of a foreign corporation, so long as the foreign parent does not finance U.S. political activities and no foreign national participates in any decision to make expenditures. Many of the legislative proposals that "respond" to Citizens United seek to tighten or close this exemption.
So Obama was right and Alito in his flow robes of political hackery was either wrong or disengenous when he shook his head at the State of the Union address.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini, the father of fascism
"When Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." - Sinclair Lewis
America, it was nice while it lasted.
Sean Cranley - Corporate Serf No. 387-22-0812
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Fossil Industry's Smoldering Gun
Remember when it became clear that the tobacco industry had pooled their money to buy “scientists” to skew their data in order to confuse and mislead the American People and their policymakers about the real dangers of smoking? Well that day has now come for the fossil industries (coal, oil and auto) represented by the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) in draft documents that are proof positive that the “scientists” on their payroll knew as early as 1995 that human induced global warming was real, that it was happening and that the science behind it was irrefutable and they said so. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=3&hpw
That inconvenient and unprofitable information was of course suppressed by maleficent corporate entities concerned about their private harvest in the next few quarters and not about the fruits for all mankind in the next quarter century or quarter millennium.
In the draft documents that the auto industry was ironically forced to reveal during the discovery process of its law suit to stop California regulations to limit greenhouse emissions the GCC “scientists” stated the following:
“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.”
That inconvenient truth was removed the final version of the document as the GCC used their the might of their money and high paid public relations firms to fight the Kyoto Protocol and any curbs on emissions.
Today we are in the Know. Everyone but the GOPsters, the GOPropagandists, their corporate sponsors and their mislead anti-science and anti-intellectual minions (i.e. the 20% of American dead-enders) recognize the reality that we face as a planet. But we’ve lost more than a decade while the greedy profiteers like ExxonMobil have harvested from us handsomely while mortgaging our children’s future.
As a people, it’s time for us to have civil and perhaps even criminal recourse against individuals and groups like the fossil industries that are found to have fomented ignorance and misinformation to confuse and delay allowing them to privatize the profits while socializing the associated costs.
And as soon as Al Franken is seated as the 60th U.S. Senator providing a filibuster proof majority it’s time for the party of “Know” to push the Party of “No” aside, put teeth back into measures to ensure corporate responsibility and move us beyond the age of the fossil industries to a sustainable and renewable future.
That inconvenient and unprofitable information was of course suppressed by maleficent corporate entities concerned about their private harvest in the next few quarters and not about the fruits for all mankind in the next quarter century or quarter millennium.
In the draft documents that the auto industry was ironically forced to reveal during the discovery process of its law suit to stop California regulations to limit greenhouse emissions the GCC “scientists” stated the following:
“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.”
That inconvenient truth was removed the final version of the document as the GCC used their the might of their money and high paid public relations firms to fight the Kyoto Protocol and any curbs on emissions.
Today we are in the Know. Everyone but the GOPsters, the GOPropagandists, their corporate sponsors and their mislead anti-science and anti-intellectual minions (i.e. the 20% of American dead-enders) recognize the reality that we face as a planet. But we’ve lost more than a decade while the greedy profiteers like ExxonMobil have harvested from us handsomely while mortgaging our children’s future.
As a people, it’s time for us to have civil and perhaps even criminal recourse against individuals and groups like the fossil industries that are found to have fomented ignorance and misinformation to confuse and delay allowing them to privatize the profits while socializing the associated costs.
And as soon as Al Franken is seated as the 60th U.S. Senator providing a filibuster proof majority it’s time for the party of “Know” to push the Party of “No” aside, put teeth back into measures to ensure corporate responsibility and move us beyond the age of the fossil industries to a sustainable and renewable future.
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