♣ With July 4th days away and Election ’16 in the offing, now’s an excellent time for lovers of freedom to rise and decry what surely marks the worst travesty ever to jam the halls of American justice:   Yea, that’s right, Citizens United.

In 2010 the earth shifted slightly on its axis, caused a seismic jolt which skewed the very cornerstones of the Supreme Court building and precipitated a lapse in judgment of mythical proportions. Heads reeling, minds bent, emotions frazzled, the High Court lifted former bans on the use of corporate, union and other organizational treasury funds to buy direct political advocacy, that is, forsaking former commitments, the Court voted to let wealthy organized money interests pay for political marketing tools like advertising, sound bytes and documentary films with which to laud and promote their favorite candidates. It effectively gave powerful profiteering concerns carte blanche in soliciting votes for or against certain political candidates, the underprivileged citizen and his meager vote be damned.

While the Court continued blocking use of group treasury funds to make direct monetary contributions to candidates and political parties, it did rule that entities like corporations, unions and other select organizations comprised groups of individuals just like you and me, individual speakers whose freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment.

This of course begs the question of why certain Americans  get to be recognized twice for their individual right to freedom of speech, once as individual voters and once as individual members of groups helping to buy elective office. Since when do Americans get to both vote and buy elective office? At that, since when do Americans get to buy elective office at all? More, isn’t it the individual members as a collective whom the Supreme Court has given both the right to vote and the extended right to buy public elections, those members as a collective, meaning corporations, unions and other organizations as a whole, simply put, meaning Big Money?

Conceding the fact that spending money is paramount in advocating for or against any political candidate, the Court decided that spending of group treasury funds on electioneering communications constitutes an extension of individual speech, that hence curbing political advocacy expenditures of groups who wish to do so is the same as curbing their individual members’ right to speak on political issues and is unconstitutional. Whoah, step back. Since when does money in any capacity mean individual speech and doesn’t this concept give the rich more say than the poor?

From the Court’s perspective, henceforth, corporations are not to be seen as vast, prodigious money mills maintained by a few wealthy and privileged elites of tremendous influence. Rather, they’re to be viewed as mere collections of individuals who gather, like members of any sewing circle or barber shop quartet and whose own freedom of speech is limited only by the amount of money they have to spend on election campaigns. So where does the power of the individual vote come into play again? Where do those with less money find even ground? Why do the rich get the advantage? Is this the Court’s idea of equal rights?

At one point the Supreme Court conceded the fact that its former decisions against group spending for political things were founded on equitability, that they were made with a prodigal eye toward fairness which only found them unfairly restricting the speech of some and not others. The Guarantee of  fairness, it ruled, is not the High Court’s prerogative after all.

Wait a tick. Fairness embodies justice, does it not, the same justice driving the pledges of freedom, equality and human rights in the US Constitution. Isn’t the fairness described by the Court as misplaced, on the contrary, quite perfectly placed given how sharply aligned it is with the virtual backbone, with the veritable spirit of the US Constitution?

Doesn’t the Court’s interpretation of that same justice epitomized by the Constitution and forged into federal law by the legislature, constitute in fact the precise interest, meaning, purpose, function and prerogative of the Supreme Court in the first place?

Isn’t the job of that noble organ to interpret both Constitution and federal law, vetting along the way the Constitutionality of, that is, the ultimate justice of, the plain and fundamental fairness of federal laws for man and woman, strong and weak, rich and poor?

In any case, the Supreme Court overruled its prior decisions regarding group contributions to politics, some in total, some in part, as the new rationale demanded. It eschewed the code of fairness once cherished, now deemed inappropriate and expanded the bounds of American free speech to include the ferocious, monolithic, fascistic, selfish and insensate, money-grubbing machine of commerce.

It championed equal rights for the privileged and their machine, making unequal representation, warping of democracy, debasement of the vote, despotic trespass into democratic processes by wealthy individuals and robotic corporations entirely legal. So,  what was the point of democracy again?

For equality’s sake the United States Supreme Court placed the wealthiest one percent above the vast majority and the souless superpac above the sacred ballot box. It chose to play Robin Hood in reverse, serve a more pragmatic order of freedom and justice, an order of exclusivity, the ancient order of money, license, privilege and perks. Well, so much for nobility. So much for equality. So much for democracy, freedom and justice.

Sadly the Justices Kennedy, Roberts and Scalia, under a rare, flash, collective descent into Asperger’s Syndrome, failed completely to make the distinction between a dedicated, obsessive-compulsive, greed-driven cyborg of the rich and a real, private, individual citizen of the United States, the one inclined to act in pure self-interest, quite indifferent to any and all social repercussions, the other prone to act, both for or against his own interest, always sensitive to the most subtle impact on the public.

     Justice Anthony McLeod Kennedy 

Accordingly, they failed to rightly calculate or invest themselves in the outcome of their dubious choice. They just let stand an ominous homogeneity, one sure to imbue the political system with tremendous amounts of loyal corporate lobbyists who make, interpret, rule upon and enforce American law in the interest only of big business and the elite.

     Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.

They failed to address the great yawning divide between extremely powerful special interest groups able to influence the tides and average Americans who, despite how often they cast their cheapened votes, can never compete with iconic TV ads, slick propaganda films and all the crack teams of ingenious image makers, who can never lift an empowered voice to politics in America, obscured as they are by the enervating eclipse of big money.

     Justice Antonin Scalia

Tragically, in writing support for Citizens United, arch-conservatives Kennedy, Roberts and Scalia only genuflected to corporate power and left he average American citizen, he for whom the Constitutional rights of the individual were designed, without a solid leg to stand on (he was handicapped already), grossly undermining democracy in principle and in practice.

It would take an Act of Congress now to right this blatant wrong, this horrible blunder, this anathema to American democracy. I guess I’m only one of many Americans who appreciate the devastating effects of this landmark compromise. The bulk of us are sleep walking, however. Wandering over savage ground in a somnolent haze of normalcy bias, we’re liable to miss even the most urgent of threats.

Warm, cozy, cosseted in the lap of this luxurious land with its compliment of freedom, health, abundance and security, we strain to see whatever lies outside the norm, that which is not simple, not distinctive, not immediately obvious. Contrary to most film depictions, the pernicious and malevolent are inclined to be more banal, clichéd, less than dramatic and though acting out in plain sight, they hide themselves from view.

We Americans are light, comfortable, satisfied, incredulous to begin with. If there isn’t some god-awful ogre on the loose, some horrifying creature out growling and seething, off scowling, gripping torn entrails in its razor-sharp teeth as it wends a path of bloodstained destruction through the bourg, then jeeze Louise, there mustn’t be a threat.

We free are a slumberous lot, contented and oblivious. Collusion is a mute, insidious, ever-waking bed of snakes slithering in the grass through which most of us somnambulate. It might be time to sober up completely and for good, join the fray lest we’re bitten or we oversleep and wake one rainy morn to find our liberty and our country long gone. Sweeping change alone can restore proper freedom, objectivity and equality to the nation right now, form a truer, more practicable democracy. Who’s to do it? When? Where? How?

Combine the lengthy, overwhelming, pre-existing influence of the rich, corporate lobbying of congress and ownership of media, less taxing of rich than middle class, deregulation of banks and such economic hazards as the haywire deals and fly-by-night policies of the careless past, new control of state prisons by private corporations who profit only as inmate populations increase, disinheritance and abandonment of public schools to private institutions which generate profits, huge, oppressive college tuition costs prohibitive but through pricey student loans and eventual near-sale of countless college graduates into indentured servitude just to pay them off, arbitrary restriction of voting rights, bans on collective bargaining. Combine these wild concessions to profit with Citizens United, the newly elected right of corporations, unions and other organizations to greatly influence and tacitly buy political office wholesale and you’ve got what appears a coup de grace for American democracy.

But no, no, I don’t believe it’s over yet. There remain opportunities. Notoriously, the wheels of justice move very slowly but there do exist broad systemic channels, means of changing any trend, law or court ruling, reestablishing balance and guaranteeing justice for all. It’s an uphill battle, sure. Let’s face it, that graduating slope is growing steeper every day and while I don’t think it’s time to sound a death knell for democracy yet, the process ain’t feelin’ too good. I’m hopeful as are many but we mustn’t let eternal hope resolve itself to numbing complacency.

At last it should be clear to those of every political stripe that one elite, highly organized and mobile ruling class does exist, a tight, exclusive organization of the wealthiest Americans who disdain, evade and all but dismiss democracy but where it serves their own selfish ends, put first their own discrete wealth, power and privilege, though, ironically, there’s no telling how long they’d keep any of  these outside the auspices of a viable democratic process.

It may not seem the case but I appreciate money.  I don’t abhor wealth and I’m quite business-friendly. After all, both directly and indirectly, these factors come together to establish my living. They afford me needed food, clothes and shelter. Most importantly though, they keep me off the federal dole that I mightn’t test or undermine that much more vital state-run institution, the American corporate welfare system.

In fact I’m not at all averse to money, wealth or business.  I believe in the need, the right, the opportunity and the freedom to make a living, to succeed, grow and prosper in terms of monetary gain  if it serves one’s values. There are other fine pursuits, however, worthy aspirations quite frequently devalued, rebuffed and thwarted at the hands of a mainstream business mentality.  There are other income groups deserving of freedom and opportunity, if not exactly equal, then at least more manageable in relation to those of huge corporations.

I believe adamantly in the free trade system. It’s just that even here things have gone so far awry in recent years in view of stingier business philosophies and winner-take-all attitudes, each grown to overtaking that once extant if not pervasive traditional American view that all ships float on a rising tide.

As long as there’s democracy, as long as there’s the concept of money and the freedom of man to make it, the private sector,  private business, private wealth, private money at large will play a key role outside the democratic process.  It will spark and infuse political fervor, dialogue and debate for obvious reasons. Since there’s proof, though, that it can’t be even so much as a cog in the works of a true democracy without utterly skewing the delicate scheme of that people-centered government, in none of its permutations should private money ever venture inside the democratic process.

When will American government come to realize that private money has no fair place inside the democratic process. Politicians parse in perpetuity over separation of church and state and meanwhile let the worst corruptive force in human history, money, override majority rule and dictate government policy which favors the rich and disinherits everyone else. Democracy and oligarchy cannot co-exist.

So where’s the nation headed? Will a choice be made at some appointed time or will the country simply ride the strongest current toward one pole or the other? I can’t rightly say but on this Fourth, as we get up, kick back, cook out, take in favorite sports and duly celebrate our many sacred freedoms, we would all do well to measure such incursions on those freedoms as Citizens United and the many other encroachments we find growing exponentially day to day. We would all do just as well to weigh the devastating impact of these treacherous incursions on the fate of American freedom and democracy, their impact on the destiny of we the American people in general. Jus’ sayin’.

Happy Independence Day, America!

–♦©M. D. Phillips–awincingglare.com