The Corporations Strike Again

I've been saying it since the very beginning: It's the corporations, man!... For years they have had a chokehold on our politics, reducing free elections to the helpless and wheezing jokes they are today. They have poisoned the environment, exploited children, and shipped much-needed jobs overseas. And now, in a fashion so very much like the hubristic Dr. Frankenstein, the Supreme Court has pulled the lightning-switch, declaring "It's alive! It's alive!!". Yes, it's true. In their ruling today on Citizens United vs. Federal Election Board, the Court essentially granted corporations, blood-sucking monsters that they are, all same rights under the Constitution as a living, breathing, American citizen. In their ruling the Supreme Court decided to revoke legal limits on how much a corporation, labor union, or other interest group could give to a political campaign. They placed the ability to produce campaign adds under the protection of the 1st amendment, as a form of free speech, and ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny corporations that right. But the Court failed to consider one vital fact: corporations are not people. All the people within any corporation are entitled to freedom of speech under the 1st amendment, campaign finance laws or no. These laws did nothing to restrict individual liberty, and did not violate the Constitution. Unlike the individual voices that the 1st amendment is supposed to protect, corporations have no personal or ethical stake in American politics. Their only incentive in the political arena is maximizing profit. Without any limits on their influence, corporations can now completely dominate campaigns, making or breaking the political careers of whomever best suits their interests. Anyone who thinks that this will not lead to deal-making and corruption of the highest order is sadly mistaken. In effect, Americans will no longer vote for candidates, but corporations--money making machines with no reason to keep any promise.