Is It Just Corporate Free Speech?

In a ruling sometimes characterized as protecting "corporate free speech," the US Supreme Court held this month that "the Government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker's corporate identity" in the case of Citizens United vs the Federal Elections Commission and my support for the free speech rights involved found me in some strange company while this landmark legal decision caused some other people to change their minds or to consider changing their policies, as I show in this video.

You can find the full text of all the opinions in Citizens United vs the Federal Elections Commission online at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf

The clips I use in this video from ABC's "This Week" come from the program broadcast on January 24, 2010, and the full segment from which I took the clip of South Carolina's Republican Senator Jim Demint is available online at http://abcnews.go.com/video/video?id=9648277

The clips I use in this video of Sam Donaldson and George Will are also from that broadcast of ABC's "This Week" and come from the full segment available online at http://abcnews.go.com/video/video?id=9648509

The clip I use of "The Daily Show" comes from the January 25, 2010, segment available online at http://tinyurl.com/SupremeCorp

The clips I use of Lawrence Lessig come from his YouTube video titled "Lessig on Supreme Court Campaign Finance Decision: Change Congress Video" available on his ChangeYourCongress YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87YOBDzxwj4

The clip I use of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address comes from the public domain video available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1PWQtCDaYY

The image I use of the email from Lawrence Lessig is also available on his website at http://change-congress.org

And, finally, the image I use of the New York Sun's article titled "ACLU May Reverse Course On Campaign Finance Limits After Supreme Court Ruling," comes from the page at http://www.nysun.com/national/aclu-may-reverse-course-on-campaign-finance/86899/

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[fuckFOXpropaganda]

Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed" - "Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little" - " More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. - "to victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".! charlie chaplin

[MagnesDrachen13]

No, large corporations won't make political ads to rally for their political positions, of course they won't. They'll just pump millions of dollars into candidates campaigns (and then try to hide it)...who will help their political positions. See? Totally different. It's not about corporate speech, it's legalizing bribery even further.

[Android602715]

If they want to serve corp. and not you, DONT VOTE FOR THEM! Americans arent children who need som1 to hold their hand, you can decide who to vote for. If u dont like wat the're doing, vote for sum1 else!

[scottie1f]

This doesn't really build a logical arguement. You've strung together a bunch of nonsequiturs that don't lead to the conclusion you attempting to draw.

[skyler8perkins]

if corporations are united citizens than everyone that is a part of that corporation can sign on: shareholders, workers, consumers?

[PoetryHound]

Free speech is important but it's not the only important thing. Fair elections are important too. Spending unlimited amounts of money on campaigns corrupts the process. Corporations wouldn't spend the money on campaign contributions if they didn't think they were getting something for it.

[PwntifexMaximus]

@fuckFOXpropaganda

And yet, none of these systems, corruptions and barricades could ever have come into place unless you, the people, had let them.

Now, you are collectively suffering the wages of your sin. It is not fair. It is not just. But it is the only way it can be. Had not it been for much of the world being pulled along in your madness, I wouldn't even make that objection...

[freakqnc]

With all this technology we got today we're still unable to implement a secure system that would allow US citizens at home and abroad, to vote on issues like this directly? We still rely on being represented by Congress and Senate, while today we should have them be those who keep us informed on issues on which we will deliberate by casting our personal vote to express our will directly, without deferring to others. We should have a democracy with active and direct participation of the people.