655 The Supremes: Love Child

655 The Supremes: Love Child

This was a big hit for Diana Ross and company in 1968-ish. Today, a whole new meaning. The stately justices of the United States Supreme Court have given birth to what's not Diana's poor ghetto baby girl, but more like some demon baby from a horror film. And she's not poor and from the ghetto, she (or he, for that matter,) is rich and from Wall Street.

By a one vote margin, the Supremes have sold America to the highest bidder. They've allowed corporations to pay for political candidates' ads without limit. (Unions, too. But they're relative pikers.) They have uprooted decades of settled law and shown themselves (again) to be tools of the Republican establishment and not the originalists they claim to be.

There are some interesting premises at work here. The first is Advertising Is Effective. Indeed it is. And if you can blanket the airwaves with anything you want and in any amount, you can drive a message -- true or false -- home to the voters. Another is they have unsettled settled law. Can the end of Roe V Wade be far behind? It's a bandwagon upon which no one has leaped yet, but it won't be long. Still another is the definition of corporation as a person -- a ridiculous concept to begin with and now a dangerous one. But, of course, if corporations WEREN'T legal persons, they wouldn't have the first amendment rights that the court just granted.

Back to the main issue: your vote only counts if you buy into the megatons of messages that the Corporate States of America is going to be putting out, starting now.

In their laugh a minute way, some CEOs of two large and a handful of mid sized companies wrote a letter to Congress asking members to stop hitting them up for contributions and pass full public financing of the electoral process. This means you would be underwriting the present two party system. On one hand it seems fair. You're underwriting GM and Chrysler, so why not Republicans and Democrats? All four are corporations. On the other hand, who wants to fund these guys?

The public option makes sense as an option, which it already is. The public option as law -- that's another story.

So get ready for pay for play the way they do it in banana republics.

The Supremes have unleashed a demon seed love child and it's going to be a big hit, where it counts.

Shrapnel:

--Peyton Manning brought the Jets back to normal, which means losing bigtime. The Indiana quarterback dissected New York like the Supremes dissected the constitution, bringing to an end the Jets' best season since 1969. Final: Colts 30 Jets 17 and so much for the AFC Championship.

--The Jets and Giants, of course, are both New Jersey teams, even though they claim "New York" in their names. The Giants defected years ago. But it's only recently that the Jets abandoned their one and only real connection to NY by moving their practice field from Hofstra University in Hempstead NY to Joisey. And the brilliant, beautiful season gone by ended in calamity as karmic punishment.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010