The Shrine

Here's part of the story, if haven't heard of it

Essentially, corporations are now allowed to run political ads for politicians. This has caused an uproar of massive proportions, especially from the Democratic base. Many are calling it a blow to the people's voice and a virtual end of democracy as we know it.

The whole thing really came down to a "documentary" about Hillary that was denied the right to advertise during the election. The Supreme Court decision was split 5/4 in favor of the director to be allowed to air the commercials.

A few things:

1. I've yet to see one good reason why it's okay to have a Michael Moore documentary advertised slamming Bush (during the election), and yet it's wrong to have one about Hillary during HER election. It's absolutely the very definition of a double standard.

2. The Supreme Court should not care about the impact of their actions. It's merely about the constitutionality of the decisions being challenged. It's saddens me that 8 out of the 9 Supreme Court justices are a bunch of partisan hacks that only follow the party line.

3. Corporations have already had a voice and political ads. What the fuck do you think the US Chamber of Commerce has been doing for the last 15 years?!

4. The left-wing side of things has plenty of corporate voices, not to mention the companies/organizations that are born out of causes.

I'm surprised it hasn't been brought up here. It's buzzing quite a bit on Fark and MSNBC. Did anybody have any comments on it?

Well, a couple of things:

1) Moore's documentary was not commissioned by or paid for by the Democrats and/or Nader. What you're talking about is a documentary like Farenhype, paid for and made by a conservative think tank, airing as a "commercial". Much, much different.

2) Supreme Court should not care about the impact of their actions? If anything, that should be their prime directive. The whole point of cases they rule on is that they're important enough to potentially have a big impact

3) Difference now is it's allowed to be a direct voice as opposed to indirect. The end result may be the same but at least now you've removed one layer of bullshit. I honestly would just prefer that. We get it anyways, I'd prefer to talk to the puppeteer as opposed to the puppet

4) Since this is the first I've heard of it, clarify something for me: is this something that was pushed purely by the conservatives? It would seem to be something the Democrats would actually benefit from so even though they put a public face of disapproval, that could only be 'cause they feel obligated to.

5) And make no mistake about it: we have not lived in a democracy for around 40 years. We live (including us Canadians) in a capitalistic society disguised as a democracy. We can attempt to take it back if we actually got off our collective asses and did something about it but we choose not to. So really, it's our fault. All this is doing is making that veil a little more transparent since the true ruling class is getting cocky and drunk on their own power.

Zeus wrote:1) Moore's documentary was not commissioned by or paid for by the Democrats and/or Nader. What you're talking about is a documentary like Farenhype, paid for and made by a conservative think tank, airing as a "commercial". Much, much different.

Well, Moore is his own "liberal think tank", and he aired commercials. You're not very convincing here. Why is this anything but the exact same situation?

Zeus wrote:2) Supreme Court should not care about the impact of their actions? If anything, that should be their prime directive. The whole point of cases they rule on is that they're important enough to potentially have a big impact

You're not understanding the job role here. If a law is unconstitutional, it's unconstitutional no matter what the impact is. It should be stricken down.

If they are ruling on a law that disallowed KKK rallys and was struck down because it's unconstitutional, the aftermath of the fact that KKK rallys are going to now exist has nothing to do with the reading of the law. It's unconstitutional. It was always unconstitutional. No amount of impact is going to change that.

Zeus wrote:4) Since this is the first I've heard of it, clarify something for me: is this something that was pushed purely by the conservatives? It would seem to be something the Democrats would actually benefit from so even though they put a public face of disapproval, that could only be 'cause they feel obligated to.

Pushed? It was based on a case. This is the Supreme Court. Nobody "pushes" cases on the Supreme Court. Yes, the defendant happened to be a conservative, but it could have just as easily been Michael Moore on the stand.

Zeus wrote:5) And make no mistake about it: we have not lived in a democracy for around 40 years. We live (including us Canadians) in a capitalistic society disguised as a democracy. We can attempt to take it back if we actually got off our collective asses and did something about it but we choose not to. So really, it's our fault. All this is doing is making that veil a little more transparent since the true ruling class is getting cocky and drunk on their own power.

Well, government and power and capitalism and democracy is more complex than that. You can't just whine "oh, there's no democracy" just because there's certain elements of corruption in all of the systems involved. The founding fathers were well aware of this, but it was certainly more stable than a monarchy.

There are many politicians that try to follow an ideal of bettering the government and people, even if they have to play through the political game to do it. There are many others that THINK they are bettering the government by their extremist ideals, even if their ideas are crazy. And yes, there are others that succumb to the corporate donations for their own gain.

But, to claim that the entire system is like the latter is completely ignoring one side of the story. There are also plenty of mixtures of the three, as people are neither entirely good or evil.

Moore is his own think tank? Geez, man, wake up. Find out what a think tank is and does then come back and tell me that's even remotely the same thing. You can't.

As far as impact in rulings, you're talking about ideal I was talking about realistically speaking.

Pushed = who was behind the case, the ones who backed it all the way to the Supreme Court. Sure, it could have been Moore, but it wasn't. So the motivation of the people behind the case must be considered here.

You're missing the point of my #5. I basically said "there is no democracy because we the people are allowing there not to be one". Sure, there are many congressmen (or MPPs or MPs up here) who actually try but that's a drop in the bucket power-wise. I'm talking about the majority of the power here, not some little man and his niche.

I'd care more if I ever watched TV these days

Zeus wrote:Moore is his own think tank? Geez, man, wake up. Find out what a think tank is and does then come back and tell me that's even remotely the same thing. You can't.

Wikipedia: "A think tank (also called a policy institute) is an organization, institute, corporation, group, or individual that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economy, science or technology issues, industrial or business policies, or military advice."

Yep, that certainly sounds like Michael Moore. He's an individual that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas described above.

Zeus wrote:As far as impact in rulings, you're talking about ideal I was talking about realistically speaking.

So, you're saying that realistically speaking, the Supreme Court should throw outs its ideals in favor of the potential impact? That's precisely why the Supreme Court DOES NOT do what you describe.

Zeus wrote:Pushed = who was behind the case, the ones who backed it all the way to the Supreme Court. Sure, it could have been Moore, but it wasn't. So the motivation of the people behind the case must be considered here.

Of course it wasn't Moore. Moore has no issue getting commercials for an anti-Bush documentary during the 2004 election. Why is that again? Enlighten me.

Zeus wrote:You're missing the point of my #5. I basically said "there is no democracy because we the people are allowing there not to be one". Sure, there are many congressmen (or MPPs or MPs up here) who actually try but that's a drop in the bucket power-wise. I'm talking about the majority of the power here, not some little man and his niche.

I -AM- talking about a majority in power. There is less corruption in the White House than you may think, and this black and white definition of who is corrupt and who isn't corrupt doesn't work, either. Despite the appearances of that, people are genuinely concerned about how their government is run, whether their ideas are good or batshit crazy.

Yes, there are plenty of Republicans who think crazy stuff like that pornography is some blight that is hurting American, but at least they believe that they are helping their country. Hell, if a majority of the politicians are corrupt, we would be seeing a LOT more scandals involving money, sex, etc. There are too many interns who see that sort of thing.