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Wednesday, 02 August 2006 03:11 |
| | Bill Walz |
Right-wing Republicans, when faced with Constitutional obstacles to their culture-war issues like gay marriage, immigration, abortion or flag desecration, never hesitate to seek to amend the Constitution.
They can be counted on, particularly around elections, to attempt to slip limits to liberty into this document that is meant to protect our liberties.
There
is, however, one issue that seriously threatens liberty yet gets
constitutional protection. All attempts to address the corrupting
effect of corporations and special-interest groups spending vast sums
of money to influence our legislative and election process seem to
stumble on the steps of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme
Court has consistently ruled that money equates to constitutionally
protected free speech and so all attempts to take special interest
money out of politics have tripped on this barrier. I??m of the opinion
that buying elections wasn??t what the founding fathers had in mind with
the First Amendment, but that hasn??t been the way the Court has seen
it. No, the protection that was meant to preserve the right of ordinary
citizens to have their say in the Boston Commons, the town hall or
little independent publications, is now interpreted so as to allow
big-moneyed interests and corporations to dominate election and
political issue speech.
Of course,
anyone in America can say whatever they like, with a very few
reasonable limits. It??s still a free country. Or is it? The speech that
becomes part of the public consciousness, and so decides political
issues, is not free. It is effectively monopolized through money.
Moneyed interests overwhelm the public with diversionary and
inflammatory political propaganda ads. Through television, radio and
publishing conglomerates, corporate agendas effectively control which
positions are presented to the public and which are ignored, which are
given solemn endorsement and which are ridiculed. Real debate about
many very important issues never makes it through this supercilious,
inflammatory and purposefully obfuscating prattle.
With the federal
courts stacked with Republican judges, there is little chance of
America reclaiming an independent and equal forum for election speech
through the judiciary any time soon. No, to get such reform, the
American public must push this issue. The people will have to insist
that when the founders?? constitutional intentions are being undermined
by technologies and economics that the founders could not have
anticipated, then it is the people??s will to amend the Constitution.
They will have to insist on putting to rest once and for all the
corruption brought by those who believe America belongs to those with
the money to buy it.
The amendment
process was included in the Constitution to evolve freedoms and
protections as unforeseen forces reshaped society and sometimes
threatened liberty. As the founders had a deep suspicion of
corporations, invented by the British to exploit their colonies, I
believe that Jefferson and Franklin would see today??s near total
corporate control of our society and the domination of political speech
by corporate and moneyed interests, to be just such a threat.
Truly free
elections require total public financing. Intelligent voting requires
neutral and thorough news coverage of elections and public issues by
the media. If the courts say there are constitutional barriers to these
propositions, then these are issues worthy of debate towards amending
the Constitution.
When truth and
honest debate are drowned out by a cacophony of deceptions and
diversionary prattle paid for by moneyed interest groups, then this
clearly is not the democracy intended by our founders. Our free
society, elections, press and speech have been bought and ?®we, the
people,?∆ are paying the price.
?ÿ
Bill Walz is a
UNC Asheville adjunct faculty member and a private-practice teacher of
mindfulness, personal growth, and consciousness. Contact at
bill.walz-at-worldnet.att.
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