Ari Siletz

Bug to avoid in Iranian democracy

Citizens organized under free assembly and free speech rights--unions, churches, UFO enthusiasts--don't get more money in return for the money they spend on lobbying, or at least the money is incidental to what they're asking for--like a push for better wages being an attempt to get a fairer share of the profits from their labor.  Whereas corporations directly profit in cash from the money they invest in lobbying and political advertizing. For example this Kansas University study showed that corporations made a 22000% retun on investment in tax lobbying! They reinvest their huge gains into more political influence and so on until the system crashes.  

Don't know what the US plans to do about this bug in their democratic system, but Iran can learn from it and try to avoid it from the get go with its new (carefully written) constitution.

You want to avoid corporate

You want to avoid corporate politics? -that is, corporate of anything, a cast, a class, a tribe...

Here is my solution I'm musing with: mandatory vote for all citizens, with mandatory right to vote white (no opinion) and black (no valid option) these votes can have an impact on the result of the election, or even void the whole process (black majority).

I don't know how it will work out for Iran. We had a long history of herding a group of people to vote in favour of their traditional leader. But I suppose it's a good solution for U.S.

In any case, to me, freedom of expression is much more important than democratic mechanism in place. If it exists, there is always a chance to improve the mechanism. If it doesn't, then what mechanism you have is irrelevant isn't it? We tend to forget that %99 of what happens in a secular democracy is not in politics at all.

AS: Loved your analogy.

AS: Loved your analogy. Democracy is not an spectator sport!

Some replies,

 Anonymouse, I agree that it would be very difficult to reverse the corporate personhood fiasco with an amendment. I have a feeling though that as corporations use their personhood to fashion a corporate dictatorship, far more aggressive amendments will be proposed. This may seem far fetched but history has always been full of surprises.

Vildmose, thanks for great Linclon quote [from the year he was assassinated]. If I were to characterize democracy with a symbol it would be the bailing bucket. It's an endless task bailing out the water in the boat to keep it afloat. Marhoom e Lincoln (despite controversies) helped a lot.

The top one percent of

The top one percent of individuals in the US owns over 40% of the country's privately held wealth and takes home 20% of its income every year, those roughly 1.3 million persons already had lots of means of influencing campaigns. Read the rest here:

 //www.juancole.com/2010/01/is-supreme-court-decision-so-important.html

Also, this is nothing new in America:

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching. It unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me & the financial institutions at the rear, the latter is my greatest foe. Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."--Abrahm Lincoln  

The kHezbollah faction of the Supreme Court in action!

Bush installed 2 relatively young hezbollahis to the Supreme Court and now we see the results.  Corporations = Citizens? There are corporations incorporated in US by foreigners and illegal immigrants! Legally!  Technically!

I don't think Obama is going to get anywhere by trying to amend the constitution.  Did I read it correctly Ari jaan? If he tries to do it he'll get another black eye.

I've been very supportive of Obama and so far have not seen something drastically wrong that I can criticize him for.  That's just me.  Compared to 8 years of Bush, he's really a breath of fresh air and promise.  But there are plenty of propaganda against him, some are affected by it and some (like me) are not.

We're going to see the result of this new ruling very soon, in 2010 and beyond.  This is not going to change anytime soon.  Corporations just won a big BIG payday.  They're not going to give it up anytime soon and so easily and cheap. They're going to be like our own Mullahs and rub it in! 

Everything is sacred.

Yes, a "bad" day

Fact is that the Right-leaning Supreme Court delivered what has been expected of them by those who appointed the "conservative" Justices, and those who elected them.

Newt Gingrich was on NPR last night prasinig the ruling as the victory for middle class America. Pahleez, who're they kidding? I'll tell you who. Most Americans tell you that "they are not political" meaning they do not care, understand or follow this type of events and for that matter have very little input when it comes to the bottom line. In this case the bottom line is that the corporations which were delighted by this ruling can now heavily influence the outcome of the elections for federal candidates.

When you ask those Americans "who do care", their basic concerns are taxes, abortion, gays and god.  That's their voting criteria.

I do agree that the Americans are much more educated than the 3rd world population who allow themselves to be victimized by various entities (take your pick from a large roster of countries).  That does not immunize them from bias that results in such verdicts as this.

Having said all this, when you step back and try to look at this from a bird's eye view, you'll see that this is still a far more advanced system than what we hope to have in places we know and love.

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IRAN FIRST

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Thank you, Ari.

Princess

Worrying

... and it confirms some of my reservations against the concept of democracy, but as Churchill said democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. Ari, you are very correct in saying that democracy is not for the lazy. I am tempted to add, that it is not for the ignorant either. Unfortunately, democracy as a system still has many loopholes.

I am still struggling to understand how this relates to freedom of speech and expression. I always thought the 14th amendment related to individuals and the idea behind it was that in a democracy every individual has one voice. Corporations are abstract entities with a lot of power, surely all individuals that constitute a corporation have always enjoyed and will continue to enjoy their individual freedom of expression. Wouldn't this ruling make their voices (votes) stronger than the rest of by adding the corporations voice to that of the individual and put them above the rest of us. Surely that counters the very fundamental idea behind Democracy.

I am very keen to read up on the details of the arguments put forward to arrive at this ruling. Thanks for bringing this to the attention of those of us who are not following all the details of the American politics. 

A sad day for democracy.  

Ari, I wish I were that wise

It is probably all of those things and many others. Religions will make up stories. Sartre would say, masses are the asses. Eugenecist will say this is what you get when you don't clean up the race. Some say a small group is destined to dominate. One could argue Americans got fat & lazy and thought they were entitled to all they had. I think Maslow's fits what we have now and those with the gold (control) will make the rules. With diminishing resources, value of everything is shifting including human life and democracy.

OKtaby

oktaby

This is just ongoing corporate control creep

Corp.s do have same rights as individuals and that itself is a tangled historic web. Obama's quoted statement is but a hollow statement. Even reversal of this won't make as much difference as one might hope. I had referenced the wishful hope in The Manchurian Candidate. The deepening of America's corporate hold on political power is what got many of the those in power 'elected'. While they were not directly appointed, their election assured. This overturning only simplifies control creep and ensures it is more linear and predictable. The trendline is not good. The quote that comes to mind is "In America, the game has always been fixed."

OKtaby

the decision was 5-4 - we will see this issue again soon

in the supreme court, especially when the make-up of the court changes.

MM

Also don't know details of subdivision sign case, but the plaintiff seems to have been a real person, not a corporation. Which is what is at issue here: are for-profit corporations real persons in the eyes of the law with the full rights of an individual citizen to free speech?

Sorry Ari - do not like it, but I embrace it

I hear you.  But, if we start telling people/corporations when and how they can speak, where will we stop?

We had a zoning law in our subdivision that we could not hang signs in our yards.  One neighbor took the town all the way to the supreme court and won based on freedom of expression.  Many of us did not want to see signs all over the yards, but again, who wants to define where we stop with freedom of speech / expression and censorship starts?

I think that if we start chipping away at the freedoms we enjoy, we might as well get rid of the 2nd amendment, and ......

That's for sure JJ

You say, "you can be sure that this crappy decision will be vigorously challenged and amended ..." Which shows democracy is not for the lazy. If you don't do the dishes everyday, the kitchen becomes such a mess you wish you lived at your mom's house (a well-intentioned dictatorship as far as meals go).

In moments of despair, I wish there was a computer (Vali e Rayaneh). The nation just inputs her principles and it follows the optimum policies with a least squared error fit. Of course they've tried that in sci-fi worlds and its always a disaster. But a constitution is exactly that, a computer program. And as with any computer program, it needs to come with a compiler with debug capability because you can never expect a program to work the first time around. The 1979 contstitution seemed to include such a compiler (many disagree) which is why I thought of reform as a debug process that will eventually lead to good governance. But that  idea turned out to be sci-fi as well.

Such is life, in a democracy

So true Ari. The Supreme Court decision is unbelievably short-sighted and harmful. But that's how it goes in a democracy; sometimes terrible ideas win.

But fortunately, in a democracy nothing is permanent. Well, nothing is permanent, period. Except in a democracy, change comes about through exchange of ideas and debate, rather than arbitrary decisions or violence.

And you can be sure that this crappy decision will be vigorously challenged and amended -- if the majority can be convinced that money should not control politics, at least not to this ridiculous extent.

MM, "Bad day for democracy"

Unified union support?

Apparently not: 

1. Anna Burger, treasurer of the Service Employees International Union: "Unlimited corporate spending in federal elections threatens to drown out the voices of the people who should really be at the center of the political process, i.e., voters and candidates. Unleashing corporate spending will only serve to distort and ultimately delegitimize the electoral process."

2. ACLU also filed an amicus to the Supreme Court on behalf of neither party. ACLU supports campaign finance reform, and the brief seem to want to steer the court away from confronting the issue on a wide constitutional basis and just rule on the specific case. Their support is because the election rules ban non-profits as well.

3. ACRU (a conservative civil rights organization who state "ACRU was founded in response to views that ACLU was too leftward leaning") filed an amicus brief supporting the corporations.

4. Dissenting justice Stevens on why we citizens can tell corporations to shut up: "Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters.

* The financial resources, legal structure,and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races." 

freedom of speech/expression need be embraced in its totality

The problem with the freedom of speech/expression is that you cannot pick and choose "you can talk, but you shut up".  You have to embrace it in its totality.  ACLU, labor unions and others sided with the plaintiff for the overturn of this law as well.  While these folks will have freedom to advertize, they are still forbidden from slander and if they do, the law will come back and bite them in the rump.

What I do not like is the fact that the airways are going to be jammed with special-group commercials during elections.  Thank goodness for the remote-control on my cable box.  Nonetheless, the vote was 5-4 and just like the abortion issue, we will see the issue pop up again and again, especially when the makeup of the court changes.

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The Pahlavis, all mullahs, and all public figures associated with the Green Movement  must disclose the source and the amount of their wealth/income.

Bravo Ari

Bravo Ari

Sharp Observation!

Most people completely miss the fact that even in the US, certain "elite" usurp the resources and income of the rest. The reason US is better than Iran is not because of the form of government but because its people are generally more educated, they have better access to information, etc. These are the result of many years of hard work. Yuo can't change Iran by just putting a new "system" in place - as we can see in Iraq.