A Bad Supreme Court Decision

In January of 2010, the Supreme Court made one of its worst decisions in years, if not decades, and maybe even the worst since the Dred Scott case in 1857. In a 5-4 split decision, the Court ruled in favor of Citizens United, a conservative non-profit organization who had sued the Federal Election Commission.

That landmark decision by the Supreme Court means that it is now unlawful for the government to ban political spending by corporations in elections. Thus, as a consequence of Citizens United, corporations and unions are now free to use their financial resources to air ads explicitly calling for the election or defeat of federal or state candidates for political office.

The justices in the majority ruled that corporations have the same First Amendment right to free speech as individuals, and for that reason the government cannot stop corporations from spending to help their favored candidates.

But a majority of the people of this country does not believe that corporations are people, in spite of what the Supreme Court has ruled.

Justice Stevens wrote the dissenting opinion. Among other things, he lamented that the Court “voted to overturn over 100 years of legal precedent by giving corporations the same status as individuals,” and by removing “legal barriers in place to protect the electoral process from corporate and legislative corruption, which is what the laws for the past 100 years were in place to do.”

Just a few days after the Court’s decision in 2010, President Obama gave the annual State of the Union message. In that talk the President averred, “Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign companies—to spend without limit in our elections. Well, I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities.”

Justice Stevens and the President were right: the Supreme Court made a bad decision.

• That is why last November six U.S. Senators introduced a constitutional amendment that would effectively overturn the Citizens United ruling and restore the ability of Congress to properly regulate the campaign finance system. That proposal is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (You can read more about that proposed amendment here.) 

• That is why Common Cause, the highly regarded nonpartisan advocacy organization, and other similar groups, are working diligently to reverse Citizens United. 

• And that is also why today’s “Occupy the Courts” activity is so commendable. Today, January 20, is a national day of protest linking the Occupy Wall Street movement with the activities of the Move to Amend organization. This is a (part of) one day occupation of Federal courthouses across the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in protest of the Court’s Citizens United ruling.

(Here in the Kansas City area, the Occupy the Courts protesters will be at the federal courthouse at 400 E. 9^th St. from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. There will also be a “post-protest celebration” Saturday evening at the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, 4501 Walnut St., KCMO.)

The "Corporations are not People" slogan is one that needs to be taken seriously by all of us who are U.S. citizens. For the sake of our democracy, the bad Supreme Court decision of 2010 needs to be opposed--and reversed.

Freedom's Orator

Freedom's Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s (2009) is the title of a book by New York University professor Richard Cohen (b. 1955). I have not read Cohen’s large tome (more than 540 pp.), but I am interested in its subject.

Mario Savio (1942-96), was the brilliant leader of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement, the largest and most disruptive student rebellion in American history. He risked his life to register black voters in Mississippi in the Freedom Summer of 1964 and did more than anyone to bring daring forms of non-violent protest from the civil rights movement to the struggle for free speech and academic freedom on American campuses.

Savio is most famous for his passionate speeches, especially his “put your bodies upon the gears” address given in front of Sproul Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, on December 2, 1964. That day after giving his speech in front of 4,000 people, he and 800 others were arrested.

In his 12/2/64 speech, Savio said, “There’s a time when the operation of the machine [of corporate society] becomes so odious . . . that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

On 12/2/97, less than 13 months after Savio’s death, the steps in front of Sproul Hall were named the Mario Savio Steps. A Memorial Lecture Fund was also set up to honor Savio after his death. The first lecture was given by Howard Zinn in 1997, and other speakers include Cornel West (2001), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (2008), and Elizabeth Warren (2010).

Robert Reich, 11/15/11

This year the Mario Savio lecture was given by Robert Reich, the Berkeley public policy professor who was Secretary of Labor (1993-97) under President Clinton. Reich (b. 1946) gave the lecture entitled “Class Warfare in America,” which can be heard at this link.

Reich, declaring that “the days of apathy are over,” linked the activities and interests of Savio in the 1960s to the Occupy Wall Street movement going on now. He praised the Occupy Cal protesters for their “moral outrage,” and said democracy depends upon “the ability of people to join together and make their voices heard.”

Not long before the 11/15/11 assembly on and around the Mario Savio Steps, Rachel Maddow had an 18-minute segment on her program comparing the OWS movement to the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s. She included clips of Savio’s speech as well as an interview with Reich. If you haven’t seen that segment, it is well worth watching (available at various websites including here).

Right-wing radio hosts and even potential Republican presidential candidates continue to badmouth the OWS movement. A Fox News host recently referred to the OWS protesters as “domestic terrorists.”

Peaceful protests and “speaking the truth to power,” though, are terrifying only to the powerful and those who seek to maintain the status quo for their own benefit. Just as the country needed to hear the message of “freedom’s orator” in the 1960s it needs now to listen attentively to the pleas of the protesters in the OWS movement.

A Fiery, and Futile, Protest

Roger LaPorte may be a name you never remember hearing. And you may not even remember the tragic incident associated with him. Just like me until a few weeks ago.

I write this, though, in memory of Roger, who died of burns, self-inflicted. He poured gasoline over himself in front of the United Nations Building in New York City and set himself afire. He died the next day, on November 10, 1965.

Why in the world would a young, 22-year-old man engage in self-immolation? In his case it was in protest over the Vietnam War, in which the U.S. was becoming increasingly involved.

Roger LaPorte, a former seminarian, was a volunteer worker with the Catholic Worker community in New York. He had also met and talked briefly with Daniel Berrigan, about whom I posted recently.

Father Berrigan was asked to officiate at a memorial service for Roger, and he did so in spite of being advised by his Catholic superiors not to do so. Shortly afterwards, Berrigan’s Jesuit superior and New York’s Cardinal Spellman ordered him to leave the country at once. He was exiled to Latin America, unable to return to the U.S. for several months.

Among other things, Berrigan questioned whether Roger’s act was a suicide. Rather, he suggested the young man’s fiery protest should perhaps be seen as an act of “misguided heroism,” the giving of life rather than the taking of life. Shortly before he died, Roger reportedly had said, “I’m against war, all wars. I did this as a religious action.”

Roger’s self-sacrifice in opposition to the Vietnam War was actually the third which occurred in the U.S., all in 1965. Earlier that year an 82-year-old woman died by self-immolation in Detroit. And just one week before Roger’s deadly protest, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, had set himself on fire right below Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s Pentagon office.

Unfortunately, these drastic protests failed to bring the war to a halt.

And so, three years later the shameful My Lai Massacre occurred. Five years later (in 1970) the U.S. began the questionable invasion of Cambodia. And then in 1972 Kim Phuc, “the girl in the picture” about whom I posted in July was napalmed.

Finally, eight years after Roger’s extreme protest, the war officially ended, although it was not until April 1975 that the last U.S. soldier was killed in Vietnam and the last troops left that country--largely with a loss of face for the United States. There was almost nothing positive to show for the war being prolonged all those years after the fiery protest of Robert LaPorte. What a tragic waste of lives and resources!

Now there are few protests about the U.S. war activities, which by next month will (we hope!) be only in Afghanistan. But there are significant protests continuing in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

So in addition to the war on terrorism that continues in south Asia, domestically we now see what some call “class warfare.” (And the upper class clearly seems to be winning.)

Let us hope and pray that the protests now occurring will be heeded before there is an escalation of violence, and before some protesters resort to more extreme measures.

The Hurting 80%

The Occupy Wall Street protesters divide the country into two groups: the wealthiest 1% and all the rest, the 99%. I question whether that simply bifurcation is the best way to analyze the current financial situation of the people in the U.S. (or any other country).

In criticism of the OWS activities and public appeals, an opposition movement has been started and promoted by fiscal and political conservatives (Tea Party types). They call themselves the 53%—as in the 53% of Americans who pay federal income taxes. And they are making their voices heard on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere as they tout personal responsibility and the work ethic.

I have serious questions about the rhetoric of the 53% people, who speak mainly in opposition to the 47% of the USAmericans who do not pay any income tax. They stress that they, the 53%, are the “righteous” ones, those who are paying the taxes that support the government assistance received by many of the OWS protesters.

As you have probably seen, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in “Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007,” a document released last month, indicates that “after-tax income for the highest-income households grew more than it did for any other group.” That information was hardly a surprise.

(The CBO is a federal agency within the legislative branch of the U.S. government that provides economic data to Congress. It was created as a nonpartisan agency in 1974).

CBO finds that, between 1979 and 2007, income in the U.S. grew by:
   * 275 percent for the top 1 percent of households,
   * 65 percent for the next 19 percent,
   * Just under 40 percent for the next 60 percent, and
   * 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent.

The above summary shows a considerable difference between the top 1% and the next 19%. But still, the latter aren’t hurting all that much. In a previous posting I mentioned the fact that the top 1% possesses 42% of the financial wealth of the nation and the bottom 80% has only 7%. But that means that those who in the 2%-20% bracket hold 51% of the financial wealth on the U.S. So they should be making it all right financially.

(The statistics given above are based primarily on the work of Dr. G. William Domhoff, a research professor at the University of California. Domhoff first published Who Rules America? in 1967, and he has updated that bestselling book several times. Domhoff also presents his updated research on financial power in the U.S. on his website. )

It seems to me our main concern ought not to be directed toward the 99% in opposition to the wealthiest 1%. Rather, if we have any compassion for hurting people, shouldn't we be most concerned for the 80%, including the vast majority of the 47% whose income is so low paying taxes is not required? They are the people in our society who are hurting the most, and people who need help rather than criticism.

What about the OWS Movement?

The Occupy Wall Street movement started more than five weeks ago, on September 17. Beginning in “Liberty Square” in Manhattan’s Financial District, it has now spread to over 200 cities in the United States and to over 1,500 cities worldwide where similar actions are taking place.

Not surprisingly, there have been diverse evaluations of the OWS movement. In general, many Republicans and most conservatives are critical of it; many Democrats and most liberals are supportive.

In talking with one caller early this month, for example, Rush Limbaugh called the people demonstrating with OWS “crazy,” “stupid,” “abject tools,” and “idiots.” Many people on the right would not go that far in maligning those involved in the OWS movement, but they are quite negative about the whole thing.

On the other hand, liberal groups such as MoveOn.org and Nation of Change are highly supportive of the OWS movement and are helping to supply things they need.

Herman Cain seems to be the most outspoken Republican presidential candidate on this issue. About three weeks after the movement started, Cain declared that the Occupy Wall Street protesters are un-American and against capitalism. He also said the protesters shouldn’t rally against Wall Street bankers or brokers because “they’re the ones who create the jobs.”

On Sunday afternoon June and I stopped by the lively Occupy Kansas City group. Ironically, the protesters' meeting/camping spot is just a couple of minutes’ walk from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, where Cain was the chairman of the Board in the mid-1990s.

We talked with several of the people working with Occupy Kansas City. They didn’t seem to fit the description Limbaugh used for people in the OWS movement at all. At the information table we talked with a level-headed young woman who is a professor at the Kansas City Art Institute. At the same table was Melissa, a bright-eyed student from nearby Penn Valley Community College.

At a table close by was Dr. Fred Whitehead (b. 1944), former professor at the University of Kansas School of Medicine and editor of Freethought on the Frontier (1992).

Occupy Kansas City was sponsoring the “Day of Learning” on Sunday. When we were there, two groups, most seated on the ground, were listening to talks about common concerns. The “lectures” were low-key, sounding like what you would hear in a college classroom. They were anything but rabble-rousing.

As seems to be true for the OWS movement nationwide, there is not yet a clear focus concerning the goals of Occupy Kansas City. Some of the people we talked with, such as the semi-homeless woman with three children, were there out of frustration. She has tried hard for years, but is having a hard time finding work that pays a living wage.

At the very least, it seems that the majority of the people participating in the OWS movement want “economic justice,” which includes some adjustment in the current economic structure of the country that allows the top 1% of the population to possess 43% of the financial wealth of the nation and the bottom 80% to have only 7%.

Because of that disparity, and the continuing high rate of unemployment and personal debt, the OWS movement is probably going to be around for quite some time. And the people involved in the movement need support and understanding far more than criticism.

And, then, there is this poster to consider: