Two Down, One to Go (SCOTUS Treason, Part 2)

Late last year, when anger was growing over the Congressional inability to rein in the criminal bankers who created a worldwide financial disaster, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin offered an uncomplicated explanation. "Frankly", he said of Wall Street, "they own this place." No one demurred. Yes, Congress is an extension of deep and private pockets. This isn't exactly headline news.

But Americans have long held out more hope for the judicial branch of government. That's the one where the scales of justice are so nicely balanced...where blind eyes are turned toward even a hint of favoritism. In fact, the historical record here is better. Sure, the Dred Scott decision was a clear violation of human rights for the benefit of southern slave owners, but by and large even the whoppingly bad decisions have not been necessarily due to corruption.


Enter Antonin Scalia.

For a man of modest height and advancing age, he's an unlikely candidate to perform Olympian contortions. But that's exactly what he executed in December of 2000, when he back-flipped over his own stated beliefs and the high bars of legal precedent in attempts to explain away a very awkward legal dismount: why would the high court withdraw its enduring affection for states' rights and due process in order to halt a Florida recount designed to determine who, exactly, had won a presidential election? The key quote from his opinion bears repeating:

"the counting of votes that are of questionable legitimacy does in my view irreparable harm to (Bush) by casting a cloud on what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election."

What Scalia's doing here is obvious: 1) rushing to the conclusion that Bush, indeed, is the president; 2) wetting himself at the thought of a recount that could show that Gore actually won; and 3) taking the necessary steps to make sure that #2 could never come to pass. Clearly, he is carrying water not for the laws of the United States...but for the Republican Party. For reasons he can not apparently fathom, this controversy has never fully dissipated. In 2008, he instructed 60 Minutes, "Get over it. It's so old by now."

Well, now Americans have another treasonous decision to 'get over'. The 5-4 ruling which allows the corporate howitzers to open fire on U.S. democracy is the legitimate heir to this illegitimate business of 2000. Then, the court ruled that they had the final vote in the election of a President. This week, they assured that they would also extend that self-privilege to every federal elective office.

Once again, Scalia is front and center for the junta. He was moved to write a supporting opinion for the majority that is, in effect, a simple attack on those on the court who disagree with him. It is filled with baseless assertions (e.g., just how did he conclude that Thomas Jefferson would like modern corporations? He doesn't elaborate). In the middle of his remarks, he delivers a typical piece of tortured logic. Dismissing the dissenters' expansive evidence that people even by the end of the 18th century despised and mistrusted corporations, he asks rhetorically, "if so, how came there to be so many of them?" This is like suggesting that if slaves in the south during the same period really didn't like working for slave owners, how come there were so many slave owners?

But his opinion really reveals more than his own intellectual shortcomings. Because in his closing, he betrays his own allegiances:

"...to exclude or impede corporate speech is to muzzle the principal agents of the modern free economy. We should celebrate rather than condemn the addition of this speech to the public debate".

Wow. So, Mr. Justice, let me see if I've got this right: at heart, this isn't really about freedom of speech..it's about your mythical 'free market', isn't it? And because corporations have so much money ('principal agents'), that not only settles the issue of whether a corporation should be afforded the same 'rights' as a citizen...they are actually entitled to an enhanced version that only money can buy.

Sir, again you are exposed--by your own words.

No matter. Scalia's cherished corporations have now captured both Congress and the courts. Two down, one to go.

In the latter stages of the Civil War, Confederate forces made a desperate push toward Washington. Even though they were being routed on their home ground, they realized the strategic and emotional value to be gained should they be able to fly their flag over the capital of the country. Stunningly, they came within five miles.

Today, the threat to democracy and freedom is even closer. The corporations are rapping on the very door of the White House. But now there is no desperation. All the weapons are in their possession.

It's only a matter of time.