The Supreme Court is Selling Our Democracy to the Highest Bidder
This past week the United States Supreme Court announced another in a series of decisions whose overall impact is to sell our democracy to the highest bidder. There are two areas in which their decisions hold tremendous ramifications for future generations. These are their decisions several years ago that a single entity can own as many media outlets as they want, and a series of decisions that say that individuals and corporations may donate as much as they want to as many candidates as they want without limitations.
First of all let us look at the issue of unlimited ownership of media outlets. Once upon a time the Federal Communications Commission had strict limits on how many media outlets an individual entity could own. The idea was to keep a limited number of persons from controlling what the public gets to see and hear. However, about 10 years ago the Supreme Court decided this was no longer important and ruled that an entity can own as many outlets as they choose. Since that time, a limited number of corporations have been purchasing media assets like they are going out of style. This has had catastrophic impact on television, radio and newspapers across the country already. Family owned media outlets did not have shareholders to please, were a part of the community they served and had feelings for the community they served. Corporations have shareholders to please and compensate, they are not a part of the markets they serve, and most have feelings only for the bottom line. Even worse is that with these industries facing economic challenges that have driven down their values, billionaires like Koch brothers are buying up these assets at bargain basement prices. We could easily see a day in the not too distant future where the vast majority of media outlets are owned by only a few individuals and corporations and then the only message we will get from the media is the one they want us to hear.
Just as the Supreme Court eased restrictions on ownership of multiple media outlets they also removed all limits on individual and corporate campaign donations. There is a conservative lobbyist, who is also a billionaire, who last week committed to spend $500 million to get a Republican in the White House in 2016. During the recent mayoral race in Chicago, Mayor Bloomberg of New York City gave over $3 million to one candidate because of her position on gun control. This candidate won the race, in part because no other candidate could raise a fraction of what she got from Bloomberg.
Getting elected in today’s world is more about money than any other factor. When corporations and individuals with agendas can spend without limits, at some point their money negates the power of our vote and we have begun to lose our democracy. Compound that with the fact that the same billionaires who are making the campaign donations are also buying the majority of the media outlets and you have a world in which a small group of rich individuals will have taken our democracy away. Or at least that’s the way I see it.
(Do you have a question or comment? Email me at hjwormsby@oal.com or look me up on Facebook/HollisWormsby)
