The far-right propaganda factory is spewing a cloud of toxic rhetoric into the airwaves. That’s because we are winning the fight for a constitutional amendment to overturn Supreme Court foul-ups like Citizens United and McCutcheon. For example, Senator Mitch McConnell, in a fit of silliness, deems the amendment “an all-out assault on the right to free speech.” And Senator Ted Cruz, perhaps aspiring to play Big Brother in a staging of 1984, ridiculously asserts that the amendment will “repeal the First Amendment.” See the note (copied below in case you missed it) I sent you Thursday, after the amendment passed out of committee, for more about the critical next step in the campaign. We have literally no time to waste. Of course, these senators — along with countless other mouthpieces of plutocracy — have it exactly backwards. This amendment will reinforce free speech for living, breathing people like you and me. It will restore a First Amendment that has been grievously wounded by the Supreme Court’s confounding inability to distinguish between speech and money, between people and corporations. So let me briefly highlight some of what this amendment WILL do, grandstanding by billionaires and Big Business (and their bought-and-paid-for friends in high places) aside. It will give Congress and the states authority to keep corporate election spending from drowning out the voices of everyday citizens. It will allow We the People to end the outside spending — by super PACs and “dark money” outfits run by the likes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers — that corrodes our democracy. It will restore limits on the total amount the super-rich can donate to candidates, parties and PACs or spend on their own self-financed campaigns. It will permit us to set limits on the total amounts candidates and their supporters can spend. It will give us the freedom to replace our current system of legalized political bribery with a robust public financing system. And it will bring back the kind of elections our founders intended, our citizenry deserves and our democracy absolutely requires. Isn’t that the kind of democracy you want to pass on to your children and grandchildren? Progress on every issue we care about, every issue critical to our nation’s future — repairing and strengthening Medicare and Social Security, taking real action on climate change, enforcing tough consumer protection laws, preventing Wall Street from taking our economy over the brink ever again, making billionaires and Big Business pay their fair share — is completely dependent on a government that responds to the will of the people, not the whims of the wealthiest few, a government that acts for the good of all citizens, not the greed of powerful corporations. What we do over the next few weeks — before the amendment comes up for a first vote in the full Senate — could be the difference between its ultimate passage or failure. If you haven’t chipped in yet — or if you have, and can give a little more — this is the time. Thank you, Robert
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 04:14:28 +0000
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