Toxic
slime-fests can shrivel voter turnout.
For more cartoons by Dave Granlund, click here. |
When five Supreme Court justices decreed that corporations are entitled to full free speech rights in our elections and that corporate money is a form of speech that can’t be restricted, they produced a nightmare tsunami of corporate cash that is now drowning our people’s democratic rights.
After all, if money is speech, then speech is no longer free —
it’s for sale.
This year, we’re seeing what the Court’s absurd edicts are
costing us.
Second, the bulk of this speech isn’t being bought by candidates
or parties, but by secretive outside front groups that hide the corporate
interests funding the ads. In Senate races alone, these shadow groups have
already run some 150,000
TV spots. The Koch brothers’ main front group, Americans for
Prosperity, is by far the biggest buyer of speech.
Third, and most pernicious, the court-created “right” of moneyed
front groups to flood the airwaves has handed them the power to dictate any
campaign’s message. Advertising created and bankrolled by those secret fronts
now define the issues and even the candidates themselves before races really
get going.
Because the outside groups are anonymous, their “speech”
consists almost entirely of the nastiest, most vituperative attacks on
candidates they oppose, turning our election-year discourse into toxic
slime-fests that turn off voters and shrivel turnout.
To help stop the corporate purchase of the People’s political
speech rights, connect with MoveToAmend.org.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is
a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the
populist newsletter, The Hightower
Lowdown. OtherWords.org