Red Right and Blue - 02/17/10

A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court made a five-four decision that corporations were entitled under the Constitution of the United States to freedom of speech and press and therefore had the right to turn profits into ads for and against political candidates.

This, they said, is an important right because the system of democracy is based upon the free competition of ideas to which the voices of corporations supporting candidates on all sides would add to and therefore further the ends of democratic government itself.

This was a decision that the Obama administration wasted no time publically criticizing. An interesting move, considering not only that the judicial branch is the one least connected to the influence of big money, but also because only months ago the Obama campaign had made use of all methods then possible to raise big political money.

In fact, the Obama campaign had reneged on its agreement with the Republican presidential campaign to limit themselves to public funds in an attempt to level the playing field and take the corruption which big money brings out of the contest.

However, perhaps Obama’s refusal to limit his fundraising and campaign expenditures is hardly surprising since today there is no part of American life that is not influenced by the power, the promise and the allure of Big Money. It has slipped into all the cracks of the growing governmental apparatus, swelling it so that it has joined forces with the equally corrupt field of big business, giving rise to the use of public monies for private accumulation, which is the soul of the so-called stimulus bill.

When the economy crashed, the government immediately stepped in to prop up businesses which they judged “too big to fail.” Perhaps there was some truth in this judgment. Businesses such as AIG, Goldman Sachs and others might have such a direct influence upon the stability and happiness of so great a number of American citizens that their bankruptcies could not be allowed. But the enormous bonuses that went straight from the hands of the taxpaying citizen to the checkbooks of the highest paid executives were unnecessary byproducts of a government grown so large in size and so close to those big businesses with access to politicians. The big business and big government class think of the 1040 tax form as its source of profit.

But after all, why comment on this state of affairs? This kind of corrupt political power has always been brought about by gold, and the acknowledged purpose of business is profit. It is surprising, however, that big money has become so important that it has worked its way through all levels and parts of American life: even those institutions for which the truth was sacred, such as science, religion and academic institutions.

The influence of money has become so prevalent that we have come to expect it. It has worked its way from the heights of government and business through all levels of society so that the norm has changed from one of trust to one of mistrust. What is true has become so entangled with what has been paid for or who will pay that it can no longer be seen as the truth.

Such system has created a community where the interests of every individual must be weighed before their words can be trusted. A society of mistrust soon ceases to be a community. Thus the influence of Big Money has created a society of individuals whose common view of the world is found in their communal distrust. No laboratory, no college or university, government branch or agency and no church is free from the love of big money. Where everyone has a price, no one is worth trusting.