{"id":558,"date":"2010-01-29T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=558"},"modified":"2010-01-29T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T12:00:00","slug":"10-ways-to-stop-corporate-dominance-of-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/29\/10-ways-to-stop-corporate-dominance-of-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Ways to Stop Corporate Dominance of Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are some practical ideas to mitigate the effects of the extremist, ideologue fascist five SCOTUS Justices\u2019 assault on freedom.<\/p>\n

\n

\"FatCat2\"<\/a> The recent Supreme Court decision to allow unlimited corporate spending in politics just may be the straw that breaks the plutocracy\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

Pro-democracy groups, business leaders, and elected representatives are proposing mechanisms to prevent or counter the millions of dollars that corporations can now draw from their treasuries to push for government action favorable to their bottom line. The outrage ignited by the Court\u2019s ruling in <\/span>Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission<\/span><\/a> extends to President Obama, who has promised that repairing the damage will be a priority for his administration.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what can be done to limit or reverse the effect of the Court\u2019s decision? Here are 10 ideas:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n
    Amend the U.S. Constitution<\/span> to declare that <\/span>corporations are not persons<\/span><\/a>\u2026<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  2. \n
    Require shareholders to approve political spending by their corporations\u2026<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  3. \n
    Pass the <\/span>Fair Elections Now Act<\/span><\/a>\u2026<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  4. \n
    Give qualified candidates equal amounts of free broadcast air time<\/span> for political messages\u2026<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  5. \n
    Ban political advertising<\/span><\/a> by corporations that receive government money\u2026<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  6. \n
    Impose a 500 percent excise tax on corporate contributions\u2026<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  7. \n
    Prohibit companies from trading their stock on national exchanges<\/span> if they make political contributions and expenditures\u2026<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  8. \n
    Require publicly traded companies to disclose in SEC filings<\/span> money used for the purpose of influencing public opinion, rather than for promoting their products\u2026<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  9. \n
    Require the corporate CEO to appear as sponsor of commercials<\/span> that his or her company pays for\u2026<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  10. \n
    Publicize the reform options, inform the public of who is making contributions <\/span>to whom, and activate the citizenry\u2026<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The measures listed above\u2014and others that seek to reverse the <\/span>dominance of money<\/a> in our political system\u2014will not be easy. But grassroots anger at this latest win for corporate power is running high\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Inserted from <Alternet<\/a>><\/p>\n

    What I\u2019ve done here is to include only the headers and minimal explanation from each of the ten items.  I strongly recommend that you chick through to the original for the meat of this.  I don\u2019t agree with all ten.  I think that the first would take too long, if possible at all.  I like the sixth the best, except that it should be contributions and advertising.  Cousin FatCat disagrees with me.<\/p>\n

    Good night! (see today;s open thread).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Here are some practical ideas to mitigate the effects of the extremist, ideologue fascist five SCOTUS Justices\u2019 assault on freedom. The recent Supreme Court decision to allow unlimited corporate spending in politics just may be the straw that breaks the plutocracy\u2019s back. Pro-democracy groups, business leaders, and elected representatives are proposing mechanisms to prevent or […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}