If the reader thinks this is not an area worthy of renewed discussion, please read a review from National Public Radio of the case decided on January 20th, 2010, titled Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission, which discusses Justice Kennedy's view of why corporations should have the right to donate unlimited amounts of money - an aspect of so-called speech that is decidedly not "free" in the "how-do-I-pay-my-mortgage-this-month" sense of the word - to organizations which seek to influence our political dialogue. To quote from the NPR story: "'We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers,' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. 'The court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations.'"
It has lately been argued in the media that since these organizations which the court's 5 to 4 majority granted such protection include liberal labor unions, it's basically a draw with predominately conservative corporations, but even a conservative web site, while questioning The Rachel Maddow Show report that only three of the top ten big-money political donors were labor unions, states that "Maddow is actually referring to 'outside non-party committees' wherein seven of the top ten contributors in 2010 were indeed conservative, with the only three liberal contributors being unions. These are groups that contribute money for political causes but not specific candidates. That's why they're deemed 'non-party.' If you look at all 'outside spending groups' for 2010 - which by Maddow's wording consistently has been the implication - you'll find that four of the top ten contributors were liberal with only two of them being unions."
Regardless of whether the number of "top ten" big-money donors with liberal tendencies was three or four in 2010, it is likely that relative number will decline in the future, as a result of the Supreme Court ignoring precedent and endorsing the new-found freedom of major corporations and super-wealthy individuals to make unlimited cash contributions to political action committees on steroids or Super-PACs, as they are called. Whether quoting 2010 reports from the non-partisan group, Public Citizen, or the New York Times, it is also likely that such contributors will become more secretive, as the Times reported when it compared the coming torrent of cash to the days of Richard Nixon's re-election campaign: "The Committee for the Re-Election of the President was also illegally hauling in many millions of dollars from corporations, many of which felt pressured into making contributions." The difference today, of course, is that it's all perfectly legal.
If this situation does not raise questions in the reader's mind about the health of our democracy, I'm afraid that my wife's reasoned arguments and specific citations will be lost on you. For anyone else, there are a couple of issues that need to be noted. First, this is no longer a work in progress. I lucked out and found a super-knowledgeable reference desk librarian at Temple University, who, without any difficulty, simply e-mailed me the official PDF file for my wife's dissertation as her heir. This work truly encompasses the entire history of capitalism, but for those readers pressed for time, at least go to page #47 of the actual document (NOT the PDF-toolbar-indicated page number, which is inaccurate), and read CHAPTER III. THE ADVENT OF THE "VIRTUAL" PERSON, which creates a different perspective for viewing the initial precedent our current Supreme Court and others before it have relied on to justify the pending destruction of our democracy. One other note: my old notebook PC opened the PDF file at 150% of actual size, which made it unreadable. My new, wide-aspect PC screen can handle this larger format, but anyone can use the Adobe PDF toolbar to adjust that percentage if necessary. Also, it takes more than a minute - even on an up-to-date, fast computer - to download the printable PDF file.
Second, although this important review of our economic, political and legal history could possibly be turned into some kind of profit-making enterprise, I have never had a desire to do so. This material is copyrighted under U.S. and international laws, however, and I do reserve the right to restrict ANY commercial use of the information contained within this web site without my explicit written permission. By clicking on this link, which leads to the body of my wife's dissertation, any reader hereby agrees to abide by that restriction and strictly use the following material for personal or non-commercial purposes. The exceptions to this "non-commercial" restriction would include daily network news programs and newspapers or news agencies like the Associated Press, assuming they ever get past just reporting the "news of the day" and in the case of the four major networks, deferring their excruciatingly "happy" personal interest features at the end of each broadcast for even a day or two to report on something that most certainly will impact our collective future. All of the network TV news "analysis" programs are freely welcome, too, as are the similar cable shows like Rachel Maddow's, and those of the other knowledgeable hosts on the left-leaning though always fact-driven MSNBC, who would truly honor the memory of my dearly departed wife with any unrestricted use of this material during their programming.
Academic use of this material would obviously be encouraged as well, and we'd love to receive your feedback. Thanks for your interest!
Thomas Gordon d'Avila et alii, Austin, TX
Contact us at: Dr.CandiceLloyd@gmail.com or @EarthOrb on Twitter
P.S.: For anyone who wants to read an in-depth review of Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission, check out this FREE FindLaw listing. In addition, our so-called "state's rights" conservative Supreme Court former majority - remember a similar crew telling the state of Florida how it could conduct its presidential election in 2000? - once again told another state, in this case Montana, how it could restrict corporate campaign spending (or not), as astutely forecasted by the Washington Post in February of 2012. NOTE: As the unpaid editor of my wife's dissertation, I bear full responsibility for relatively minor typographical errors that apparently still exist in the document. I recently noticed one in the last line of page "iv" of the introduction and there may be others. Since I wish to preserve this crowning achievement of my wife's brilliant academic career exactly as it was submitted to her doctoral advisory committee, I can only beg for the reader's understanding and tolerance. Also, I previously commissioned an ink-tint pencil portrait of my wife, based on her most recent passport photo, which the brilliant young Austin artist Aaron Bir has executed masterfully. For anyone interested in Dr. Candice Lloyd's appearance when she wrote her paper, I offer this web portrait below, which is a photo of the framed 9" by 12" sketch and magically captures her vivid personality!
