Play Me Off Superpacs.

  -"Congress Shall Make No Law....Abridging The Freedom Of Speech":The First Amendment. This is the argument that Citizen United made to the Supreme court in their case against FEC. It is a strange time in politics. I say this out of feeling that we are clearly owned by political super powers that dominate capital hill. Today's future men and women, who wish to run for a political office, must go through the process of running, funding and managing their own campaign. What if I were to tell you, that organizations known as superpacs, took all the time and frustration from funding and gave you vast amounts of money? What if I were also to exemplify that because of citizen united v.s FEC, that corporations could fund who they wanted for as much as they wanted. Hard to believe? Well it's true and because of this, corporations are given an unfair advantage over the people.


   Superpacs have an interesting history. P.A.C. is an adverb  and stands for political action committee according to the Week news. The organization was formed in the late 40's, literally designed to raise and spend money on various political campaigns varying from five thousand dollars for the candidate and 50,000 for the party they support. Thankfully in 1972, the FEC(Federal Election Commission) had established certain ground rules for those who were going to fund a party member. It required things like donors donating only $100, banned union, corporations and banks. And Party's had to disclose who was funding to allow transparency. In the earlier part of 2000, the supreme court took a case know as Citizen United V.s FEC. Citizen united had argued that they were a people. Also, they argued that their 1st amendment right to freedom of speech was being violated. They inevitably won with a 5 to 1 ruling in their favor

   It bring up an interesting topic. Now because these organizations can fund any candidate with as much money as they want, they have opened the flood gates for organization and corporations to gain an upper hand in the political campaigns. Here is how it works according to the video  The Story of Citizens United. No because the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Citizen United, it also allowed Corporations to fund and advertise for and against Politicians of their choosing. One thing needs to be made clear. a corporation is not a person Mitt Romney. A corporation is a business. A machine. If the individuals of  the Company were to support a political campaign on their own , then that would be a person (not sure). With all of this, it is almost an unfair advantage for both parties. Besides aren't these elections meant to be about the people choosing leaders that will serve their interests?


   No. Corporations have an unfair advantage compared to as the people because they have vast amounts of money, they have an overarching need to make profit their number one priority (need to add at least one more reason). Corporations can fund law maker in to getting what they want like a spoiled child. For example, oil companies have gotten politicians to block  environmental laws. They have violated acts like the McCain Feingold act, which presents smear advertisements for occurring 4 months before an election The problem is not government, it is the Corporations who are the problem. 85% of this country, at this point is fed up with corporations have this vast amount of power over who wins elections. So what can we do? In the video on the top left, is a video of Nancy Pelosi arguing that we are essentially handing this country over to corporation's. We need to  fight back by supporting act like the disclose act, that allow the people to know what corporation is funding who  and with how much. Taking in to capital hill and arguing that a corporation is a machine and not a people. We need to be the red white and blue. Not the red, white and screwed.

Sources:

  http://theweek.com/article/index/223867/how-deep-pocketed-super-pacs-became-shadow-campaigns : I used this source to explain superpacs funding.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5kHACjrdEY :I used this source to explain the unfair advantage that corporations have over the people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZcchO79HsI : I used this source to describe the election process being run by corporations.