Our American Democracy is fading fast. We are well on the road to a dictatorship. Consider the warning signs. We now have two militaries, US Army, US Air Force, US Navy US Marine Corps and US Coast Guard being one and the contractors being the other, Xe, Dyncorp, KBR etc. Our sixteen intelligence agencies and their corresponding contractors are also in this stew. The Federal Government now keeps lists of citizens The "No Fly" list for example. The mass media is no longer independent. They simply repeat what officialdom tells them too with few exceptions. Embedding goes far beyond our war zones. We have a scapegoat population to put many of our problems on via so called "illegals". Creeping militarism. We have come to revere our military, trusting it more our national government. We also devote a huge amount of resources to spying on our own citizens in the name of "national security". There are more warning signs you can read for yourself here. The weak leadership of President Obama is also a huge red flag. Add to this volatile mix the expanding role of multinational corporations and the real danger only grows.
Now corporations can express themselves as “persons” by donating as much as they want to political campaigns. Our elections are already a bad representation of democracy for a number of reasons. We only have two parties to choose from which are more similar than different. People feel they have no influence over what goes on at the national level. Where have the huge demonstrations gone? Now corporations can give all they want to political campaigns? This is problematic for a number of reasons. Only a small number of people with in a corporation will have the say in who gets contributions and who does not. A corporation is not “evil” but only a way of doing business with the goal being to make money for shareholders. Making money and doing what is right for the country are not always the same thing. Looking ahead, this is a step toward reorganizing our world along business interests and not national interests. If making money is the goal, the outcome will not be pretty. We are no longer capable of waging war with out contractors IE private companies. It is unclear where they fit in the chain of command or how they are regulated. Our future leaders will be only mouthpieces bought and paid for by amoral multinational conglomerations with no national loyalty what so sever. To a large degree, this is already happening but this ruling will only accelerate the process. Obstacles to profits (read labor and environmental regulations) will be removed.
I've given up on the Democrats as an opposition party. With the presidency and both houses of congress, all they have accomplished is a watered down stimulus bill, so called heath care reform (written by the insurance companies and financial "reform" that largely leaves the existing structures that brought on the recession in place. From what I see, little to nothing has changed in foreign policy. Iraq and Afghanistan grind on with no end in sight (Iraq is by no means a done deal). We still ignore Habeas Corpus. I'm not sure we have time to build a real opposition party before an American Fascist state rises but it is our best shot.
