In the best of times, a democracy is based upon the principle of one person, one opinion, one vote. The majority opinion prevails while the rights of the minority are accommodated to the greatest extent possible.
This is not the best of times. We are enduring a fascist-like administration that has demonized the opposition political party, has unleashed shock troops to violently intimidate and repress its own citizens, has kidnapped and deported hundreds of thousands of peaceful and hardworking people, and has engaged in a policy of brutal retribution against a myriad of institutions, organizations, and individuals who have transgressed in one way or the other.
This administration has three more years left to wield its destructive power before its term expires and we can begin to restore what was good and just and generous about this country, but was then taken away from this country and the world by a madman and his disciples of hate. Hopefully we will be smarter with how we spend our treasure and cast our votes this next time around.
But, no matter how well we address the damage that this current administration will ultimately leave behind, we will still be left with a democracy that is no longer based upon one person, one opinion, one vote.
And why is this? Because we have a democracy that has been thoroughly corrupted by too much money being poured into our political system by a limited number of ultra-wealthy individuals who have an insatiable thirst for political power and the ability to control and manipulate much of the information that we see, hear and read. Until this threat to our democracy is addressed and eliminated, there will be no lasting balance.
The ultra-wealthy billionaire class spends hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the selection of our political candidates, then spends hundreds of millions of dollars more to influence the results of our elections, and then uses this financial investment in our elected politicians as a means to control legislation, regulations, tax incentives – essentially, to ensure that the government does what will benefit them the most, the interests of the people be damned.
And now, the ultra-wealthy billionaire class is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase news organizations, not to make a profit, but to extend its influence to control the very information that a democracy depends on to be well-informed.
This has to stop.
It should be self-evident by now, given the disastrous nature of the current administration and its policies, that allowing the ultra-wealthy to choose our political candidates, hold important political positions, and manipulate the information made available to the public has weakened the ability of our democracy to function in the best interests of its people.
There are two ways to improve the situation that we find ourselves in. First, stop the flow of corruptive money. Second, ensure the independence of our sources of 1st Amendment information.
Revisiting Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)
The 2010 Supreme Court decision known as the Citizens United v. FEC decision, was intended to allow groups of people i.e., corporations, business entities, and labor unions, to speak as one voice in support of, or in opposition to, political candidates. It was argued that preventing such speech through association was a violation of these groups’ First Amendment Right to Free Speech.
Further, it was argued that the Fourteenth Amendment, which was originally intended to extend citizenship to all people (former slaves) born or naturalized in the United States, to extend due process protections to all citizens, and to extend equal treatment under the law to all citizens, applied to corporations, business entities, and labor unions, essentially providing them with due process protections. That seems fair enough.
For some reason, however, the Supreme Court chose to extend the scope of their ruling to essentially equate money with free speech, with a 5-4 majority arguing that any limitation on politically-related financial expenditures would be, in effect, a limitation of these groups’ First Amendment Right to Free Speech.
There are financial limitations to the donations that an individual is legally able to make. Donations of a certain maximum amount can be made to individual candidates, to candidates’ committees, to various political parties’ committees, and to national political parties’ accounts that pay for national conventions, recounts and other legal matters, and for national party headquarters. In addition, limited financial donations can be made to Political Action Committees, i.e., PACs, who then distribute these donations to various party committees as they see fit.
Since corporations, business entities, and labor unions have now been determined to have the right to have and express a political opinion, then the same financial limitations that apply to individuals should also apply to these groups. That seems fair enough as well.
However, the Supreme Court determined that unlimited money could now be spent on political speech by organizations not legally connected to an individual candidate, and this has proved to be disastrous for our democracy.
At the time of the Citizens United v. FEC decision, dissenting Supreme Court justices warned that allowing such unlimited financial involvement by corporations, business entities, and labor unions in the American political process would overwhelm the voices of the actual American people and lead to a corrupt system in which the wealthy exerted undo influence over our elections. And this is exactly what happened.
Within years, Super Political Action Committees, i.e., Super PACs, became the actual voices of political campaigns and changed the political landscape into what exists today. Fifteen years after the Citizens United v. FEC decision, money given by small donors directly to political campaigns has been completely overwhelmed and rendered insignificant by money that passes through Super PACs. This is how the ultra-wealthy exert their influence, buying off politicians in a corrupt, quid pro quo circus that could not be further removed from the democratic principles upon which this country was founded.
Super PACs are able to accept unlimited amounts of money from anyone, almost certainly including money from foreign sources. Super PACs are able to spend unlimited amounts of money in support of, or in opposition to, specific political candidates and political parties. Super PACs are able to spend unlimited amounts of money in support of, or in opposition to, specific ideologies. Super PACs are not accountable to any government regulations, and do not have to disclose who their donors are.
It is clear that the Citizens United v. FEC decision was too broad in its interpretation that corporations, business entities, and labor unions were entitled to anything more than due process, equal treatment under the law., the right to have a political opinion, and the right to give political donations under the same limitations that apply to individuals.
Super PACs should be seen for what they are – a means by which the ultra-wealthy have bastardized the political process to exert undo control over our government.
Money is not the equivalent of free speech. It has become increasingly evident over the past fifteen years that money overwhelms free speech, and that unlimited money has corrupted our democracy. The Supreme Court must revisit Citizens United vs. FEC and reaffirm that the voice and the will of the people cannot be silenced or manipulated by unlimited political expenditures of unknown origin.
Preserving the Independence of the Fourth Estate
The Fourth Estate, i.e., newspapers, news magazines, cable and streaming news outlets, independent news services such as AP and Reuters, and other sources of fact-based and apolitical investigative journalism must be protected from manipulation and intimidation by the ultra-wealthy and their media and entertainment corporations.
Accurate and timely Information is fundamental to the healthy functioning of a democracy. The Fourth Estate has always functioned as an unbiased and self-correcting source of information about the actions of our government, our corporations and business entities, and individuals who wish to act in secretive or corrupt ways.
The concentration of news outlets into larger and larger media corporations makes it much easier for an unscrupulous government administration to attempt to influence what information will be disseminated to the public. We have seen how the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice have been used to block the release of interviews, suspend program hosts, and restrict the independence of editorial boards.
Based upon recent events, ultra-wealthy individuals continue to demonstrate a willingness to exert editorial and programming control to ensure favorable treatment by government departments and regulatory commissions. The value of their investment portfolios and the success of future business ventures is clearly much more important to them than is the preservation of the independence of the Fourth Estate.
Regardless of political party affiliation or where one falls on the liberal-conservative spectrum, we should all be much more skeptical of what is being presented to us as fact-based information than we are. We should all be much more concerned about the ongoing loss of independent sources of news than we are. We should all be much more financially supportive of independent sources of news than we are.
Unlike the ultra-wealthy industrialists from 100 years ago, today’s ultra-wealthy seem to have no social conscience, no sense of social responsibility. Allowing ultra-wealthy individuals to control our collective freedom of speech and our access to fact-based information is an existential threat to the health of our democracy, and to democracies everywhere. It is in the best financial interests of these individuals to limit what we see, read and hear in order to obscure their self-serving, entitled behavior.
It is highly unlikely that the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland will ever feature a roundtable discussion regarding the importance of fact-based investigative journalism to the health of the world’s democracies.
Factual news media outlets, particularly those that engage in investigative journalism, should not be permitted to be part of larger media and entertainment corporations that become susceptible to government influence and are readily manipulated for profit or ideology. However, this is becoming accepted practice.
There is no easy way out of this reality. The old business model for newspapers and news magazines that relied on advertising revenue and subscriptions for operating expenses is, for all intents and purposes, dead. ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN – no longer independent, no longer trustworthy sources for unbiased and factual information. The legacy media has slowly become actual fake news.
It is in the best interests of this country to break up these massive media and entertainment corporations, forcing divestiture of factual news media outlets and requiring that they be restructured as non-profit corporations, Given the political influence , legal sophistication, and financial resources that the ultra-wealthy owners of these corporations possess, this approach will take decades, with no assurances of success.
As an alternative, it is suggested that all news media outlets be evaluated by an independent organization to determine to what extent each media outlet operates in accordance with the Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists as defined by the International Federation of Journalists.
The Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists consists of 16 articles plus a preamble and defines journalists’ duties and rights regarding ethics. Essentially and simplistically, the Charter confirms the right of everyone to have access to information and ideas, insists that journalists respect the facts first and foremost, and requires that journalists clearly distinguish between factual information, commentary, and criticism.
The intent is to provide the American people with an objective, non-partisan, independent measure of the reliability of information being disseminated by media outlets. One possible organization that could be given this responsibility is the Society of Professional Journalists.
What is also needed are new champions of independent, fact-based journalism in the vein of Ted Turner, who founded CNN. CNN became one of the most recognized sources of non-biased news reporting in the world before it became an investment property in 1996, when it was bought by Time Warner. As part of a media conglomerate, CNN became more of an entertainment network, with greater emphasis on commentary and other types of entertainment programming, with less emphasis on fact-based journalism.
There is a great and profound need for fact-based journalism in this country, as well as throughout the rest of the world. Certainly there must be some wealthy billionaire or billionaires who understand the importance of fact-based journalism to our democracy, and would be willing to dedicate part of their wealth to this cause.