Whose Country Is It, Anyway?

To whom does the country belong? I think we know the obvious answer, but how accurate is it? Does it belong to corporations, Big Corp, as I call them, when I refer to them as a collective body? Or to labor unions? Or small business? Or any number of sub-groups within these groups that have a special interest in influencing government?

Perhaps the government belongs to the government. All the various departments that comprise the government and the bureaucrats that run them. How about the military, and the Military Industrial Complex, that Eisenhower warned his countrymen of in 1961."?

How about Congress? To whom does it belong? Does it belong to the country? The people? We elected them right, all those various senators and district representatives, and sent them to the Congress, didn't we? Sure we did, or did we?

And then there's local government. To whom does it belong? And state government?

The obvious answers to the questions--"Whose country is it?" and "To whom does the country belong?"--is: "It's the people's country. It belongs to them."

I'm not so sure, now.

Perhaps the people's ownership of the country has always been a myth. A bedtime story told to the gullible, and the overly-trusting. Perhaps the Bill of Rights was added, not only to address the concerns of states like Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York, but to give the people a false sense of ownership, not only of their individual liberties, but ownership of the nation We, the people, formed to promote, in part, the "general welfare." We read:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The people, we're told, ordained and established the Constitution on behalf of the people of the United States.

If that's the case, I'd say we need a return to a people-centered government, to people-centered institutions, and a people-centered country, but I'm not sure if we've ever had such a government.

To document how this assault upon the people's rights has eroded our individual and collective rights, would require a book all its own.

No, this blog entry is not going to be a history lesson, nor a analytical treatise of the U.S. Constitution. It's merely a reminder of how far the institutions that the people formed--as a way to balance the use of power, through a system of checks and balances, and to discourage abuse--have conspired to coalesce power, and to deny the people the rights ascribed to them by the document we call our constitution.

Today, Thursday, January 21, 2010 (and I don't exaggerate), could go down in our history as the day this country's democracy became saturated by corporate money, and influence, and the people's welfare was supplanted by "corporate welfare." And since I'm not a constitutional scholar, I'm going to let those who're called the fourth branch of government to run it down for you.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I included the Jonathan Turley video clip above to show you how a constitutional scholar viewed today's decision. I imagine it might have been similar to what the designers and builders of the Titanic might have rationalized when hearing that the ship sank: "How could it sink! It was designed and built to be unsinkable."

Despite Turley's hope that something can be done to offset the political advantage given to corporations, he doesn't address what, or how; he merely states that we have to develop more competing political parties, and use the legislative process to circumvent the potential of abuse around today's decision. But when you can buy off politicians, and as many as you'd like, either with threats, or outright support through political ads, don't expect too much opposition.

Now, take a look at this next video segment. At first you may be tempted to call it hyperbole, and unrealistic. But then before you do that, I want to remind you of the damage that corporate money, with some restrictions, has already achieved. We now have a health-care reform bill in doubt, the result of Republican delay tactics, and the diluting demands from politicians who held the bill hostage by threats of voting against the bill, giving the Republicans a filibuster majority. These politicians to the man and the woman have been bought by the Health Care industry, and weren't about to pass a bill that offered real health reform without adequate monetary compensation, the promise of millions of new members (customers) for health insurers.

Here's the next video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This Supreme Court decision is so far-reaching, so potentially disastrous for our democracy, so all-inclusive in its sheer magnitude, the only recourse we may have, unless ways and means can be found (not ruling out an amendment to our Constitution, provided corporate gods will allow it to go that far), will be for the people to rise up, and overthrow the government it installed, and the Constitution it formed, to wrest from corporate hands the democracy upon which this country was built.

Unless means are found to rein in this potential corporate hegemony, we may be seeing the end of our civil liberties, and the beginning of a new government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations.

Here's what the president, himself a Constitutional scholar, released today when the Supreme Court Justice's ruling was announced:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release January 21, 2010

Statement from the President on Today's Supreme Court Decision
With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans. This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington--while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates. That's why I am instructing my Administration to get to work immediately with Congress on this issue. We are going to talk with bipartisan Congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less.

And if you think these corporations will act with restraint, then think back over what has transpired over the past several decades, culminating in a shadow banking system, and unscrupulous financial practices, that nearly bankrupt this country, and brought it to the brink of economic collapse, a collapse that we usually refer to as a depression. And not just us here in the United States, but the entire world. The trend is to give corporations greater access to government, and a louder voice, usually to drown out the wishes of the populace.

A hat tip to Ernesto over at Sevens Devils Dead for first bringing this issue to my attention