Money Talks....for now.

Back in 2010, the United States Supreme Court made a ruling in The Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission which ruled that the government could not declare corporations spending in candidate elections as unconstitutional, in which President Obama declared it “a big victory for oil companies” and corporations in general.  The supreme court backed up its decision by saying that they cannot prohibit people from participating in political speech.  Bollocks! I can’t seem to wrap my mind around the fact that our Supreme Court thinks that political action committees “simply engage” in political activity.  The facts are all over the place.  There are websites dedicated to show the public who and and how much certain people or corporations donate to each political candidate.  Opensecrets.org, which is one of these websites that show us how much political influence some corporations have over both political parties.  

For example, take American Crossroads, founded by none other that republican Karl Rove (insert ominous music here) donated 105 million dollars to their respected parties, and also opened up a 501(c)(4), or a tax exempt, nonprofit organization which donated 71 million dollars, all without disclosing information on whom they donated for.  Other top contributors for Governor Romney include, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and JP Morgan and Chase.  However, the big spender of this years presidential election is Nevada casino billionaire, Sheldon Adelson.  The New York Times wrote that Adelson donated more that 60 million dollars spread amongst eight candidates.  We all heard of the phrase money talks, well in Mr. Adelson’s case he wants the whole world to hear him out.  However, this election had an interesting turn of events in which the following happened: All eight of the candidates that Adelson supported, none of them won any of their respected elections.  This marks a sudden change in which it feels like people don’t need to feel like they need money to have things go their way.

Granted, one could argue that President Obama also had their PAC’s try to help them out (in which companies like Microsoft and Google contributed significantly) however people do not have a real disdain for these corporations, whereas the first things that comes to people’s minds when you hear of the banking industry is “money hungry bastards who have no concerns for anyone but themselves and their pockets.  However, people now more than ever feel like they have a voice and are slowly starting to unite to get what they need: the students.  In a highly tight poll, Proposition 30 which would have created trigger cuts by about 6 billion dollars to the education system, failed to pass, creating happy students and happy teachers all across the state of California.  Proposition 30 was heavily supported by the California Faculty Association, in which it successfully spread the word and advertised to the students about how this was going to affect them.  Charles T. Munger, a California based lawyer, donated about 55 million dollars out of his own pocket to stop proposition 30 from passing and failed. I feel like it was a giant step towards what democracy in its finest form, in which the people got what they wanted, not what the corporations were spending all that money to simply “engage in political speech”