America 2084

I’ve been torn up by the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Teddy Roosevelt’s as well as other campaign reforms. I am always an advocate of free speech first and as an advocate of free speech I applaud the court for recognizing that “Hillary the movie” is no different that any other piece of media. It is no different that Fahrenheit 911, or Zeitgeist, or 60 minutes for that matter and has every right to be covered under free speech and every right to obtain funding from any source as well as any amount; however as a opponent of corporatism this ruling has me quite vexed. I feel stretched thin, and I just don’t know how to react. This is probably by far the most important Supreme Court ruling in our lifetime.

As a student of media I feel that censorship of any documentary cannot be tolerated. This movie is someone’s intellectual property; the federal government has no right to abridge production or distribution of said film. The idea that the Federal Election Commission can stop a political documentary from being distributed is new to me. If I were to make a political documentary, which I have done in the past, I would fully expect to promote, distribute and finance the film anyway I see fit. Why does the Federal Election Commission have authority over the entertainment industry anyway? Shouldn’t they be more concerned with direct contributions to candidates? Why can big oil and coal buy candidates off directly, but yet they can’t spend freely on political adds? I mean, I should be celebrating this decision. This is a big win for free speech, but instead I’m hanging out with Glenn Beck; curled up in the fetal position saying to myself “I need my foil hat, I need my foil hat, I need my foil hat.” It makes me wonder what else has been censored; what other documentaries, books have we yet to see?

While the idea of having lots of foreign capital in our electoral process scares the hell out of me, this blatant censorship of press goes against the core principle of the first amendment. My two greatest fears with this ruling is that: 1) with corporate interest having higher stakes in government will mean bigger government, bigger authoritarian style government; much more scary and oppressive than you will get with lefty style socialism. 2) with trade unions and non-citizens having nothing to stop them we could have a western version of the E.U. in a matter of decades.

I’ve always said for years that it’s unions and corporations that undermine and overturn the basic principals if our Constitution. With unlimited involvement from these entities the only way to bring this corruption to a halt is to rethink the fundamental roll of government. We need to recognize that the motivation for the corporations to be involved in our government is the size of the government itself. In other words if the government is small there is nothing for the corporations to control. I’m starting to get the feeling that health reform is the least of our worries now. With special interest unlimited the government will just grow and grow. It won’t matter who is the White House or Congress whether it’s a Democrat or Republican. I feel like any day now I’m going to wake up in 1984 with a television that never turns off and a barcode tattooed on the back of my neck. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, perhaps I’m over thinking this a little, but honestly are my fears completely unfounded?