Friday, January 22, 2010

My Brilliant Idea How a Third Party Can Benefit from the the Citizens United Decision

Starting a third party will never be easier now that corporations can pretty much spend whatever they want on political candidates -- the only problem is the most corporations just don't have enough money.

You heard me: corporations are poor. ExxonMobile only made $45 billion last year in profits. GE only hauled in $17 billion. Wal-mart, a mere $14 billion. If you think that's a lot of money, then kindly get back in your Maserati and go do whatever it is middle-class yokels do in their spare time.

I'm talking about real money here. Try this on for size: in 2008 Russia raised nearly $382 billion in revenue. You know what that kind of money says? It says "Eat a bag of dicks, BerkshireHathaway!" The same year China spent close to $60 billion just for a two week-long party. Do think they wouldn't drop that kind of jack on securing some friendly legislators in the U.S. of A.? That makes GoldmanSachs look like a piggy bank by comparison.

The point is this: foreign governments are now able to come to the United States, establish corporations, and use those corporations to back political candidates. Their "investors" will be little more than the treasuries of those foreign governments. Sure, there can't be any coordination (wink, wink), but a smart candidate will quickly figure out which side his bread is buttered. Thanks to the Citizens United ruling, there's nothing stopping this.

So foreign nationals can't vote in America, but they can basically decide elections here by funneling billions into various campaigns. Bravo!

So why put up with begging for money from pesky American voters and donors when your candidate and/or party can simply solicit a contribution -- again, within the amount designated by law (nudge, nudge) -- from the American representative of SinoCorp. or Lybia Inc. or Iran Enterprises?

Besides, in an era of Globalization there's really no such thing as an "American" corporation anymore. Bank of America has millions of foreign stock-holders, for example. And if that's the case for America, isn't it true of every country? And if it's true of every country, then isn't every corporation "American"?

Only one way to find out! A third party should get out there on the road with hat in hand to scoop up as much foreign dough as possible. After all, other countries know how to play the game in Washington, it's only a matter of time before they figure out it's far more effective to own a legislator than it is to pay for a lobbyist. May as well cash in while you can!

MORE: Eat it.

EVEN MORE: The Economist gets in on the action.

1 comment:

CJ said...

U.S. citizens were outraged when Bush was going to award port authority to a Dubai government owned corporation.

The transnationalists on the Supreme Court just gave away the entire country.
They have surrendered the sovreignty of our nation and moved us one step closer to global government,


WTF