Nation Of Change | October 31 2012
As feared, our people’s democratic authority has been dogged nearly to death by the hounds of money in this election go ’round, thanks to the Supreme Court’s reckless decree in the now-infamous Citizens United case.
That rank political power play by five black-robed judicial partisans unleashed the Big Dogs of corporate money to bite democracy right in the butt this year, poisoning our elections with the venom of unlimited special-interest cash. But there’s also been another, little-reported consequence of the malevolent Citizens United decision: It has unleashed mad-dog corporate bosses to tell employees how to vote.
Prior to that 2010 Court ruling, top executives were barred by federal law from using corporate funds to instruct, induce, intimidate or otherwise push workers to support particular candidates. No more, thanks to the five Supremes. Having been given a legal pass, bosses have openly and aggressively conscripted employees to be political troopers for corporate-backed candidates.
For example, CEO David Siegel of Westgate Resorts, a major peddler of time-share schemes, warned his 7,000-strong workforce against voting for Obama. To do so, he wrote in a letter to each of them, would “threaten your job.” Obama, Siegel declared, planned to raise taxes on multimillionaires like him, which would give him “no choice but to reduce the size of this company.”
Likewise, Dave Robertson, president of the Koch brothers’ industrial empire, notified 30,000 workers that they would suffer assorted “ills” if they helped re-elect Obama. In case that message was too subtle, Robertson helpfully included a slate-card of Koch-approved candidates for them to take into the polling booth.
Of course, corporate chieftains say they’re not making threats — just suggestions. As Boss Siegel disingenuously put it: “There’s no way I can pressure anybody. I’m not in the voting booth with them.”
OPINION | The 2012 presidential race officially begins today with the caucuses in Iowa, and we all know what that means …
OP-ED | In November’s elections, the national media gave extensive coverage to a proposed “personhood amendment” to Mississippi’s state constitution. This extremist, anti-choice ballot initiative declared that a person’s life begins not at birth, but at the very instant that a sperm meets the egg.
In the Nov. 8 elections, the national media gave extensive coverage to a proposed “personhood amendment” to Mississippi’s state constitution. This was an extremist anti-abortion ballot initiative to declare that a person’s life begins not at birth, but at the very instant that a sperm meets the egg. However, extending full personhood to two-cell zygotes was too far out even for many of Mississippi’s zealous antagonists against woman’s right to control her own fertility, so the proposition was voted down.