After the recent Supreme Court ruling that gave corporations "personhood" status, I was pleased to see President Obama publicly call them out on it. This is the Obama I voted for.
Sadly, this Obama has been conspicuously absent since being sworn in as President. It's time for "this" Obama to stand up at last for the people who put him in the White House in the first place, the folks on "Main Street," rather than those on "Wall Street."
In its decision in the Dred Scott case, handed down in March, 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that a person could legally be declared property. In January, 2010, the Supreme Court, in "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission," ruled that under the Constitution a corporation has the same rights as a person.
Let me get this straight: A person is property. A corporation is a person. Arguably two of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court.
Awarding "Personhood" to corporations overrules two precedents: "Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce," 1990, in which the decision handed down upheld restrictions on corporate financing of political candidates, and "McConnell v. Federal Election Commission," 2003, which upheld restrictions on campaign funding by corporations and unions.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama rebuked this decision, saying "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."
I fully agree with and support President Obama’s sentiments. Even more, I appreciate the fact that he manifested the courage to publicly call them out on it. This is the Obama I voted for; the Obama I’ve been waiting to see since he was sworn in as President. Sadly, during his first year in office, "that" Obama has been conspicuously absent.
I find it somewhat ironic, as well, that on the one hand he chides this decision by the Supreme Court as being a major victory for the above stated institutions, while on the other hand, isn’t this the same man who handed out billions of dollars to Wall Street to bail them out, aligning himself with the likes of Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers, the "real" Gordon Gekkos of the world? Is greed really good?
To address the financial crisis, Obama readily bought into the Bernanke, Geithner thinking that the bailout of Wall Street was necessary because these institutions are "too big to fail." Then he proceeded to turn to the very people who created the crisis to get us out of it. This is insanity.
Albert Einstein: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
President Obama is intelligent, personable, articulate; a refreshing presence after suffering through eight years with a President who seemed to take pride in demonstrating time and again that he lacked any and all of those same qualities. But I’m afraid I have to question President Obama’s reasoning here, as well as his motives.
While I appreciate the seemingly insurmountable task of dealing with the myriad problems left to him by the previous administration, where is the Obama, who on the campaign trail rolled up his sleeves and presented himself as just another "everyday American," right off of Main Street?
The fat cats on Wall Street refuse to accept responsibility for our country’s financial woes, citing instead the "deep recession" we’re in, hence the call to Obama to save their necks with absolutely no caveats attached. The result? Those on Main Street suffer while "Gekko" and his friends enjoy record multimillion dollar bonuses for being total failures!
I would suggest to President Obama that what his Wall Street buddies refer to as a "recession," is perceived quite differently by the people on Main Street who are out of work, have lost their homes and are dying because they have no health insurance. They call it a "depression." Which is what the bankers and brokers would call it if it affected them as it has the middle class and the poor. In which case we would see the weak-kneed Dems and the hypocrite-obstructionist Republicans in the Senate and in the House scrambling to fix it, stat.
I would suggest, as well, that Obama has it backwards. It’s "Main Street" that is "too big to fail."
Somewhere along the line, Obama took a wrong turn when he got into the taxi with Gekko, who somehow convinced him to see to the needs of the wealthy before anyone else. This is not the Obama I voted for. It’s time for the President to start living up to his campaign promises and standing up for the people who put him in the White House in the first place. It’s time to make that "change we can believe in" a reality.
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