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Buying elections

A 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision on Jan. 21 removed restrictions  on corporate funding for campaign advertisements in federal elections, handing the capitalists an unrestricted right to buy elections. The ruling was in defense of “free speech” for capitalists like Exxon-Mobil, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and all the insurance, pharmaceutical, mega-medical, military/aerospace, communications and other industries whose views thoroughly dominate the media.

While opening the floodgates for corporate propaganda and big-business-sponsored political candidates, the Supreme Court also ruled that union spending on electoral campaigns is unrestricted too. Some equality! According to opensecrets.org, pro-business individual and Political Action Committee contributions to the 2007/08 candidates outstripped union PAC money 15-to-1. That figure omits money for ads on specific issues and other spending.

The gap between vast corporate spending and union contributions should come as no surprise, considering how capitalist bosses pile up unmatchable cash by exploiting the labor of both organized and unorganized workers in the U.S. and worldwide. The Supreme Court tilted an already uneven electoral playing field even more.

The labor movement has a right to advocate workers’ issues, inside and outside the electoral arena — and we look forward to its own independent candidates, too. Record labor spending helped to gain the historic election of the first African-American president as well as overwhelming Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. But these electoral successes have done nothing to strengthen labor’s position.

The Employee Free Choice Act was stripped of the vital card-check provision and is gathering dust in Congress. The health care reform initiative conceded from the beginning any possibility of passing a single-payer plan, that is, Medicare for all. It later conceded on establishing a government-run insurance plan to compete with the insurance companies; in effect, if it passes at all, it will be a subsidy for the insurance companies and the health industry. No real jobs program has been passed. The wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan continue. The agenda of big business continues to rule the day.

The Supreme Court decision further hinders any semblance of “democracy” in the United States. Will candidates other than Republicans or Democrats receive unrestricted funds? What kind of opportunity will progressives, independents or working-class candidates have to spread their message? Even getting on the ballot is already a prohibitive and costly endeavor for candidates who represent the workers and oppressed.

The labor movement anthem “Solidarity Forever” reminds us that in workers’ hands is placed a power greater than corporate-hoarded gold. By using labor’s large but limited resources to mobilize the rainbow working class — including documented and undocumented immigrant workers; the unemployed and underemployed; youth; and communities threatened with foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs —

to fight in its own name, the corporate-bought campaign ads and lobbying stranglehold can be broken and the capitalist class will lose its dominion not just over Congress and the elections, but over the working class as well.