“Money is not people.”

That summation came to me from a senior federal judge, who was expressing his blunt dissent from the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United (CU) ruling. He remarked, “It’s at least the second worst decision in the Court’s history, and I don’t immediately recall one that was worse.”

Will this ruling, which allows corporations the same First Amendment right of free speech that it gives people, become the fatal blow to the democracy that the Founding Fathers envisioned, government of, by, and for the people, as Lincoln phrased it? It is surely playing that way in the politics of 2012, from Wisconsin’s failed attempt to recall the governor, which was buried by a $30 million flood of out-of-state money, to the bitter campaigns being waged for the presidency and Congress.

These campaigns are awash in money already piled far higher than any previous campaigns have cost. Will they prove that money is indeed the root of all evil? Or, will our voters soon grow smart enough to defend their turf and autonomy by voting against any candidate backed by out-of-state money? The alternative is government of, by, and for billionaires.

The irony of the CU ruling, reached on a 5-4 vote, lies in the makeup of the Court, which allows an unelected jurist to stand as the most power official of our government. The Constitution ought to require that any decision that changes or discards existing law must come by a 6-3 vote, the same majority by which treaties are ratified by the Senate. The import of the former is easily as great as that of the latter.

A lawyer who is a veteran of Congressional staff work and private practice believes that the Founding Fathers crippled the Constitution by the oversight of leaving to the States the authority to form corporations, which bear no responsibility for the Preamble’s promise “to promote the General Welfare,” and whose sole purpose is to make money.

That being their sole purpose, it is mind-boggling that the highest Court would confuse them with people. Money is not people!

The bills that propose to dismantle this wreckage could easily become the most significant legislative battle of the 21st century in Congress. It will be a titanic struggle. The nation’s capital and Capitol are heavily painted in the color of money, spread by the so-called Special Interests, which essentially are the lobbying arms of the multi-national corporations.

The multi-nationals live less and less by the rule of law. Thanks to the Supreme Court, they live mainly now by their own rules and the multi-media reach of the propaganda their wealth buys. When challenged by the laws of any nation, their wealth can also swamp any court proceeding, tying up it for years through the maneuvers of the most influential lawyers, themselves members of the One Percent who can easily confuse self-interest with the Preamble’s promise “to establish Justice.”

Will the Ninety-Nine Percent find the unifying theme and the cohesion by which they can prove, once and for all, that money is not people?

– Frank Mensel, June 2012