Such a comforting thought—that overturning a single court case can resolve some of society’s biggest problems. With Citizens United, the idea seems to be that huge strides could be made by reversing it, thereby “getting the money out of” elections. It’s our current version of the “silver bullet” myth of old. Kind of like thinking …
Is Citizens United Focus a Good Use of Our Time? (2014) Read More »
by Jane Anne Morris Before running off trying to counter the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), we ought to sort out what this decision does and does not do. The Citizens United decision does make our democracy theme park a little worse, the way having an atomic bomb …
(Citizens United) Court’s Campaign Money Ruling Is a Red Herring (2010) Read More »
Three Positives that the Democratish should follow up on. Nix the so-called “free trade” agreements. Push Single-Payer health care. Revise the voting system. Later I’ll get to what everybody’s enjoying whining about. First the positives, if you can stand it.
Do you think you can understand butterflies perfectly well without knowing caterpillars? Corporate political contributions had a caterpillar stage; I’m guessing you won’t even recognize it.
by Jane Anne Morris When the “Hillary Clinton film” case is decided, headlines should declare, “Supreme Court affirms corporate personhood.” Instead, most media will call it a free speech decision. “First Amendment rights” will play the Trojan horse hauling corporate freight.
by Jane Anne Morris How is it unconstitutional for a state to require place-of-origin labels on meat? Regulate sale of its water? Establish worker protections stricter than federal standards? Where does the US Constitution say that states cannot require that toxic waste be sorted and labeled? Cannot include labor standards in state purchasing policy? Cannot …
SLAPPs In Depth (2017) SLAPPs — Further Reading (a Bibliography) (2017) Corporate Law Secrets Exposed by Anthropologist (1995/2015) Eat, Sleep, Click: The Bicycle Powered Internet (2012) Fukushima: A “Normal Accident” (2012) “ObamaCare,” the Constitution, and Democracy: The Heart of the Matter (2012) Roberts Earns His Keep: The Supreme Court’s “ObamaCare” Decision (2012) Wikipedia (Link, Link): …
By Jane Anne Morris Too Big to Fail? Regulatory agencies are not, and never were, the Great Protectors of the public interest that hazy origin myths suggest. Understanding regulatory failure entails accepting this inconvenient truth and then moving on.
By Jane Anne Morris This article was written around the time Maine and a few other states were considering “campaign finance reform” laws. The historical perspective, even in the aftermath of the Citizens United case, shows us how little has changed. Many of these issues have been discussed by Maine labor activist Peter Kellman, author …
Speaking Truth To Power About Campaign Reform (1998) Read More »
A Short Preface: The View from 2015… The piece below, once available as a pamphlet, was written in 1998 to try to induce “activists” to pierce the invisible force field that seems to keep them from reading the history of corporate law. Whether or not it succeeds in that sense, it offers a perspective on …
Corporate Law Secrets Exposed By Anthropologist (1998/2015) Read More »