Story Of Stuff Explains Citizens United Supreme Court Decision
With her 20 minute “Story of Stuff” web-video, Annie Leonard explained some of the downside of consumerism to a lot of Americans. Now with her “Story of Citizens United” video, she explains why she and many others believe the corporate personhood extended by the 2010 Citizens United vs FEC Supreme Court decision threatens the U.S. democratic system of government.
Author:Hajra ShannonReviewer:Paula M. GrahamJul 31, 2020309 Shares23.7K Views
With her 20 minute “Story of Stuff” web-video, Annie Leonard explained some of the downside of consumerism to a lot of Americans. Now with her “Story of Citizens United” video, she explains why she and many others believe the corporate personhood extended by the 2010 Citizens United vs FECSupreme Court decision threatens the U.S. democratic system of government. She calls on Americans to pass a Constitutional Amendment clarifying that the First Amendment granting the right to free expression is not meant to include corporations.
The film may gain special traction in swing-state Colorado, where residents endured a record-breaking nearly universally acknowledged disgusting blitz of corporate-funded over-the-top political advertising last year.
As Brad Friedman points out, the video underlines the misguided nature of attempts on the part of elected officials to convince corporations and their largest lobbying group the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to act in ways that benefit America. In fact, the law doesn’t make it possible for corporations to prioritize “benefiting America” or anything else beside maximizing profits. It makes a speech like the one President Obama gave to the Chamber of Commerce earlier this yearseem ridiculous.
“„We need to make America the best place on Earth to do business.
As a business expenditure, corporate political expression, like all other expenses, is legally required above all else to ultimately generate profits.
Corporations have been granted the right to free political expression but they remain exempted from most of the responsibilities citizens weigh when making electoral decisions. No individual citizen is subject to that same narrow legal pressure in deciding which candidates to support. Yet no individual citizen can compete with the resources available to corporate America.
The film points viewers to DemocracyIsForPeople.org campaign to help pass a Constitutional Amendment.
UPDATE:Conservative commentator and attorney Lee Doren posted a video responseto Leonard’s Citizen’s United film, as he did earlier to her Story of Stuff. Doren’s critique includes more on the actual court case and ruling. He better underlines the thorny Constitutional and public interest questions the ruling raised and the advantages for individual Americans that came of establishing corporate legal categories that bestow collective rights in the first place. Doren, however, never seems to address head on the larger concern Leonard raises that many will find compelling - the point about the disproportionate power of corporations (any kind of corporation), especially given that they are dedicated by law to a single purpose that can demonstrably be shown in glaring instances to go against the interests of the people.
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Hajra Shannon
Author
Paula M. Graham
Reviewer
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