Happy Birthday Citizens United! It’s been a great two years for you and we are so looking forward to whatever wonders you will bring us this election year.

They may be cute as a button, but there’s a reason they call it the “Terrible Two’s”. Whether it be children, relationships or fascist takeovers of nations, this seems to be the time that all hell breaks loose. According to Dr. Iannelli at About.com | Pediatrics,

To help you cope with this normal stage in your child’s development, you should always remember that your child isn’t trying to be defiant or rebellious on purpose. He is just trying to express his growing independence and doesn’t have the language skills to easily express his needs. This can also be the reason why your toddler frequently gets frustrated and resorts to hitting, biting, and temper tantrums when he doesn’t get his way.

Our present situation began to quickly develop when a conservative political group called Citizens United wanted to show an unflattering movie about Hillary Clinton during the primary elections of 2008. They eventually succeeded in winning on January 21, 2010 when the Supreme Court decided that corporations and unions could spend unlimited funds on political ads during campaigns. That is why we now are swamped with political ads and huge amounts of cash flowing into corporate politicians and into corporate media to influence our government’s laws to benefit the corporations and businesses, usually at the expense of the people and the environment.

Once the Supreme Court makes a decision, it’s final. The only way to get around them is to pass a Constitutional Amendment. That can be even harder than convincing a Tea Partier that Obama is cool. The main ingredient we need is a true grassroots movement and politicians who are willing to champion our causes… which seems to have happened, thankfully. In no small way, the Occupy Wall St. movement has changed the national conversation and has begun to change the corporate tide into a popular movement for democracy and economic fairness and opportunity.

These protesters have not been identified with OWS, but the spirit of protest nevertheless continues on:

Realizing the problems we face starts with understanding the corruption of money in our election process. The movement to energize and educate people to realize the need to amend the constitution has gained strength and spread quickly. Several cities and states, including Montana, Vermont, Colorado, New York City, New York, Los Angeles, California, and Oakland, California, have passed amendments and resolutions supporting a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United. Six Democratic Senators as well as a Democratic Congressmen have introduced separate constitutional amendments to ban corporate personhood. Endless online petitions and groups have formed to combat Citizens United. This blog itself was conceived from the frustration from those abominable political ads born from the Citizens United decision.

If you haven’t already familiarized yourself with Citizens United, please take a moment to review the following videos. It is important that every person become capable of explaining and answering questions about this extremely dangerous threat to our nation’s existence.

The Guardian UK: Senator Bernie Sanders: We must stop this corporate takeover of American democracy

Robert Reich, Chairman of Common Cause – Progressive Explanation
Visit www.amend2012.org to join the effort!

As expected, the folks who want that corruption so they can indeed allow private entities to control our government with the power of financial influence find all sorts of ways to distort the reality. Watch CATO try to deflect accusations of corporate corruption of the government and turn it around to be government corruption of business. Poor helpless innocent businesses. If only there were no labor laws, minimum wages, environmental protections, pollution regulations, or social programs, those poor over-burdened billionaire corporations could find a way to use the trillions of dollars they are just sitting on to hire people out of the goodness of their golden hearts. It’s either that or the jobs are going to China and India!

So there you see the Conservative – Libertarian destructive combination doing their very best to enslave the ninety-nine percent of us while they roll around naked in the fruit of our labor.

CATO Institue – Koch Brothers Explanation

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.” ~ Franlink Delano Roosevelt

Thom Hartmann and Bernie Sanders talk about the constitutional amendment on Brunch with Bernie (42 minutes)
Friday January 20, 2012