In a burst of judicial activism, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upended the gubernatorial race in Arizona, cutting off matching funds to candidates participating in the state’s public campaign finance system. Suddenly, three candidates, including Gov. Jan Brewer, can no longer receive public funds they had counted on to run against a free-spending wealthy opponent.

The court’s reckless order muscling into the race was terse and did not say whether there were any dissents, though it is hard to imagine there were not. An opinion explaining its reasoning will have to wait until the next term, assuming it takes the case, but by that time the state’s general election will be over and its model campaign finance system substantially demolished.

It seems likely that the Roberts court will use this case to continue its destruction of the laws and systems set up in recent decades to reduce the influence of big money in politics. By the time it is finished, millionaires and corporations will have regained an enormous voice in American politics, at the expense of candidates who have to raise money the old-fashioned way and, ultimately, at the expense of voters.

The oil companies and other giant corporations have a stranglehold on American policies and behavior, and are choking off the prospects of a viable social and economic future for working people and their families.

President Obama spoke critically a couple of weeks ago about the “cozy relationship” between the oil companies and the federal government. It’s not just a cozy relationship. It’s an unholy alliance. And that alliance includes not just the oil companies but the entire spectrum of giant corporations that have used vast wealth to turn democratically elected officials into handmaidens, thus undermining not just the day-to-day interests of the people but the very essence of democracy itself.

Forget BP for a moment. When is the United States going to get its act together? Will we learn anything from this disaster or will we simply express our collective dismay, ignore the inevitable commission reports (no one pays attention to study commissions), and bury our heads back in the oily sand?

President Obama said on Thursday that his administration was “moving quickly on steps to ensure that a catastrophe like this never happens again.” Well, he can’t ensure anything of the kind. And, in fact, his corporate-friendly policy of opening up new regions for offshore drilling (that policy is only temporarily halted) will all but guarantee future disastrous spills.

The U.S. will never get its act together until we develop the courage and the will to crack down hard on these giant corporations. They need to be tamed, closely monitored and regulated, and constrained in ways that no longer allow them to trample the best interests of the American people.

What is remarkable about this piece from Bob Herbert of the NYT is that this is now the consistent message of the NYT - a paper of record. This is not Mother Jones.

What it says to me is that the knowledge that America has been captured is seeping out into the mainstream.

The Tea-baggers may be laughable but I think they too have this sense - their anger is focused on government which is only part of the problem. When they see more clearly they will see that their government is a slave to corporate interest.

Feels like the 1760's to me. A nation that was governed by a government whose interests were for itself and not for those that paid the taxes. The American Colonies paid for Britain's imperial and business interests at the price of their own.

At first it was just a few hot heads like Paine. But as the decade moved on and especially after the end of the 7 years war when Britain had to pay for the war, the injustice and the pain of being controlled by a government that did not care for them entered the mainstream. When pillars of the local system like Washington and Jefferson could see that this situation could not stand.

Time I think for a new Declaration of Independence - this time from the Corporate control.

Jefferson's words ring with today's truth do they not?

"That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."

Martin Luther did the same 200 years prior when he called the Church to account for their corruption. His point was that only God could offer redemption - not the Pope or his priests and certainly not as a commercial transaction. His point was that the Church had been captured by commerce.

"1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.

2. This word cannot be understood to mean sacramental penance, i.e., confession and satisfaction, which is administered by the priests.

3. Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers mortifications of the flesh.

4. The penalty [of sin], therefore, continues so long as hatred of self continues; for this is the true inward repentance, and continues until our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

5. The pope does not intend to remit, and cannot remit any penalties other than those which he has imposed either by his own authority or by that of the Canons.

6. The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring that it has been remitted by God and by assenting to God's remission; though, to be sure, he may grant remission in cases reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in such cases were despised, the guilt would remain entirely unforgiven."

The green curtain is being pulled back week by week. The man with the white hair is being exposed.

What more can I add?

Carpe Medium.

That is, for those whose public education did not include Latin, Seize the Medium.

The web is a really great device for linking up like-minded folks.

And while Cargil might be able to buy vast swaths of 30-second spots on TV to pimp for the candidate who is going to give them the best deal at our expense, we do have a recourse.

Facebook now has 370 million members.  That’s a lot.

So the idea of getting 1 million like-minded folks together online is not out of the question. In fact, it’s probably pretty likely.

The web has been good at getting those 1 million people to send in $10 each, but even at those rates, they’re gonna be buried by Cargil and it’s ilk.

Instead, I think, the next step is simply to bypass the ad buys and the networks entirely.

If you had 1 million people with video cameras or flip cams, and of those 1 million people created their own 30 second video spots and then flooded the blogosphere with those videos and associated tweets to see them, you could create a tidal wave of media (with a specific point of view) that would effectively bury the Cargil ad campaign.

If 100 phone calls to NBC news made the newsroom go nuts, image what 1 million videos would do.

Upload all of them to iReport at CNN and see what happens.

A media tidal wave, all focused on one thing.

Or one candidate.

No one has harnessed the media in this way… yet.

No one has even come close.

But someone did something very similar about 200 years ago.

Before Napoleon, armies in Europe were professional affairs – well trained, well equipped. Like NBC or CBS News.

Or even Fox.

They were small, perhaps no more than 25,000, but they were professionals.

Napoleon instituted the idea of the Citizen Army.  And the draft.

He built an army of 3 million people.

The Grand Army, and he swept across Europe.

OK, they were ill trained and ill equipped – sometimes only pitchforks, but boy did they work out for him.

If only he hadn’t had that bad winter in Moscow.

I have been in a funk since I heard about this - but Michael has given me hope