NOVEMBER 2009
TOP ISSUE At the WNDC: Professor Jamie Raskin on How Conservative Justices Are Redefining America According to Professor Raskin, we are heading closer to becoming a “corporate state” rather than a democracy. Our constitutional freedoms are being threatened by right-wing Justices who care little about maintaining precedents or the wall separating government from the power of big corporations. The conservatives on the Court are interested in reopening issues resolved long ago and are ignoring the “Cannon of Constitutional Avoidance,” whereby the Court typically attempts to resolve the legal issues before it by the narrowest of means. The activist Justices on the current Court would like nothing better than to assist the corporations. One of the major arguments of the case centers on the definition of “corporation.” Historically, according to Professor Raskin, corporations were considered vehicles for economic activity, subordinate to government and state law. This is the appropriate role for corporations. However, as the power and influence of corporations have risen, they want the same rights that individual citizens have under the constitution. Corporations argue that since they are defined under the law as “persons,” they deserve all of the same rights that individual citizens can exercise, including the ability to give money directly to candidates, campaigns, ads, etc. However, this is a perversion of the law regarding corporate rights and responsibilities. As pointed out by Professor Raskin, even Chief Justice Rehnquist said that corporations do not have constitutional rights in the political sphere. Imagine if corporations were able to spend even a very small percentage of their profits on telling people how to vote. Imagine what the health care debate would look like if the insurance companies could directly lobby individuals. This is the outcome we could face if the Supreme Court finds in favor of Citizens United. – Sharon Grosfeld ALSO AT THE WNDC Lehrer also talked about changes to news reporting, which included one close to home. He said that, starting in December, “The “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” will become the “PBS Newshour.” New media are having a negative effect on the mainstream press; Craigslist is virtually eliminating classified advertising. He is concerned about the future of journalism. Democracy, he said, requires an informed electorate. He has a hard time recommending journalism to young people as a profession. Looking to the future, however, he sees the pendulum swinging back. “People don’t want to spend all day reading blogs. We will return to gatekeepers.” Statement on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1888 on The Woman’s National Democratic Club wishes to congratulate Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for bringing before the U.N. Security Council a resolution mandating steps the U.N. must take to combat the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Resolution 1888 was passed by the Security Council September 30, 2009. Among its provisions, the resolution calls for the appointment of a U.N. Special Representative to lead, coordinate, and advocate efforts to end conflict-related sexual violence against women and children, the selection of a team of experts to advise governments, the appointment of women’s protection advisors in peacekeeping operations in countries where appropriate, and calls for the Secretary General to submit annual reports on the implementation of this and earlier resolutions. In her remarks the Secretary said, “The dehumanizing nature of sexual violence doesn’t just harm a single individual or a single family or even a single village or a single group. It shreds the fabric that weaves us together as human beings…. Our failure as an international body to respond concretely to this global problem erodes our collective effectiveness. So we must act now to end this crisis not only to protect vulnerable people and promote human security, but to uphold the legitimacy of this body.” The Woman’s National Democratic Club wholeheartedly believes that such acts of violence constitute one of the most serious forms of human rights violations, and interventions to stop this barbarism must be immediate. WNDC Hosts Benefit for Abused Women and Girls in the Eastern Congo “Balance” in News: The (mis)Chosen “Balancers” Lest this be taken as a Financial Times in-joke on the difficulties of finding top economic experts, two days later the FT coverage of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize award led with a (very short) quote from the recipient followed by a (very short) quote from the citation and a quote from a world leader (German Chancellor, Angela Merkel). Then came the first quote from an American. That first quote (still on the front page) was from right-wing radio host, Russ Limbaugh, whose charming reaction was, “the Nobel Gang just suicide-bombed themselves.” Buried on the inside pages and bracketed by more Limbaugh, was a quote from a logical U.S. source, Ted Turner, the head of the U.N. foundation. Praise for Obama was segregated into a short piece headlined “Admirers Welcome Prophetic Award.” Except for the Turner quote the coverage just underscored the understanding that this was an award to a partisan figure, not to the President of the United States. Republicans were supposed to hate the award. The coverage in the Washington Post the same day was unremittingly negative. After quoting the head of the Nobel Committee (the positive balance?) the first quote in the lead report was from the head of the Taliban (the negative balance?). Quotes from U.S. political figures were in a box and were 5 to 4 from Republicans. The last time I counted the ratio of Democrats to Republicans in the Senate is 3 to 2. Maybe “balanced” reporting should be redefined as “proportional” reporting with 3 Democratic spokespersons for every 2 Republicans, or, then again, maybe it shouldn’t be assumed that every story is a story about U.S. political parties (although that may have already become a self-fulfilling prophesy). What is going on here? Who says that any party official is the logical person to interview on the decline of the dollar, let alone Sarah Palin? And if you do quote one, why should it be from the furthest extreme of the party. Has “balance” in reporting come to mean that only quotes from the extremes count? --Betsy Clark The Political Dispatch is a publication of the WNDC Public Policy Committee
|