Conspiracy Theory  - compiled by Ben DoubleCrossed

If the special interests are half as powerful as we have been led to believe
why should we doubt they crafted the Campaign Reform laws?

The Press Exemption is Backwards
 
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 

 

Since corporations do not worship God, can we agree the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights was written to protect the rights of people?

 

Then it follows that freedom of the press is a right of people and newspapers only enjoy the right because they employ people.

 

Therefore the New York Times has a right to print a newspaper because a citizen has the right to print a handbill.

 

The 1st Amendment is not a loophole in federal campaign law! Federal Campaign Law is a violation of 1st Amendment rights!

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      Lovell v. City of Griffin SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 303 U.S. 444 Argued February 4, 1938 Decided March 28, 1938

 

      The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. These indeed have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets of Thomas Paine and others in our own history abundantly attest. The press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion. What we have had recent occasion to say with respect to the vital importance of protecting this essential liberty from every sort of infringement need not be repeated. Near v. Minnesota, supra; Grosjean v. American Press Co., supra; De Jonge v. Oregon, supra.[note 2]

 

      Whatever differences may exist about interpretations of the First Amendment, there is practically universal agreement that a major purpose of that Amendment was to protect the free discussion of governmental affairs. This of course includes discussions of candidates, structures and forms of government, the manner in which government is operated or should be operated, and all such [384 U.S. 214, 219] matters relating to political processes. The Constitution specifically selected the press, which includes not only newspapers, books, and magazines, but also humble leaflets and circulars, see Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U.S. 444 , to play an important role in the discussion of public affairs.

 

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      UNITED STATES v. ASSOCIATED PRESS et al. Nos. 57, 58 and 59. Argued Dec. 5, 6, 1944. Decided June 18, 1945

 

      It would be strange indeed however if the grave concern for freedom of the press which prompted adoption of the First Amendment should be read as a command that the government was without power to protect that freedom. That Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society. Surely a command that the government itself shall not impede the free flow of ideas does not afford non-governmental combinations a refuge if they impose restraints upon that constitutionally guaranteed freedom. Freedom to publish means freedom for all and not for some. Freedom to publish is guaranteed by the Constitution, but freedom to combine to keep others from publishing is not. Freedom of the press from governmental interference under the First Amendment does not sanction repression of that freedom by private interests.

 

 Purpose of Campaign Laws

The need for Federal Campaign reforms hinge on the potential of big contributions to buy influence in public matters. As a consequence, candidates are limited in how much they can accept from any given donor and required to make public reports, at regular intervals, listing the names, occupations, addresses of donors and their amounts. Furthermore, the candidate must provide public reports stating how the funds are spent.

Who is Exempt

The preceding sounds like a reasonable and laudable public goal but who is exempted from contributions that influence public matters?

 

The Press Exemption:

2 USC 431 (9) (B) The term "expenditure" does not include -

(i) any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed

through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper,

magazine, or other periodical publication, unless such facilities

are owned or controlled by any political party, political

committee, or candidate;

Is Corporate Media Unbiased

A newspaper must at all times antagonize the selfish interests of that very class which furnishes the larger part of a newspaper's income... The press in this country is dominated by the wealthy few...that it cannot be depended upon to give the great mass of the people that correct information concerning political, economical and social subjects which it is necessary that the mass of people Shall have in order that they vote...in the best way to protect themselves from the brutal force and chicanery of the ruling and employing classes. (E.W. Scripps).

 

"It was not until the 1920s that you really get the notion of professional journalists, the way we think about them today," says Michael Delli Carpini, dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. "A lot of different schools of journalism started, codes of ethics were developed, the whole notion of the journalist as objective came into play .... of standing outside the story, telling both sides, of being factual rather than opinionated."

Fact or Fiction – You Decide

"The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy." -Alex Carey, Australian social scientist who pioneered the investigation of corporate propaganda (see Taking the Risk Out Of Democracy, Univ of New South Wales, 1995)

 

Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process." Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, 1907

 

We all know that, as things actually are, many of the most influential and most highly remunerated members of the Bar in every center of wealth, make it their special task to work out bold and ingenious schemes by which their wealthy clients, individual or corporate, can evade the laws which were made to regulate, in the interests of the public, the uses of great wealth. (T. Roosevelt, 1905, at his Harvard Commencement address).

 

As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear, or is trampled beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters (President Grover Cleveland, 1888, quoted by Hughes, Jonathan, R. T. The Governmental Habit Redux: Economic Controls from Colonial Times to the Present, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1991, p. 112, citing Swisher, Karl Brent, American Constitutional Development, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1954, p. 422).

 

"the Supreme Court ruled no such thing in 1886. The 'corporations are persons' ruling was a fiction created by the court's reporter. He simply wrote the words into the headnote of the decision. The words contradict what the court actually said. There is, in fact, in the US National Archives a note by the Supreme Court Chief Justice of the time explicitly informing the reporter that the court had not ruled on corporate personhood in the Santa Clara case." -- Thom Hartmann, Dinosaur War, The Ecologist, December/January 2002 Issue

 

"[A U.S.] Supreme Court ruling in 1886 ... arguably set the stage for the full-scale development of the culture of capitalism, by handing to corporations the right to use their economic power in a way they never had before. Relying on the Fourteenth Amendment, added to the Constitution in 1868 to protect the rights of freed slaves, the Court ruled that a private corporation is a natural person under the U.S. Constitution, and consequently has the same rights and protection extended to persons by the Bill of Rights, including the right to free speech. Thus corporations were given the same "rights" to influence the government in their own interests as were extended to individual citizens, paving the way for corporations to use their wealth to dominate public thought and discourse. The debates in the United States in the 1990s over campaign finance reform, in which corporate bodies can "donate" millions of dollars to political candidates stem from this ruling although rarely if ever is that mentioned. Thus, corporations, as "persons," were free to lobby legislatures, use the mass media, establish educational institutions such as many business schools founded by corporate leaders in the early twentieth century, found charitable organizations to convince the public of their lofty intent, and in general construct an image that they believed would be in their best interests. All of this in the interest of "free speech." -- (Bold Emphasis Added) Richard Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999), p.100

 

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the dollar power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." -Abraham Lincoln

 

Every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add... artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society--the farmers, mechanics, and laborers--who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government. (President Andrew Jackson, veto of national bank bill, July 10, 1832).