Superbowl XLIV Champion New Orleans Saints
At the risk of being presumptuous, I give you THE Superbowl XLIV Champions The New Orleans Saints.
2010 Superbowl Champions The New Orleans Saints
This image is by New Orleans artist Marquis Colston and is available at the New Orleans Saints Official Website for sale. All proceeds from the sale of prints of this fine painting will be donated to local New Orleans Charities.
FOLLOW UP: Let the record show that I called it at 8:00AM this morning!
February 7, 2010
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Corporations, Free Speech and Avocados
January 24, 2010 – by Gregory Franklyn
This week the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision that removes any restrictions on the amount of money a corporation can expend in a political campaign. I was able to get through a small portion of the 183 page dissertation but had read enough to understand its fundamental flaw. As Supreme Court decisions are supposed to be, it was limited to very narrow considerations of intricately limited facts at issue based on an existing premise. The case involves a Documentary by Citizens United that is relentlessly critical of the Presidential Candidacy of then Senator Hillary Clinton.
The court ruled that previous restrictions on contributions to political elections by corporations were constitutionally faulted and made corrections to “Clean House” of conflicting rulings from the past as regards the First Amendment Right to free speech. They, in essence, threw out select decided law by choosing one, of two or more, conflicting decisions they preferred and overturning the ones that contradicted them. The decisions were subjective as evidenced by the split between conservatives and liberals on the court. There are more conservatives on the Court than liberals so the conservative subjective won. This is what is called “Judicial Activism”.
My argument with this decision is even more fundamental than anything the Court considered. The Court relied on a premise that a corporation, in the same way as a person, has first amendment protection of free speech. The Court’s appears to approach the First Amendment from the ethereal position that free speech is protected regardless of the identity of the speaker. Placing the protection before the protected. Another way of putting it would be that the Court sees the right as applying universally to all. Under this reasoning, if an avocado could communicate in a way that could be processed or understood, that avocado’s right to free speech would be protected by the Constitution. This is really good news for robots and droids and artificial life forms like corporations.
My disagreement with the Court is this. I approach the First Amendment from the position that the speaker, must have the capacity, of his or her own volition, to speak (or communicate in the case of someone who is differently abled) independently. The intent of the First Amendment is to allow and protect dissent. Dissent requires reasoning. The protected is the direct cause of the protection. In short, an avocado’s speech is not protected because an avocado cannot communicate in a manner that can be processed or understood.
I cannot conceptualize how an avocado has the capacity to dissent. It could be argued that an avocado dying because of global warming is a form of speech, of protest, if you will. But I argue that the avocado dies as a result of global warming and not out of reasoning to dissent from the forces causing global warming.
A corporation is a legal entity. It is created by law. It cannot vote, it cannot be arrested or put in jail, it cannot be counted in a census so as to be represented by a senator or representative. It is, at its core, ethereal. Its only existence is dependent upon our thoughts about it and, outside our thoughts, has no existence what-so-ever! Although a corporation is a being, it is a purely artificial one, created out of nothing, that exists only because we say it exists. It does not have the capacity to reason or dissent independently.
I also disagree with the ruling that money is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment, but that’s a whole other discussion for another day and probably wouldn’t matter much if corporations were not protected by the First Amendment right to free speech. The Court has acknowledged the corruptive influence of money in politics, they limited the amount of money an individual can contribute to a political campaign to $2,500. That is unless you’re a corporation, in which case there is now, no limit. Although a legitimate tool of communication and advocacy, money should be considered different from other communication tools under the law because of that influence. Money impacts the affairs of state in a different manner than any other communication tool and should be considered differently under the law for that reason.
Here’s where this ruling gets really crazy for me. The Court holds that a corporation, which is an artificial being, has the same rights as an individual, but I, who can vote, who can be arrested and put in jail, who can be counted in a census so as to be represented by a Senator and a Representative, who is, in fact a living breathing being that can reason and dissent independently, do not!
I’m a gay man and the Court still holds that I do not have the right or the freedom to marry whom I choose based solely upon my gender. If I’m not mistaken, gender is specifically spelled out in the Constitution as a protected class being singled out so there won’t be any gray area about the fact that I should be included in all rights and freedoms granted by our Constitution! WTF?
According to this Court, not only do I lack the same rights and freedoms as an ethereal concept, like a corporation, I don’t even have the same constitutional protection that this Court, by its own reasoning, gives to a frigging avocado! Would somebody please pour me a Bourbon & Coke!
Much Love,
Gregory
January 24, 2010
Tags: civil rights, Corporate Greed, Current Events, Democratic Philosophy, Economics, George Bush, GLBT, Media, Obama, Politics, Presidential Politics, wall street Posted in: Current Events, Economics, Gay & Lesbian, Health Care, Media, Politics No Comments
The Party of “No!”
January 19, 2010 – by Gregory Franklyn
Rudy Giuliani
“In an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Former New York Mayor and Republican Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani said, “We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama.” This, the Old Media claims, is an example of Rudy “somehow” forgetting that 9/11 occurred.” (News By Us January 17, 2010)
I’ve done a lot of public speaking in my time and I can attest that there are times when you accidentally let something slip out that you didn’t intend. Rudy Giuliani’s nickname in political circles is “Mayor 9/11” for crying out loud. He didn’t forget that the 9/11 attacks occurred on the Bush Regime’s watch. I could easily see this Giuliani quote as one of those moments when his mouth simply got a sentence ahead of his brain. It happens!
I could believe it was a slip of the tongue if not for watching news programs from a number of outlets during that same week. Liz Chaney insinuated as much that Sunday Morning on another talk show. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Dearth Chaney, the tall skinny Fox Views & Friends guy and a few others all made similar comments while discussing the failed Underwear Bomber attack on Christmas Day. Given the chorus of other conservative voices parroting, essentially, the same line, I’m not so sure it was a slip of the tongue. It looks a lot like a talking point from the RNC now!
All of these Conservative Republicans blame the Obama Administration’s policy on terror for this failed attack, while at the same time, glossing over the most horrific, SUCCESSFUL, terrorist attack on the United States that has ever happened. They complain that Obama is inviting terrorist attacks by not following the Bush Regime’s “Shoot First and ask questions later” approach to keeping our country safe. They fail to realize that the very presence of Barack Obama in the White House and his policy of including diplomacy in our arsenal of weapons against terrorism has reduced the threat of attacks at the source. Not eliminated, mind you, but reduced! People who want us dead are not quite as pissed off at Obama as they were at Bush. That’s a fact!
All of these conservative folks blaming the Obama White House for the failed Underwear Bomber attack conveniently forgot that an identical attack, the Shoe Bomber, was thwarted in the exact same way under the Bush Regime! They also forgot about the Anthrax Attack, the smuggling of explosives at the Canadian Border and the Shampoo Bomber. There were others, but I trust you get my point. The record for the most terrorist attacks both foreign and domestic against the United States is still held by the Bush Regime by quite a wide margin. I believe it has a lot to do with the Bush Regime’s response to terror. Which was to be terrified and to act out of terror!
These criticisms of President Obama aren’t about their belief that our President doesn’t care about the safety of Americans. They know he does! The criticisms coming from the Right are about Barack Obama being the President of the United States, they are about confronting terror without fear and insanity, they are about conservative disagreement with the idea that diplomacy is an effective weapon and should play a starring role in our foreign policy. It is also, at least in part, about the posibility that Barack Obama’s approach to fighting terrorism just might work.
Conservative Republicans disagree with the concept of a government that works. When in power, they remind me of the scientist who backs a lab rat into a corner and pokes a stick at it until it attacks the stick and then writes in his notes, “Rats are Violent”. They WANT government to fail and dedicate a great deal of political action, rhetoric and votes to insure that it does, because a failed government proves a central point of conservatism. “Big Government cannot solve our problems, Big Government IS the problem!”
A perfect example of what I mean is the yearlong circus we’ve just endured about Health Care Reform. Conservative Republicans have a vested interest in the failure of health care reform because if our health care system is reformed to the point where it works, a central philosophy of conservatism will be proven faulty. Towards that end, Conservatives in both parties have been able to include amendments and remove components that are all carefully designed to prevent it from achieving any of its intended goals! And when it comes to a final vote, Republicans will all, every last one, vote against it because they’ve trashed it so badly that it can’t reform anything.
A reformed health care system that includes a public option strikes at the very jugular vein of conservatism. Publicly funded health care works. There are 36 other countries in the world, Medicare, Medicaid and the Veteran’s Administration that all serve as living examples of the fact that it works! If they allow a publicly funded health care option to work, conservatives are faced with living breathing proof that a core principle of conservatism has no foundation. Given that no one in the Republican Party or the Conservative movement has been able to come up with a better idea to reform health care their only remaining option is to be the party of “NO!”
Much Love,
Gregory
January 19, 2010
Tags: Corporate Greed, Current Events, Democratic Philosophy, Dick Chaney, George Bush, Health Care, Media, Obama, Politics, Price Fixing, Republican Philosophy, wall street Posted in: Current Events, Economics, Health Care, Media, Politics No Comments
