Millennial Feelin' The Bern: Citizens United

In January 21, 2010 the campaign finance case came through the Supreme Court: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commissio. The ruling on the case opened the flood gates of corruption. The Supreme Court, in a 4 to 5 decision, basically said that corporations and labor unions can spend as much as they want to convince people to vote for, or against a candidate.

". . . corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their 'personhood' often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."

~Supreme Court Justice Stevens, January 2010

There was a part that stated that corporations could not give money directly to a candidate so PAC's were created. PAC's are Political Action Committees that are set in place to help fuel the election process. Corporations are permitted to give the large sums of money to a third party who shells out the money to the politicians and legally bribe them into making political decisions for the 1% opposed to the entire United States.

I will use the Koch brothers as my example. The Koch family has the second largest privately owned company in the United States and their net worth is about 100 Billion. In 1977 they founded CATO which is a libertarian Think-Tank dedicated to funding other entities, laboratories, media and candidates to influence and sway our people and government under a political guise of "Freedom". Freedom for them to cut their business taxes, strip the workers of healthcare, living wages, pension and give to CEO's without prosecution.