In the 2008 election, Barack Obama and John McCain combined to spend about $1 billion. And the combined expenditures of the entire 2008 cycle came to a record-shattering $5.3 billion in spending by candidates, political parties and interest groups on the congressional and presidential races.
But with the Supreme Court's latest ruling on corporate financing of federal campaigns, that tally will amount to a mere pittance. The floodgates have officially been opened.
And how did the Supreme Court arrive at its ruling?
Well, according to the Court, a humongous, multi-billion dollar corporation is the equivalent of a single, individual citizen.
Go figure.
At least one justice disagrees, quite sensibly.
"Corporations are not human beings... corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires.... they are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established." — Justice John Paul Stevens
What we as a nation have to face is that the last plank of democracy has been shattered.
We are now officially a corporatocracy.
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