It's amazing how people can brazenly want things both ways.
Here's Mitch McConnell, the beneficiary of so many business contributions to keep doing things that undermine democracy, like deny Merrick Garland, the current Attorney General, his rightful chance to get onto the Supreme Court. So now he's utilizing the gift that democracy gave him to mouth off about businesses weighing in on Georgia's post-election legislation. It's designed to guarantee that, potentially, fewer people of color don't get to determine their representatives again.
Some businesses are protesting. Their leaders have a social conscience, it turns out.
"It's just stupid," he said, as if they committed some kind of ghastly faux pas or something. Of course, he wants it both ways.
In conjunction with the infamous Supreme Court decision of Citizens United in 2010, allowing businesses to contribute as much money as they want, often without much if any accountability, to whatever candidate they wish--and being businesses, far more often a Republican candidate, almost automatically in fact--McConnell certainly does want corporate donations in bushel baskets as big as they come. But then he wants it to stop right there.
He wants the money, but not the commentary. The politicians will handle that, I guess. They'll do the explaining.
Citizens United retreated to the days of Buckley v. Valeo (1976), in which the Court determined that giving money did, in fact, constitute "speech." I say what I like, then, when I throw money at it, in the same way I say what I like when I buy anything else.
But don't corporations have trained spokespeople and public relations wonks? Can't they make their scripted commentaries about the monies their bosses spend, regardless of their destination?
In fact, wouldn't it be interesting for them to get deeper into the debate? Then we could tell better where their true sentiments lie.
This situation has McConnell befuddled. Political commentary without donations? What next?
Unacceptable. "Shut up and dribble," sneered Laura Ingraham to LeBron James when the latter came out aggressively in favor of Black Lives Matter. I guess more opinions make things too complicated for her. Or maybe he just didn't enlist Fox News' propaganda department to amplify his sentiments.
Yeah, right. That's gonna happen. But that no longer works, if it ever did. That's master-to-slave talk. That's trying to put someone in their place. That's the last thing that'll happen now.
Believing that corporations aren't supposed to contribute verbal reactions as well as money is, well, let me quote McConnell--just stupid. They're Americans. And the Supreme Court has anointed them with 'person' status, so--why can't they act like political people, too?
And--watch this--they can change their minds. They can choose to support both political parties some of the time or all of the time in making donations. And they can explain why.
They can oppose putting the Major League All-Star Game in Atlanta, Georgia, objecting to what's clearly an attempt by the racist-controlled state legislature to make it more difficult for Black people to vote. It can say, definitively: In support of all the Black people who fly in the planes that bring you to the games, watch the game itself and drink soda on a hot July night, we don't think it's a good idea to patronize racism. We'll take our game elsewhere, where that isn't happening. Denver will be just fine for that.
Not only that, but MLB has a tribute planned for Hank Aaron, home run king and my baseball hero, who passed away earlier this year. It's too bad that one of his baseball playing cities, Atlanta, happens to be the one abandoned for this embarrassment. But as sportswriter Michael Wilbon pointed out, moving the site as a protest for limiting people's rights to vote is actually an even better tribute to Aaron, who quietly but clearly advocated for equal rights and who fielded not only fly balls but death threats as he closed in on Babe Ruth's record.
Delta, and Coca-Cola, and Major League Baseball stand to make just as much money, if not more, by such stances. The television coverage will be the same, except it's being shown on Fox, so don't count on any sideline commentary.
Georgia loses out. Tough beans. The governor can object as much as he wants: He's part of this awful Jim Crow wannabe. It's another shot across the bow of bigotry, brought by big-time sports: If Black people play, don't expect us to ignore it. I salute Major League Baseball.
Corporations are a way of life, unfortunately, an offshoot of the bigness of America. Some make things easier, some do not. Some are all too aware of the tune that they make the common consumer dance to. So when some of them are aware enough to make a principled stand for voting rights, that stand should be heralded and shouted into the sky.
That's all they've done. And that's plenty.
And to the whiners? I don't need to tell you to 'shut up and dribble.' You can just shut up.
Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
If money is speech, then speech should certainly still be speech -- and when you don't like what is said, you can counter it, you can ignore it, or you can attack the rights of those practicing it.... Oh, wait. the speech he's not liking is all about suppressing the votes of those who don't vote the way they like - yeah, it's about freedom to do as I say.
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