Director Adam McKay: SCOTUS Ruling in Favor of Free Speech is 'Treason'

You see, Hollywoodists like “Step Brothers” director Adam McKay believe that only the Huffington Post, George Soros, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, NPR, The New York Times, The L.A. Times, Big Labor Unions, and GE (through NBC and MSNBC) should be allowed to use unlimited resources to affect the outcome of political campaigns.

Corporations, big and small, however, just need to shut the hell up. Unless, of course, that corporation is MSNBC or any of those listed above. Confusing, right? Well, thank heaven (and Citizens United) that five wise men on the Supreme Court also went, “Huh?”

You would think that no one would be a bigger champion of an unfettered First Amendment than a leftist Hollywood director. But if you think that, you haven’t been paying attention.

Two separate looks at how the landmark SCOTUS decision is playing out. You decide which point of view is most concerned about the health of our democracy…

Hollywood director Adam McKay:

What the Supreme Court — specifically Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy — has done, is nothing short of a violent coup for the corporations to seize control of our government. There’s no violence yet, but it will come in the form of many more profit-driven corporate wars in the molds of Vietnam and Iraq and the jailing of millions more non-violent offenders to fuel the corporate built and run prisons. Not to mention dramatic rises in the crime rate as the middle class completely disappears.

What (I’ll write their names again, because they should not be forgotten) Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Kennedy are guilty of is treason. There is no other name for it. Using very flimsy law, they have betrayed the very idea of our nation, a nation founded on checks and balances as a way to dilute concentrated power. Because time and time again it has corrupted and distorted. We saw the devastating effects of big business’s hold on government with the robber barons and the Great Depression in the early 20th century, but the corporations reconstituted and waited with an inhuman silver-dude-from-Terminator-2-like patience.

Steve Chapman in Real Clear Politics:

The result was not in much doubt after the justices heard the [Citizens United] case. The government lawyer defending the statute was asked: If movies financed by corporations may be banned because they express opinions on candidates, how about books?

“It’s a 500-page book, and at the end it says, ‘So vote for X,’ the government could ban that?” asked Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. Replied the Justice Department attorney, “Well, if it says ‘vote for X,’ it would be express advocacy and it would be covered by the pre-existing Federal Election Campaign Act provision.”

If the corporation wanted to publish such a book, he continued, “we could prohibit the publication of the book using corporate treasury funds.” We could prohibit the publication of the book. …

Once you grant the government that sort of power, it is bound to expand. Newspapers could be forbidden to make endorsements. Right now, media companies are exempt from the ban. But why should a newspaper be free to spend money urging voters to support a candidate, while other companies are not?

Critics fear that freed from constraints, giant corporations will burn vast sums to help or hurt politicians. In reality, most business people are not about to plunge into divisive election campaigns, for fear of antagonizing customers.

And there’s your disconnect between Hollywood and the real world. “Antagonizing customers” isn’t considered a bad thing in Tinseltown. There it’s called a resume enhancer. And McKay is certainly lost on this point, as well. His film “Step Brothers” opens with a partisan joke ridiculing George W. Bush.

Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! to Citizens United for winning a landmark victory crucial to a healthy, robust political debate. And it looks as though we also owe you our thanks for helping to once again smoke out these Hollywood types as the Fascists-In-Waiting they really are.

NOTE: Please file this post in your folder marked: Gee, Why Does Hollywood Love Hugo, Fidel, and Che?