Lifting the veil on free-speech threats

Few folks are against free speech. But what one says is always limited to what one sees. Many good talkers are not necessarily good seers.

Case in point: Chapman Rackaway's recent column on the Supreme Court Citizens United case. His misguided missile, intended to strike its critics, instead winds up wounding the very free speech he advocates.

That arrow struck especially deep, given Rackaway's solid contributions to free speech, particularly through his hosting of candidate forums on Smoky Hills Public Television and his college teaching. His achievements illustrate, however, that all truth is relative, and sometimes blinded.

To defend free speech, Rackaway scaled Mount Everest rhetorical heights, only to fall off the cliff of corporate, moneyed influence. It's a common error.

Most folks lack understanding or acceptance of the role of money and power. In political campaigns, what gets said, or more exactly, what gets heard, is a function of how much money is "saying" it. Rackaway concedes as much.

However, when he says, "We force candidates to raise money and then cry foul when they do," there's a grain of truth, but only a grain.

"We" don't. The system does. And the 2002 McCain-Feingold act that "cried foul" was an attempt by lawmakers to curb money's influence in elections, to level the playing field or "pecking order of political speech," to use Rackaway's term.

To accept that pecking order -- to say the Supreme Court's gutting of McCain-Feingold "merely righted a terrible wrong" -- is simply nonsense.

For those who think the Supreme Court 5 (activist justices Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy) have our best interests at heart, I have some waterfront property in Death Valley that I know you cannot pass up.

Kennedy, a "moderate" judge, held solidly against money's influence more than a decade ago (in judges' elections). As he then said, "This mad scramble to raise and spend money (leads to) the perception or reality that judicial independence is undermined." Now he's turned against his better judgment -- and against the 80 percent of Americans -- Republican, Democrat and independent -- who oppose this decision.

Rackaway and the court suffer a failure of imagination. The problem (not the solution) is money. Election reforms like public funding, clean elections and an instant runoff could short-circuit money's influence in public affairs.

In 2007-08, Barack Obama's Internet fund drive seemed to provide a way around fat-cat cash-raising. One sharp speaker, he would nonetheless have gone unheard and unsung without 2 million Americans' astonishing outpouring of donations. This unprecedented uprising-by-PayPal gave him an early lead. Eventually, the big boys came to his door.

Citizens United, however, wipes away any chance of that happening again. Bye, bye, citizen's revolution. Bye, bye, fairness. Bye, bye, free speech.

Foreign loot front-loading was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's first concern. The Chinese hold a $2 trillion mortgage on our Treasury and recently raised concerns about the cost of Obama's health care reform bill. Would nervous Chinese landlords think of buying the White House for a Gov. Palin opposing government spending? You betcha!

The danger comes not just from moneyed foreign interests but from moneyed mega-corporations. One example will particularly interest Kansans.

Remember 1994's "Contract on America"? Newt Gingrich came to power in a GOP takeover funded by a flood of last-minute attack ads from a group called, "Coalition for Our Children's Future." The $25 million for those ads came, not from concerned parents, but from a corporation called Triad Inc.

As journalist Greg Palast notes, "Evidence suggests Triad Inc. was the front for the ultra-right-wing billionaire Koch Brothers (whose father co-founded the John Birch Society) and their private petroleum company, Koch Industries (based in Wichita). Had the corporate connection been proven, the Kochs and their corporation could have faced indictment under federal election law."

With the Citizens United decision, such money-poisoned politicking has become legit.

Koch is notorious for such anti-government, astro-turf, fake grassroots movements: Americans for Progress, TABOR, Patients United Now, Save Our Ballot, Free Our Energy, No Stimulus, etc.

So it's not just un-Americans we need to fear, but Polluter-Americans, Pharma-mericans, Bank-Americans and Oil-Americans. They can now further manipulate campaigns from behind corporate veils. Without action, our future elections won't pit Republicans against Democrats. Instead, they'll become four-way battles between China, Saudi Arabia, Goldman Sachs and Koch Industries.

Learn how to fight big-money front groups. Check sunlightfoundation.com, mediamattersaction.org/transparency and sourcewatch.org.

No, Freedom isn't free. Neither is free speech.

See it (clearly), say it, do it. Citizen participation gives us the last word.

David Norlin, Salina, is a retired English and communications professor from Cloud County Community College, former Kansas House candidate and chairman of the Salina Human Relations Commission.