Bring Back Joe Camel

Mobil's Pegasus, Sinclair's Dinosaur, RCA Victor's His Master's Voice and Tony The Tiger. Robert Bruce incorporated, trademark pending reporting. We do have some conservative responses. The Heritage Foundation said the Supreme Court's decision was a triumph of the First Amendment and Newt Gingrich said it was needed to counter Obama's ability to raise huge funds through groups like MoveOn.org. Oh please. John McCain's old strategist Mark MacKinnon wrote in the Daily Beast the decision was a disaster, which his old boss agreed with.

If you don't buy my warnings about fascism, you might want to saunder down history's lane to our First Gilded Age. Remember the first laws curbing corporations involvement in American politics was in 1907 because of massive abuses and the corruption caused by corporate money. And there is a reason that Karl Rove's hero was Mark Hanna, the Republican boss who made William McKinley president. Corporations fueled the McKinley campaign providing it with $16 million against William Jennings Bryan's $600,000. Newspapers under control of the Republicans printed articles by psychologists who said that Bryan was insane, suffering from monomania. The banks kicked in one-quarter of 1% of their capital holdings to the election campaigns around the country.Reaper-maker Cyrus McCormick sent his 7,500 agents around to farmers and merchants every week to warn them about the dire effects of a Democratic election. Insurance companies warned all their customers that Bryan's silver platform would dramatically lessen the value of their policies.

When someone suggested Williams Jennings Bryan might win, "Dollar Mark" Hanna sneered,"Do you think we'd let that damned lunatic get into the White House? You know you can hire half of the people of the United States to shoot down the other half if necessary, and we've got the money to hire them."

Rutherford B. Hayes coined the phrase--so appropriately today--" a government of the corporations,by the corporations and for the corporations." Or the cartoon slogan,"Kill the Goose,Get All The Eggs at once."

Historian Allen Nevins claims we have been too tough on the " robber barons" saying that American could not have developed as fast without their investments and commitment to industrialization. In a way, he's right compared to today's corporations. Robber barons at least invested significant parts of their fortune in developing their own businesses here in America. Today's corporations do not and the bankers make their money by moving money.

But if you want to see what unfettered corporate money can do to American politics, read Jack Beatty's Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900,Vintage paperback,2008. If you remember my past posts about the 14th Amendment Movement, which has been heralded by the American Enterprise Institute, this book will show you how in that age, the robber barons used the 14th amendment to escape regulation and to enlarge their monopolies. Today, they used the First Amendment.

Because the shadows of the unitary executive linger on in the Obama Administration and the theocratic strains dominate the Republican party and our Pentagon, I tend toward the fascist interpretation. But hope springs eternal. We did escape the First Gilded Age with a period of progressive reforms. But remember we had a period of intensely violent labor disputes and the rise of radical fringes which acted out with political assassinations. Besides, we like films about the Gilded Age. Maybe we'll get good visuals this time around.