Who's Your Daddy?
by digby
I think everyone but the oligarchs recognize that in the age of Citizens United, we have some serious problem confronting our battered democracy. This illustrates it pretty obviously:
MSNBC rejected a TV ad calling for a boycott of Target Corp. after the retail giant made a political donation in Minnesota, continuing the controversy over corporate involvement in elections.
MSNBC spokeswoman Alana Russo said Thursday that the commercial submitted by the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org violates its advertising policy by attacking an individual business directly. The ad features Target's bullseye logo and accuses the chain of trying to buy elections.
MoveOn executive director Justin Ruben said the rejection was "the height of hypocrisy" and accused MSNBC and its corporate parent, General Electric Co., of trying to protect Target from consumer anger.
This could get very interesting as corporations begin to exercise their inalienable first amendment rights as their Creator intended all persons to do. Unfortunately since the methods by which political messages are disseminated are also owned by corporations, it's going to be complicated by these corporate persons protecting "their own kind" because these corporate persons are what feed the corporate family. I suspect that before long, they will become the new "values voters."
But this isn't the only insidious thing happening in the corporate media. Here's a very disturbing story of a reporter being fired for being rude to Bill O'Reilly. Or rather, a reporter who was an employee of Comcast being fired for being rude to Fox News employee Bill O'Reilly while the two networks were in contract negotiations. A lawsuit has been filed so maybe we'll finally be able to sort out all this messy freedom of the press and right to free speech business. Or not. After all, the Roberts court is highly likely to find that corporations' rights exceed that of the press or the individual. They are, after all, the exalted producers of everything, including our freedom. Right libertarians?
.