With a 5-4 Ruling, The U.S. Supreme Court just eliminated the hope of democracy in America

I maintain that I am a patriot, one that challenges my country to be the best it can possibly be. But my heart grows weary, especially when I just heard about the new U.S. Supreme Court ruling that basically lets corporations make direct contributions to elections.

Now, I was unaware that corporations couldn't do this already considering some campaigns have contributions larger than some countries' entire GDP. But apparently there WERE laws saying that corporations couldn't throw money at elections and try to skew them the way they wanted, but now an incredibly short-sighted Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Corporations (wonder what their getting in return?)

The New York Times reports that in a 5-4 ruling, "a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections." Click here to read the entire article.

It was basically ruled that corporate speech be included in the definition of "free speech" which last time I checked was the first ammendment. And if you remember your Constitutional law, it was already ruled that a corporation has all the same rights as an individual (14th Ammendment: Artifical Personhoold) , basically paving the way for what we know today as evil corporations.

Big props to Justice John Paul Stevens for writing a 90 page dissent. "Joined by the other three members of the court’s liberal wing, Justice Stevens said the majority had committed a grave error in treating corporate speech the same as that of human beings."

It appears that the Conservatives (republicans) and the Liberals (democrats) were bitterly divided on this issue, but that shouldn't be the case if these justices were staying true to the Constitution (remember that crumpled up document that founded the U.S.?!)

This blatent disregard for democracy its unnacceptable and the Founding Fathers would be rolling over in their graves. Many of the checks and balances put in place in the Constitution were created with the explicit purpose of trying to combat corporate influence, even though George Washington could not even fathom the degree to which corporations play a role in government policy.

This editorial (NY Times) aptly puts what this decision means to America. If you don't read the article i'll sum it up for you.

No limitation on corporate campaign spending + elections = 18th century politics back into play (i.e. no more democracy).

Update:
Please sign this petition put out by CREDO Action team to stop the corporate takeover of our elections. At least sign it as a symbol to policy makers that we will not take this injustice lying down.