Corporate Free Speech: Silencing Dissent

"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right"~ Ani DiFranco

A tool may come in all shapes and sizes, but no other one can compete when it's money. Payola has been taking over the democratic process in both Canada and the US for some time and corporations have been at the center of it all. Where the big money goes, so too do changes to the political environment that reflect the will of a corporate agenda. Free association? Free speech? A referendum in Greece? Only so far as they don't pose a threat to any benefactors. Government and corporate interests have merged at the expense of the public.

That explains why Herman Cain is being taken seriously by anyone and why a private entity - the National Restaurant Association - can silence speech in a country where the constitution supposedly protects it.

I can see how a mutual agreement might be reached between two parties over whether to litigate or not, but how could any document trump a country's foundational law? How could Cain's accuser be silenced by a payment of any kind from the National Restaurant Association? This is the world our "elites" have constructed to protect themselves and their money. It's also the subject of Glenn Greenwald's new book, With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. I can't wait to read it.