Free Speech

We needn't wait 20 years to see if free corporate speech threatens democracy. We can clearly see already that the Two Americas corporate and conservative America have engendered since the 80s is off the track of equal opportunity for all. Then the executive/ worker pay ratio was 50 to 1, now it's 500 to 1. Anyone can grow up to be a billionaire is a contemptible illusion.

Our education system is great at preparing Nobel laureates, laughably incompetent at preparing high school graduates on how to live in a democracy. Social democracies in Europe thrive with free electoral TV and short campaigns. Our legislators sadly spend the time they should devote to legislation chasing media cash.

Most of them come from gerrymandered districts where their slice of the absurdly swollen military budget is all that matters. The Foxification of our news media has made a pathetic joke of my academic career of teaching the humanities so that all citizens can think clearly about political issues, whether skewed by unions or big companies.

We have reduced our politics to a sandbox and wonder pathetically why our infrastructure is dissolving before our very eyes. While we waste trillions "teaching" Afghans what Bush junior assumed to be democratic ideals, such as abusing the not so supreme court to steal the election of 2000 with brother Jeb's shenanigans followed by Slick Dick's civilianizing war through unexamined Blackwater and Halliburton robberies. We've kidded ourselves so long we don't believe we have 781 military bases around the world with a budget that outspends the entire rest of the world. Come on, Wake Up!

Patrick D. Hazard

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We needn’t wait 20 years to see if free corporate speech threatens democracy. We can clearly see already that what corporate and conservative America have engendered since the ’80s is off the track of equal opportunity for all. Then the executive/ worker pay ratio was 50 to 1; now it’s 500 to 1.

Social democracies in Europe thrive with free electoral TV and short campaigns. But the Foxification of our news media has made a pathetic joke of my academic career of teaching the humanities so that all citizens can think clearly about political issues, whether skewed by unions or big companies.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
May 21, 2010

Please note Dan how gutted the original letter! Save the text for an EYE, running his abbreviated text and my reply.

Dear Dan: I respect the right of editor's to edit, but I was disappointed with the breadth of your knife. Surely the anomalies of Dick Cheney's presidencies are relevant to the corporate speech debate. Their Iraqi blunders are surely relevant to the corporate speech pseudo constitutionality. Dick's five excuses from Vietnam (he had other things to do) and Bush went AWOL from the Champagne Squadron. All these maneuvers are relevant to the Two Americas they left us with. Patrick