Occupy Ignorance….

The Wall Street Journal  Jan 21-22, 2012

“Protests Target Political Cash”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577172781459278216.html

Police in San Francisco arrested several of hundreds of protesters surrounding some of the hightest-profile building in the city’s financial center in the largest of dozens of Occupy Wall Street Protests across the country.  The protests, pegged to the second anniversary on Saturday of the 2010 Supreme Court decisions to bar limits on corporate political spending.

Occupy protesters around the country are making increasingly specific demands and banding together with more established activist groups.

The San Francisco event coincided with several smaller protests at courthouses across the country planned by a group called Move to Amend.  The group hopes to amend the Constitution to repeal the high court’s controversial Citizens United decision.

Occupy groups in New York and Los Angeles along with smaller cities such as Cleveland and St. Louis, protested at local courthouses. As hundred Rallied earlier between the Court building and the Capitol  Dave Cobb of the Move to Amend coalition said “Our demand is a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood and to abolish the idea that money equals political speech.”

Common Sense Review

It took me a while to research so I could get an accurate portrait. The more I read the more I am confused about their position.  The Occupy people are protesting the 2^nd anniversary of the verdict of “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission”.  

Citizens United is a non-profit conservative group who released a documentary called “Hillary the Movie”.  The argument was that the movie was an anit Hillary campaign ad during an election year.  So the Federal Election Commission was questioning if this political group can do this kind of ads.  The Supreme Court said “The 1^st Amendment prohibits Congress from fining and jailing citizens engaged in political speech.”

I found it interesting that this protest was supported by Move to Amend, which wants to pass an amendment to the Constitution that would make this situation unconstitutional. 

Move to Amend is supported by:

·         Alliance for Progressive Values

·         Berkeley Fellowship of Universalist Unitarians’ Social Justice Committee

·         Code Pink

·         Progressive Democrats of America, Ohio Chapter

Surprisingly, when I was doing research I found that Michigan’s own Sen. Debbie Stabenow supports reversing the ruling. Stabenow doesn’t like people’s right to political