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Date: 6/27/01
Time: 2:43:51 PM
Remote Name: 209.158.197.2
In a letter to the editor of the Digital Collegian (students at Penn State), Martin Austermuhle writes:
"... there is something severely wrong when business assumes more power than the ordinary citizen due to simple economic clout. Democracy assumes that every citizen has an equal say, regardless of social, political, or economic status. Democracy is thus undermined when any entity, using money as persuasion, has more access to the political system than the ordinary citizen and uses that access to establish policies that will benefit them and only them.
... Americans have long struggled against the corporation. The Boston Tea Party resulted from angry citizens reacting the the British East India Company imposing duties on tea. Shortly before his death, Abraham Lincoln stated that 'corporations have been enthroned... An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign... until wealth is aggregated in a few hands... and the republic is destroyed.' The history of struggle continued until 1886, when the Supreme Court decided in Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad that corporations are private citizens and thus entitled to the rights of the simple citizen.
We have seen unprecedented spending by corporations to secure policies that benefit them, be it the massive media industries increasing their political contributions to ensure passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act or the NRA dumping funds upon their Republican cohorts to counter any significant gun control. The ordinary citizen has been left out of the political process, their needs undermined by the money that slowly chips away at the fundamental tenets of American democracy."