First SOPA/PIPA, now Komen. We're on to something here, folks!

[Ms. Toad]

26. I implied a relastionship between the recent decision

and people's heightened interest shutting corporate voices from the political process.

Things tend to just trundle along with just a few voices pointing out concerns until there is something to bring the attention to general public notice. That something in this case was Citizens United. Following that case there were quite a few more people interested in shutting corporations out of the political process - at all levels (lobbyists, issue advocacy, candidate advocacy, etc.) not just the specific ways addressed in the case.

On a parallel track, SOPA/PIPA were moving pretty quietly through congress, with just a few voices pointing out concerns. On the corporate level, SOPA/PIPA mostly pitted old media (film and recording groups) against newer media (facebook, google, twitter, wikipedia, etc.). The latter decided to use its corporate voice (money/bully pulpit) to motivate us to action by staging a black-out. (The black-out is not so different from the way issue ads motivate us to vote for/against a particular candidate.) We seemed to like them using their voices to influence this policy (but also seem reluctant to admit that is what happened).

It just raises the question for me about whether we really object to corporate involvement in policy making/politics - or we only object when it acts against what we perceive as our interests. I'm not advocating one direction or the other - just raising what (to me) is an obvious question: If we really want them out of politics, then why are we cheering, rather than being upset about, the blackout?