The “Miranda” Blessing for Corporations

By
Glenn W. Smith
– January 27, 2010Posted in: Culture, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture

large dirty harry1 300x224 The Miranda Blessing for CorporationsYou have the right to spend billions in the public sphere, silencing the voices of individual Americans. Anything you can say or do politically to further your private corporate interests cannot be used against you in a court of law. We know you can afford an attorney, but you don’t need one. Don’t bother trying to understand your corporate rights. They are limitless.

– Supreme Court’s New Miranda Blessing for Corporations

NYU law professor Barry Friedman and journalist Dahlia Lithwick suggest that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is as tone-deaf to the times as the old Warren Court’s 1966 opinion in Miranda v. Arizona. In case you forgot, that’s the decision that required the so-called Miranda warning.

Immediately after the Miranda ruling, conservatives, exploiting Americans alarm at recent urban riots, blamed the liberal Court for increases in crime and lawlessness. The rest is history. Richard Nixon, campaigning in 1968, said Miranda (and another opinion, in Escobedo v. Illinois, which gave suspects the right to counsel), “had the effect of seriously hamstringing the peace forces in our society and strengthening the criminal forces.” In 1969, Seymour Martin Lipset published a molotov cocktail of an article in Atlantic, “Why Cops Hate Liberals and Vice Versa.”

In TV and film, Miranda became code for corrupt government, government that coddled criminals and left Polly and the rest of us tied to the railroad tracks of runaway crime. The St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture sums it the impact on our cultural narratives:

Movies, television police dramas, and “real” cop shows, have done much to inform the public of the protection offered by the Miranda warning. Tom Hanks even delivered a (mercifully abbreviated) rap version of the warning in the 1987 movie Dragnet.

Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry and Charles Bronson’s Death Wish are just a couple of the films that exploited Americans’ fear of crime by creating a context of corrupt or hapless or hamstrung police and criminal-coddling liberals. Only vigilantes had balls big enough to shoot first. Miranda might be the name of a dancer they knew.

Friedman and Lithwick suggest the Court’s misstep in Citizens, from a public reaction point of view, might prove just as tone-deaf.

All this bad timing brings to mind another one of history’s great Supreme Court train wrecks, Miranda v. Arizona. You know that one—the Warren Court’s ruling in 1966 requiring police officers to read suspects their rights. Until Miranda, the Warren Court’s adventures in protecting suspects’ and defendants’ rights had gone down with surprising ease: Race was implicated in it all, and people were generally supportive of the court’s efforts to make the criminal justice system more fair. But by the time a 5-4 court handed down Miranda, things had changed. Crime rates had soared. Fear of the violent streets had replaced a fading Communist threat. Members of Congress were treated to a chart tying each and every jump in the crime rate to a new Warren Court decision coddling criminals. Nixon ran against the Warren Court and won. Soon it was the Burger Court.

Popular culture is not short on corporate corruption melodrama. Wall Street is today about as popular as the televised rioters were in Sixties. We’re not afraid Wall Street swells will assault us in our homes. We’ve already lost our homes to Wall Street. So, I think it’s a good bet that the right wing Roberts Court may have just had its Miranda moment.

This shouldn’t be lost on progressive strategists. The Court just ruled that even foreign corporations can spend what they want to influence the outcome of American elections. This is one of those issues with so much resonance with our cultural narratives that we ignore it at our peril. Republican defenders of the decision, like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel, R-Ky, had better look out. McConnell said the decision:

protects [corporations'] right to express themselves about political candidates and issues up until Election Day.

The Court really has constructed a Miranda Blessing for corporations.

Americans are angry because they feel powerless.  Their economic circumstances are out of their control. They see that the Wall Street architects of the Great Recession have made off like bandits, stealing away with the hard-earned savings and the tax dollars of hard-working Americans. They are looking for a hero to set it right.

Paraphrasing Dirty Harry, Go ahead John Roberts, Rush Limbaugh, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, John Boehner et al. Make my day.

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About Glenn W. Smith

Glenn W. Smith has spent the past 30 years in journalism and politics, where he’s made a name for himself as a writer, campaign manager, activist, think tank analyst and, as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says, a “legendary political consultant and all-around good guy.” “There’s no one like him,” says author George Lakoff. CNN commentator Paul Begala says, “He has unmatched experience, a graceful pen (or pixel nowadays) and deep insight into the best and worst of us.” Novelist Sarah Bird speaks of his “lucid and lyrical” prose. And, she says, he’s fun. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington says Glenn writes with “grace and abundant humor” and “uses his colorful experiences in Texas to enlighten us all.”

Smith led Ann Richards’ successful 1990 campaign for Governor of Texas. He worked for former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Earlier, Smith was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. He’s coordinated national campaigns for groups such as MoveOn.org. In 2004, he authored the highly acclaimed book, The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction. He also wrote Unfit Commander, a book that detailed George W. Bush’s mysterious disappearance from military service.

In 2004, Smith was featured in the film, Bush’s Brain, a documentary about Karl Rove. Smith provided commentary on Rove’s role as then-President Bush’s senior advisor. He has made numerous media appearances with Chris Mathews on Hardball, Joe Scarborough, Brit Hume, and many others. He writes a regularly for top national web sites, including FireDogLake and Huffington Post.

As a senior fellow at George Lakoff’s prestigious Rockridge Institute in Berkeley he studied, wrote and taught on the power of metaphor and narrative in political communications. He also lectured on religion and politics at the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley. As a sponsor and organizer, he has pulled together numerous national events with progressive religious leaders. He also organized a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King at Riverside Church in New York City as well as “Freedom and Faith” bus tours, which was a nationwide campaign for social justice and progressive values.

Smith’s play, Double Play, which explored American Western myths and legends, was held over to sold-out audiences. He’s even written and performed songs in the Americana tradition, such as his best-known song, “Helping Marty Robbins,” a tribute to his hometown, Houston.

Most recently, Smith is the creator of DogCanyon, a political and cultural web site covering state, national and global issues from a Texas perspective. DogCanyon is an exhilarating and unique site that gets the connections between politics and culture and explores both the personal side of politics and the ups, down, craziness and beauty of “life its ownself,” as humorist Dan Jenkins would say. DogCanyon offers heartfelt personal essays, hard-hitting political analysis, and, most importantly, laughs.

As Paul Begala said, Smith writes in “the finest, firmest, fearless tradition of Texas essayists like Molly Ivins.”