here's a quote from the wonderful legal theorist patricia williams (from the alchemy of race and rights, 1991), on buckley v. valeo, a previous political speech case. now obviously the identification of money with speech - which is at the heart of today's supreme court decision - is liable to give some folks the heebeejeebees. williams does a good job of beginning to say why.

When the Supreme Court held not only that it is undesirable to constrain the expenditure of money in political elections, but that such expenditure is speech, what does that mean? The court seems to have gone one step beyond holding that money is related to access to expensve media; it seems to imply that if one could speak freely (without pecuniary cost, that is) but could not spend money, then one would still be 'censored.' But if expresion is commodified in this fashion, then can it not be bought and sold? Is money itself communicative and of what? Is the introduction of money as a concept of expression something like introducing usury into our love lives? Can speech usurious? Is money a form of language, in the way we think of speech as language? What does this imply for oaths, rituals, the swearing of attachments?