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Real People v. Corporate “People”: The Fight Is On
In 2009, Riki Ott was on the road for 252 days educating people about the dangers of "corporate personhood." That's the legal doctrine that says corporations have constitutional rights, just like human beings. She mostly spoke in academic settings, and there was some interest in the idea, says Ott, but not much.
Allen Michaan, owner of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, Calif., routinely exercises his free speech, in this case by sharing his reaction to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. The well-known marquee faces the MacArthur Freeway (I-580). (Photo by David Gans)
All that changed on January 21, 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court
handed down its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission. Now interest has skyrocketed, and Ott finds people
eager to volunteer, to organize, to meet, to do anything to reverse the
Court's decision.
Rallying Around Citizens United
Supreme Court cases are usually interesting to lawyers, scholars, and those directly affected. Occasionally, a decision makes the news for a few days before disappearing from the public eye. But sometimes there's a game changer-a decision that is so clearly wrong that it becomes a rallying point. David Cobb, former Green Party presidential candidate and longtime activist on corporate personhood, points to Dred Scott v. Sandford as one such decision. Citizens United, Cobb says, is shaping up as another.
The two cases are mirror images of error. In 1857, the Dred Scott decision said that a flesh-and-blood human being had no constitutional rights because he was black. On January 21, 2010, the Court, in a 5-4 decision, used Citizens United to declare that corporations-legal entities with no human attributes-have the same constitutional free-speech rights that humans have.
Dred Scott was the most notorious Supreme Court decision of its time. It was not a groundbreaking case-it simply took existing law to its logical conclusion. But it so clearly violated both logic and human decency that it forced people to look at what slavery really meant. Rather than legitimizing the status quo, as it was intended to do, the decision galvanized the growing abolitionist movement, and set the stage for the end of slavery. But it took the 14th Amendment to overturn Dred Scott.
Citizens United also takes existing law to its logical conclusion. And, like Dred Scott, it is generating tremendous discussion and debate-this time about corporate power and about what role, if any, corporations should play in the political process.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll taken February 4-8, 2010, found that 80 percent of Americans oppose the Court's ruling, including 65 percent who "strongly" oppose it. Opposition cuts across the political spectrum: 85 percent of Democrats oppose the ruling, as do 81 percent of Independents, and 76 percent of Republicans.
Within days of the Citizens United decision, groups formed to undo the Court's damage. They are pursuing remedies ranging from local ordinances to federal legislation to a constitutional amendment.
Why Should We Care
Citizens United says that corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertising. The Court declared more than 30 years ago that spending money is a form of speech, and that corporations had a First Amendment right to speak that way. But there were still limits, particularly in the area of political speech, where there is a century-old tradition of controlling the influence of corporations on the electoral process.
Citizens United takes away those limits. According to the Court, if human beings are allowed an unrestricted right to free speech, then corporations must have the same right.
The Court overturned a key provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform law that prohibited corporate- and union-funded campaign advertising within 90 days of a federal election. Now, corporations can spend unlimited money influencing our elections right up to Election Day.
More than $5 billion was spent on the 2008 campaigns with the McCain-Feingold law in place. If that seems like a lot of money, wait for the next election cycle. Citizens United was a case about a corporation spending money to advertise and air a movie that amounted to a hit piece on Hilary Clinton. There are now no limits on the funding of that sort of negative campaign material. Any candidate who doesn't toe the corporate line can look forward to a flood of opposition cash.
The Humanity of Corporations
Just as Dred Scott was only an extension of existing law, Citizens United merely extends law that has been developing for a long time. But, like Dred Scott, the Court's conclusion makes clear to most people that the law is wrong. To say that a corporation with billions to spend on advertising is no different from a human being with one voice and one vote goes beyond what a large majority of Americans are willing to accept.
But this is the logical conclusion of the doctrine of corporate personhood, a legal theory that has been developing since the 1800s. Until 1819 the law was clear that corporations had no constitutional rights. In that year, the Court held for the first time that the Constitution applied to corporations.
The key moment was the 1886 case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific, an unremarkable case about taxes on railroad property. One of the railroad's arguments was that the tax they were challenging violated the then-relatively new 14th Amendment to the Constitution-the Amendment that specifically overruled Dred Scott.
The railroad claimed that it had been deprived of "equal protection under the law," which is one of the guarantees of the 14th Amendment. The problem with the argument was that the Amendment said, "No state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." There is nothing in the language of the Amendment that makes it apply to anyone but humans-it uses the words "person" and "citizen." The railroad's argument was that, since a corporation was a legal entity, it was rather like a person and, thus, should enjoy the rights granted by the 14th Amendment.
The Court made no official decision on that issue, and it is discussed nowhere in the Court's opinion. But in the headnotes (an unofficial summary of the case, not written by a judge), the court reporter, a former president of a small railroad line, quoted the Chief Justice as saying that the Court did not want to hear arguments on whether the 14th Amendment applied to railroads because "we are all of the opinion that it does."
A lawyer who based an argument on a headnote would be laughed out of court. Yet the headnote in Santa Clara has been treated ever since as a statement of the law. From that crack in the door, the Constitution has been broken open to gradually provide corporations more of the rights granted to humans.
We have gone from a Constitution that nowhere mentions corporations, let alone grants them rights, to Citizens United, which says that the Constitution cannot tell the difference between General Motors and a member of the general public.
Corporations are now a sort of super-being: They can live forever, they cannot be jailed, they have no conscience-yet they also enjoy virtually all the rights that humans have.
"[T]he Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense." But for the style, those words might have come from one of the activists working to abolish corporate personhood. They are actually the words of Justice John Paul Stevens, speaking for the four dissenters in Citizens United.
A Turning Point
Eighty percent of Americans agree with Justice Stevens, and they're ready to demand a return to common sense. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), founded by Thomas Linzey in 1995, has long championed abolishing corporate personhood. Citizens United "opens peoples' eyes," says Mari Margil, CELDF's associate director. "Very often we walk into communities and they've never heard of corporate constitutional rights, or they think it's an academic concept that's not important for their lives. So we have to show through stories, through examples, through breaking down how our structure of law came to be and how it works," says Margil. "Now Citizens United allows us to speed that process up a bit."
Riki Ott and David Cobb are working under the banner of Move to Amend, a coalition that launched its Web site the day the Citizens United decision came down. In less than three months, says Cobb, without coverage in a single mass media outlet, more than 77,000 people have signed the group's online petition for a constitutional amendment to reject the Citizens United ruling. Move to Amend now counts among its growing steering committee and key partners more than 20 progressive organizations, including Black Agenda Report, the National Lawyers Guild, Velvet Revolution, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
A partnership of Voter Action, Public Citizen, the Center for Corporate Policy, and the American Independent Business Alliance launched Free Speech for People (FSFP), also on the day of the decision, and also seeking a constitutional amendment. They worked with Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) on the amendment she has introduced in the House, which restores the right of Congress and the states to regulate corporate spending. They have collected about 50,000 signatures on their petition.
John Bonifaz, legal director of Voter Action, has participated in FSFP presentations. "It's pretty clear that the public is ahead of Washington," Bonifaz says. "Washington, D.C. is looking at relatively modest reforms. The people around the country are very clear on the idea that corporations aren't people. They believe the Citizens United ruling is a threat to our democracy and to the First Amendment."
Still, all of these activists caution that this is a matter for the long haul. Amending the Constitution is not an overnight process-Dred Scott was accepted law for 11 years; the fight for women's suffrage was multi-generational.
Cobb says that although we've been told that this is a land of
liberty, justice, and equality, people are realizing that it's not.
"Rather than just get caught up in despair and anguish, we can make it
that land," Cobb says. "We are going to force this country to live up to
its promises and its best ideals. Are you with us?"
Doug Pibel wrote this article for Water
Solutions, the Summer 2010 issue of YES! Magazine. Doug,
managing editor of YES! Magazine, spent many years as an attorney. This
article incorporates original material from David Cobb.
Interested?
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: Read the full text of the decision.
Recovering from Citizens United: Read updates on how we can get our democracy back.
- Posted in
109 Comments so far
Show AllToday, more Americans are knowledgeable and concerned about Major League Baseball's refusal to overturn the umpire's incorrect call that led to a Detroit Tigers pitcher being denied a perfect game (the same call also cost him a no-hitter, but never mind that).
What will it take to get Americans to care about decisions important enough to affect their children's and grandchildren's futures?
Outrageous actions.
Give corporations the right to vote.
Give corporations the right to bear arms.
Give corporations the right of assembly.
Give corporations the right to hold political office.
"Give corporations the right to hold political office."
Not long after the decision, two guys who have a small business decided to have the business run for Congress. Unfortunately, the business was a relatively new one, so it was not "old" enough to run.
What business was that?
Murray Hill. It tried running in a Republican primary for Congress.
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Murray-Hill-Inc-for-Congress/314963396608?ref=ts
Your willingness to organize opposition.
Don't forget the Gores breaking up.
One of the most damaging desisions ever made for the citizens of the nation..like it is said.they are supercitizens with no accoutability and unlimited money to spend.
At least other fascist nations kept the trains running on time (Hitler and Mussolini for example).
If corporations are citizens, then BP needs to be tried for 11 counts of criminally negligent homicide, in the oil spill, plus 15 counts from the explosion a few years back. The board members and the officers can serve the jail terms.
We get this kind of stuff when the nation is given over to the religious right...They answer only to God (the God invented by them). Jesus of Nazareth called their God "Mammon"
Watching British Petroleum order the Coast Guard to order people to leave beaches with dying birds on them should give everyone an idea that 'we're not in Kansas anymore'
Aren't the corporations and the people in power already feeding off each other?
I guess it could get worse ...but not much.
I'm sick of politics.
"Eighty percent of americans agree...."
Hmmm, then I should soon be seeing 240 million americans taking to the streets and shutting the country down until there is justice?
On Sept 11, 2007, I participated in an antiwar march in Seattle, complete with stops at local tv studios who we addressed with bullhorns concerning there refusal to ever report what is REALLY going on.
There were about 30 of us...in Seattle...a large progressive city.....30 of us....
The Republic has been taken over by a corporate-military state. As to underscore the absurdity, the Supreme Court which first established corporate personhood in 1886 in Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific, gave full first Amendment rights to corporations in 2010 in Citizen United vs. Federal Election Commission.
The United States whose wealth was originally built on the backs of slave labor and appropriated Indian land has now turned on the world and its own citizens.
To secure natural resources, the US has 800 military bases around the world including the crucial Middle East and Central Asia. At home Americans were now subjected to destructive resource extractions: mountaintop removal coal mining, ‘fracking’ of earth for natural gas which has contaminated the water table, massive use of oil derived pesticides and herbicides by agribusiness which has poisoned food and water, and off shore drilling with consequent disastrous oil blowouts.
To secure cheap labor the US created NAFTA and WTO, transferring manufacturing to sweat shop labor in countries like Mexico and China without any environmental or worker protection laws. At home American workers saw their manufacturing jobs decline from 53% of the economy in 1965 to 9% in 2006. They saw their education funding cut, medical cost soar, and face increasing unemployment and foreclosures. Most telling statistic is the US incarceration rate, which increased from 500,000 1980 to 2,500,000 in 2010. (US have 5% of the world population but 25% of the world prison population.)
Meanwhile the corporate media hacks like Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck fan the flames of anger and frustrations of the American workers onto immigrants, Muslims, environmentalists and liberals; and the beleaguered public is turning in increasing numbers to the appeals of patriotic fascism, evangelical fundamentalism, and the culture of illusion.
By extension we could become the 'United States of Hellburton' whose board members will be seen seated in the oval office representative of their 'human' avatar spawned by the supreme court. Talk about an incantation of evil... the U.S. is going down the toilet. Sometimes opposition feels so useless. Is this how it is before revolution?
This is an excellent post. I grow weary of reading about how this corporate fascist empire is in decline. The statistics and facts that you post represent the true reality of the situation. They grow in strength and power on a daily basis. Since the working class in this country is being destroyed, they somehow feel that the elites in this country are also being destroyed. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Not only are the markets in freefall; employment figures are too:
http://www.businessinsider.com/
chart-of-the-day-the-scariest-
job-chart-ever-just-got-even-
scarier-2010-6
There is another big mistake most people didn't get and realize it's consequences, when the patent office denied Corporation to patent live itself and got suit for it.
It also went to the highest court and big Corporation won.
A rational person will know that this is one of the biggest error made apart of permitting Corporations to acct like there where a person and granted them the same rights as people.
The consequences will be as equal devastating for humanity when not confronted and stopped.
Stop to treat Corporations as persons, there aren't people.
I’m really dusty and old and reading eventually gives me a headache – else I would research what corporations stand to loose by this action. I understand they hide behind a wall of tax loopholes and protections not available to the individual citizen if so we could turn it into a nightmare for them.
Is anyone knowledgeable on that?
Even the biggest corporations trace back who owners and CEOs who are individuals and families. 'Tis they who merit ire.
"without coverage in a single mass media outlet" That is very scary. It once again illustrates that the mass media is completely controlled by these same corporations. They make the media dependent on them for revenue. They are no longer buying advertisements. They are buying silence.
The mass media distracted us with the abortion issue while Bush was stacking the Supreme Court with corporate flunkies. The ruling had been decided before the case was even brought before the court.
Obama did not only have beat the corporate campaign money, but he also had to beat a totally biased media. I said twenty years ago, that if the people continued to vote for the guy who had the biggest war chest, and the most advertisement, this country could not survive.
Objectively speaking, we do not have to control their advertising, we simply need to ignore it. When a candidate comes around with a bunch of corporate money we should consider that he is most likely not our representative.
In his first two years in office, Bill Clinton was threatening to put together a health care plan that was equitable. The Health care industry was so afraid of this, that they actually put up the campaign money to buy the United States Congress, and then they bought the Senate. Thus began the 12 yr reign of terror led by Tom Delay. The most appalling thing, was that the American people went along with this. Why?
Corporations have the money and they have the media, but we still have the vote. My vote is not for sale. It can help create your amendment, and it can help impeach justices of the Supreme Court.
Barrack Obama showed us that corporate money and the media can be nullified by intelligent voters. This movement should be taken to elections at every level. Vote for the candidate who will represent you. Please- -
Watch the world's greatest leader in standing up against tyranny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT1v2FJrqmk&feature=related
That was awesome.
HEY OUT THERE*&^%$##$%&^**:::
HONESTLY, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW..IS THERE ANY LEGAL, CONSTITUTIONAL WAY THAT SUPREME COURT JUSTICES CAN BE IMPEACHED OR REMOVED.....IS THERE A BUILT IN CHECKS AND BALANCE SYSTEM TO REMOVE 5 OF THESE TRAITORS???
I SUSPECT IT WOULD HAVE TO BE AN EXECUTIVE DECISION, BUT I DON'T KNOW????
"that if the people continued to vote for the guy who had the biggest war chest, and the most advertisement, this country could not survive."
Yup, and that's exactly what they did - voted for the guy with the biggest war chest, the biggest in history, I think, somewhere around 800 million?
"When a candidate comes around with a bunch of corporate money we should consider that he is most likely not our representative."
True, true ....
"that they actually put up the campaign money to buy the United States Congress, and then they bought the Senate."
And then they bought the Pres. ....
"Barrack Obama showed us that corporate money and the media can be nullified by intelligent voters."
No, actually what he showed was that money and media can fool some of the people all of the time .....
One can only hope that "some" is getting smaller, but it obviously still includes you ....
Corporations are allegories to Dinosaurs:
Without a longer explanation I will simply say in evolutionary terms Corporations are Dinosaurs. They have large limbs which are connected to unintelligent miniscule administrative ganglia which operate in constant fear. This means, the other function, growth, is static, while the beast tries to hide behind legal protection. Corporations are now using the “cable of ignominy” plugged into a UBS port left open by the Supreme Court and a, so called, court reporter in 1886. This slight of word became the bag o’ money filched from the American people after advent of the Great Train Robbery by Railroad Barons. By 1886 the people of America had been fleeced about four or five times by the building of the Cross Continental Railroad. The Supreme Court pined, at that time for “growth” helping to legitimatize the raping of the continent. Now the Supreme Court is simply following the cable to the beast moaning for another feeding. Really, time at the trough is recognized, by some, as disorderly and inefficient. But we will continue to feed it until it implodes from greed.
Maybe we citizens can stifle the beasts flailing protectionism by stopping its brute need for a Supreme Court feeding tube. Corporations already have the money. When are we citizens going to get a set of balls?
This is my first ever comment, but I've been visiting this site for about a year. This issue is really important to me because it underscores what our government has become. It doesn't seem like the people, and by that I mean an actual person, have the ability to use their one vote in terms of who should become president. This is important because the president now has more power than anyone in the country, in theory, since he can sign executive orders and pick supreme court members, etc. Well, the supreme court has enabled this insane law.
There are many comments that I've read before that explain the logic of the situation at hand. Yes, Citizens United needs to somehow be changed, through an amendment or some other way. But what's really important here is the corporations role in our government.
If there really is a process to get things like this changed, and it takes a long time, I say that we should act faster and in more of a direct way. We should challenge the legitimacy of our government by convincing everyone we know to not vote this election. Don't vote for anyone. This isn't telling them to vote green or anything like that. That doesn't work because it means that people have to actually rally around someone who they aren't hearing about on a daily basis. It won't work, at least not now. If only 20% of the population votes for the president or whatever local elections there are, I think something might be done about our election process, which is obviously what needs to change in so many ways.
Until then, the corporations, or the democrats or republicans or whatever organization is running the government, will pretend that we have a democracy or republic or whatever you'd like to call it, when it is so obvious to any reasonable person that we do not. People actually do agree about that. I honestly think this is a good idea. We need to spread the word to just not vote. Voting doesn't work. If something doesn't work, stop doing it.
The beauty of it is that even if somehow that doesn't change how elections are run, which I believe it would, it could be no worse than what we have now. Let's get mathematical here. 62% of human beings voted in the last general election. So we already have 38% going for us. 76% of people don't believe in this law. This law effects who will be in our government, who then make the laws effecting who will be successful in running for our government. If we convinced only 67% of the remaining voters to not vote, we would be at 20% voter turn out. I'm pretty sure that I could convince tens, maybe hundreds of people not to vote. Everyone should do this but what would really help is some kind of actual outlet. Would any nice corporation like to help me with this process? Maybe just a friendly business instead? We can do this. For serious.
you got it.... give non-participation the vote.
"This is my first ever comment,"
Welcome aboard.
Welcome aboard. I have stopped voting and will continue to do so until all the corporate money and corporate media is removed from the process. Simple law, if you don't have a vote in an election, you can't contribute to a candidate. In addition, this legalized bribery scheme we call lobbying needs to be abolished. Until then, voting in these elections has become our explicit stamp of approval for this corrupt and illegal government. I am not recruiting, just laying out my logic. If people do not wish to utilize the tools at their disposal, that is their business.
The only problem with that is, that by not voting, you make it possible for an even smaller number of folks to form our government .... Taken to the extreme, if only one person voted in enough states to produce an elec. college majority (now there's another amendment we need, abolishing the elec. college) less than 50 people could decide who is Pres. Somebody IS going to vote. No matter how paltry you think your say is, if you don't you will have NO say.
The Sunni bloc in Iraq found out the hard way the cost of boycotting an election, the next time around they actively participated, with better results for them.
To achieve what I THINK you want to achieve, the nullification of a particular election, you would have to have a binding "None of the Above" on the ballot. That way, if a majority gave an active "No" to the candidates, we would have to start the process again and repeat it 'til someone produced a candidate the majority could get behind.
I do confess, however, that i am so disgusted with the results of the process thus far that I am tempted ...
>>The only problem with that is, that by not voting, you make it possible for an even smaller number of folks to form our government
In reality, a relatively small number of people control that process today. We really don't have any choices. I viewed Clinton as a fluke. After Obama, I have come to realize that the corporate fascist powers in this country really are pulling the strings. Obama is nothing more than a corporate lackey. Given their control of the MSM, they aren't going to allow a non-friendly candidate get momentum. It is corporate fascist candidate A versus corporate fascist candidate B.
Obama, the candidate of hope has proven the hopelessness of the current system.
I don't think Clinton was a fluke, he set the tone for Obama, and his pal, McAuliffe, greased the corporate wheels.
In any case, accepting the hegemony of the MSM, while understandable, is nonetheless, a self fulfilling prophecy. It may rule the TV screen and major rags, but it doesn't, yet, rule the internet, which has it considerably worried these days, or hadn't you noticed? We need to use this window of opportunity, however long it lasts, to level the playing field.
If we alllow the MSM to determine what is allowable, e.g. to define which candidates are viable, and which "can't win" then we are complicit in consolidating the very power which we decry ....
I certainly would end my voting boycott if I saw a candidate rise from the internet, word of mouth or any other non-MSM method. On election day, if it is corporate fascist candidate A versus corporate fascist candidate B, I stay home. You would be wise to do the same thing.
As for Clinton, I agree. I no longer view him as a fluke. Fool me once...
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
IF ONLY the fight were on. The vast majority of Americans are too cheap, stupid, vulgar, pro-violence, apathetic and greedy for any corporate or government outrage to wake them up anymore. The oil deluge in the Gulf of Mexico should replace the bald eagle as Amurka's PERFECT national symbol and Israel is the PERFECT ally for Amurka--where George W. Bush is currently free, fat and un-impeached, attending paid corporate speaking events and praising himself for making Amurka a Torture State.
>>The vast majority of Americans are too cheap, stupid, vulgar, pro-violence, apathetic and greedy for any corporate or government outrage to wake them up anymore.
I don't know about the vast majority but I would agree that a significant portion of the population is inculcated and programmed on Fox News talking points. To what degree they prevent the rest of us from taking action is unclear to me at this point in time. Have you seen the "Whale Wars" program on television? These people are engaged in violence, sabotage and general mayhem against "research vessels" that slaughter whales for profit. I suspect there are a significant number of people who "sympathize" with these modern warriors. The question is, can that sympathy be parlayed into a realization that the "research vessels" can be found all over the planet in the form of illegal corporate empire action rationalized by weak and flimsy excuses. The drone bombing of innocent people all over the world comes to mind. What kind of legal system allows for remote controlled execution of innocent women and children in far-flung regions of the world based on some absurd notion of "self defense"? As individual citizens of the world, I think we all need to carefully contemplate the methods that can be used to fight this corporate tyranny. I feel an excellent starting point would be to understand and become knowledgeable about things like open source revolution and other methods of non-compliance and resistance. Hopefully ideas like your low wattage FM radio stations will see the light of day. Without thinking outside the box, I think the planet is in serious trouble.
allirish:
I'm all Irish too and have ALLWAYS promoted and supported LINK T.V. You get more real news in one day on LINK than you will ever find sifting through all of the Corporate bullshit LIE media in A year!!!That station needs to be an option on every television in America and the World for that matter...
Now corporation can buy congresspeople more blatantly and shamelessly.
Yeah, I get the idea on corporate personhood, but is that what the Supreme Court really said. You could argue - and they did - that they were merely protecting the first amendment rights of organizations of people. In the case the organizations are corporations and labor unions, who were also affected by this ruling. So, how do you give organizations like grassroots groups free speech rights without legally enshrining corporate personhood? I haven't heard any answers on that from opponents of corporate personhood.
I think it has to be by limiting money donations to small amounts by individuals but Buckley v. Vallejo equated speech and money, so how do you do that? You could also limit election periods to 3 months, but how do you stop somebody - a corporation, a Non-profit or just some rich nut from buying ad time whenever he wants in whatever medium he chooses? And if you could stop him, how would you do it without stopping a similar effort by progressives?
Am I missing something here?
What you're missing is the obvious flaw in the argument. Organizations don't need free speech rights. They cannot be criminally prosecuted or even arrested. They cannot be consigned to "Free Speech Zones" either, but that's a different afront to the Constitution. Only the individuals who make up an organization can be held accountable, which is why they need rights as individuals, not as a collective. Organizations are abstractions made up of concrete parts. People are flesh and blood living beings who sometimes need protections--often from corporations or other organizations.
Corporate personhood is just another free marketeer scam to to grease the rails for the upward redistribution of wealth--to the people who need it least, away from those who need it most.
The concept of money as speech is another SCOTUS idiocy. It holds that all men are created equal, but some (those with virtually unlimited wealth) more equal than others. Anything other than private money in elections hopelessly corrupts the entire process and guarantees that those with means will get more for their money than one vote.
"Corporate personhood is just another free marketeer scam to to grease the rails for the upward redistribution of wealth--to the people who need it least, away from those who need it most."
Man, if ever there was a concise, one-sentence description of the problem, that was it. Well stated.
I totally agree-hit me like A hammer....
pwayne:
Great Post..Short, to the point and bare bones revealing....
Excellent Post!!!
Your statement that "The concept of money as speech is another SCOTUS idiocy," nails the problem and the lunacy of this Supreme Court judgement.
In fact, it is such a blatant "reductio ad absurdum," it makes me seriously dubious regarding Chief Justice Roberts' reasoning powers. I think we should demand that he submit to a brain scan - something is definitely awry in there!
Corporate personhood isn't law, it's a fiction and one that flies in the face of everything this country stands for. In the original case a court clerk, who was friend of the corporate entity suing for personhood, wrote a summary that was totally inaccurate. In fact the judge ruled against corporate personhood and warned of the dangers of giving that much power to a non human.
For the Supreme Court to uphold the fiction and damage the people of this country is outrageous but not unexpected.
Unlike human beings who have responsibilities, corporations have attributed to themselves only privileges. The most important difference is that corporations don't die.
That the Supreme Court would uphold a minority position isn't unusual. Every branch of government does the same from war to health care to financial reform to the economy to accountability for criminal acts.
We have a government of, by and for a weathly, powerful but tiny minority.
Anything that we can do to rock their well appointed little boat is a good thing.
I think that giving corporations the rights of individuals is constitutionally errant in that corporations are run by individuals that already donate money and vote - thus giving these individuals 2 votes/2 avenues of campaign contribution caps. We must fight for a law that ends this portion of the rights for corporations.
This not only affects the political system, now they can sue other real individuals as well which opens up another whole can of worms.
If corporations are indeed 'people', or persons, than isn't it unlawful to own them as if they're property?
Doesn't the states have an amendment to their constitution that prohibits the owning of 'persons'?
Just asking...
Do they have Gender? How can you tell which is which? Could a merger be decribed as same-sex marriage?
That idea that the people of a corporation each have a voice as well as the corporation itself means that the people that run the corporation and form it's voice have two votes, two voices. Unless they give up their private ones when they hire on.
What I'd like to see for an ammendment is simple. It's in the form of a definition, That is: For the purposes of this Document (the Constitution), References to "Men", "People", "Persons" and "Citizens" all and only refer to Human Beings.
Corporations don't have a gender.
Men have penises.
Women have vaginas.
Corporations only have assholes.