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Published on Thursday, January 21, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Corporate Personhood Should Be Banned, Once and For All
Outrageous SCOTUS Decision Should Reignite Most Necessary of Debates
Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission shreds the fabric of our already weakened
democracy by allowing corporations to more completely dominate our
corrupted electoral process. It is outrageous that corporations already
attempt to influence or bribe our political candidates through their
political action committees (PACs), which solicit employees and
shareholders for donations. With this decision, corporations can now
also draw on their corporate treasuries and pour vast amounts of
corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral
swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars.
This corporatist, anti-voter decision is so extreme that it should galvanize a grassroots effort to enact a Constitutional Amendment to once and for all end corporate personhood and curtail the corrosive impact of big money on politics. It is indeed time for a Constitutional amendment to prevent corporate campaign contributions from commercializing our elections and drowning out the civic and political voices and values of citizens and voters. It is way overdue to overthrow “King Corporation” and restore the sovereignty of “We the People”!
This corporatist, anti-voter decision is so extreme that it should galvanize a grassroots effort to enact a Constitutional Amendment to once and for all end corporate personhood and curtail the corrosive impact of big money on politics. It is indeed time for a Constitutional amendment to prevent corporate campaign contributions from commercializing our elections and drowning out the civic and political voices and values of citizens and voters. It is way overdue to overthrow “King Corporation” and restore the sovereignty of “We the People”!
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229 Comments so far
Show AllDear Ralph,
After the Brown election in Massachusetts, it is clear that the independent vote has abandoned the Democratic Party.
Time to get back in the race.
Not only for the independent vote, but for all other parties who demand real progress toward civility and justice.
Agreed, end corporate personhood, once and for all!
We would expect the foremost ‘capitalist' nation of the world to designate a corporation as a person.
I am not sure how Supreme Court will decide on how the corporations will fill out their voter registration forms, but I suppose that is just a minor technical detail.
Thanks Nader for being a prominent independent voice to speak out on this.
Let's see if any prominant Republicans or Democrats do so. Let's see if MSM explains the repercussions of this, or just stenographically repeats the decision to the public.
I stand corrected, there are a few politicians out there bringing up the issue. We'll see how long it remains in the limelight.
"Corporate Personhood Should Be Banned, Once and For All"
Amen!
Ralph nails it once again. If you stupid Democraps had put a real leader in office instead of this corporate prick we now have we would be well on our way to real reform.
Sure! And if you Green Gargoyles hadn't sucked up to Ralph Nitwit's ego back in 2000, we wouldn't have this "Supreme" court led by Roberts and Alito.
Nader finds it easy to rant on blogsites, but has accomplished NOTHING with regard to party-building. (Not that I would waste time or money on the "greens"!) He has had ZERO influence on public policy since the 80's. Don't take my word for it, just read what the co-founders of the Green Party have to say about him. See Notnader.com -- ripping good read!
And Hounddog, the next time you want to spread "crap", do it on the newspaper or better still, on Nader's writings.
Inaccurate. Gore ran such a terrible campaign in 2000 that he couldn't even carry his home state. But, he DID win both the popular vote AND the electoral vote, which is why the 5 SCOTUS judges appointed by Reagan & Bush I violated precedent by stopping the Florida vote count to prevent Gore's victory.
Don't blame Nader, a convenient but false scapegoat, for Gore's weak campaign and five corrupt, biased SCOTUS judges who should have been impeached, as well as a pathetic Democratic Party response to the devious machinations of the Republicans, including the sham of the "Brooks Brothers Riot" which intimidated Florida vote counters.
By the way, I voted for Gore in 2000, not Nader, so I'm not merely reflexively defending Nader. The facts of the lousy Gore campaign and the weak Democratic response to the 2000 Republican coup d'etat are inconvenient truths which must be faced.
ED
Intelligently and persuasively well stated,
"This corporatist, anti-voter decision is so extreme that it should galvanize a grassroots effort to enact a Constitutional Amendment to once and for all end corporate personhood."
Are there still grassroots in the USA, or has the social "ground" been defoliated by mass media?
Grassroots in USA have been systematically paved over and replaced with Astroturf.
Some of it still looks somewhat like grass, from a distance (to those who still remember what grassroots look like). But it is not connected to the ground. Just lying (in both senses) on top, suffocating the grassroots.
"We the People" are dying dehydrated from living on plastic grass. In too many senses.
Sorry to be so negative, but that's how it is. Hard to be positive in a shitstorm.
Nader's got all the points, except the point of voting for him. So far.
Now all we're waiting for is "Change we can believe in"...?
WE're the ones we're waiting for! - Talkin' 'bout a revolution for truth.
It may not be easy to be positive in this shitstorm, but it's crucially important to remain positive while more carefully directing that positive energy. Instead of feeding it into the Demok black hole, focus it toward those who share your egalitarian, universalist principles, e.g. voting for Ralph Nader in the elections. In this way, those around you will notice that you are most positive in the midst of similar progressive energy, and otherwise not. So they will want to avoid the Demok black hole, and suggest things like: "Let's go to the Green party meeting instead of the Demok party meeting." That results in a positive feedback, and so, practically, it becomes much more advantageous for us to practice our principles, and keep the positive energy in these closed circular loops. Now contrast this with the scenario were you focus your positive energy toward the dead end, great sucking black hole Demok party with the "change you can believe in." That's like tipping a street thug for a good holdup.
Agreed. Tnx. - Still hard...
So many things make me bleed a crying feeling inside the chest & throat, while I find it wrong to avert my attention to be (even more) superficial. The ongoing rape of planet and people is... well, bad. Thanks for talking back to that desperation. Do keep up yr own good trust in "egalitarian, universalist principles".
"Freedom, Equality, Solidarity, Peace, Love & Oranges". We can (still) do it.
Google "Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Railroad" to see when and where the corporations granted themselves Personhood. This also gave them license to bribe our elected officials.
What happened to the idea/movement to contest that decision in the courts? If I remember correctly, it was supposedly the 'mistaken' summary made by a clerk on the ruling page rather than the original court ruling itself that 'gave' corporations person-hood and the railroad ran with it. Is the movement to challenge corporate person-hood in the courts dead? It seems that we shouldn't need an amendment.
I do agree with Nader though, that corporate person-hood is the key issue here rather than the repeal of the restrictions on corporate and union fundraising If by law corporations are persons it is difficult to argue they should be restricted and not unions and of course that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the harm that is created by corporations personhood status.
Have to agree with Mr. Nader on this one. Money from Unions and Corporations both have to be stopped from entering politics.
Well, SCOTUS appointed its first president in 2000. Now, the cartels and the oligarchy are in charge. They own the Congress lock stock and barrel, they have managed to get their minions to get corporatists packed into the Court. So they own the Judiciary. It is obvious who owns the White House.
By Executive and Legislative fiat, the Constitution and Bill of Rights have been discarded, unconstitutionally, to be replaced by the mis-named Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and a drawer full of even more repressive Executive Orders in the Oval Orifice.
The super wealthy are getting fatter and the populace is getting thinner. Hundreds thousands of formerly middle class and working class people are living in the streets under cardboard or in tent cities, begging for food for their families. The currency is inflated, not yet to the point where a wheelbarrow full of dollars will get you a potato, if you move fast enough, but we are moving in that direction.
If We the People ever get the guts to stand up to them, the camps are built, the thought police is in place, NorthCom has its combat brigades ready to suppress civil dissent.
Am I the only person who sees the parallel between the US of today and 1930's Germany?
WAKE UP, America! It may already be too late.
minitrue sez: "Am I the only person who sees the parallel between the US of today and 1930's Germany?"
***
No.
"Am I the only person who sees the parallel between the US of today and 1930's Germany?"
I see it.
It may be that you and I are old enough to remember the end of Nazi Germany or at least heard the frightening stories, fresh in the minds of our parents, of what came over the "good German" people. I used to think: That could never happen in "America the Beautiful." But it's happening. The slide is thoroughly waxed.
Yes, the current-day corporate dominated polity is just like the detested Weimar Republic, and the rght-economic-populist, anti-elite Tea-Party backlash are the beer-hall Putsh.
Palin will write another book, possibly while jailed, which will become a sort of USAn-style "Mein Kampf" - but much more idiotic.
And, between the cosmopolitan big-finance corporate elites, and the right-populist uprisings, the tiny reality-based minority called the US left, Nader included, will be left to wring their hands.
And they won't come for Jews and Gypsies this time, they will come for "Liberals, Socialists, Sodomites, and Athiests".
to rvrwalker:
No! This has nothing to do with 1930's Germany. This is much more perverse. The correct description of our present day Angst is in Naomi Klein's book with the title
"The Shock Doctrine". The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
Please, everybody, read this book, or read it again. It will explain how we got to the present, and it ain't pretty.
By the way, I was born in Germany just a few years after but before the outbreak of WWII [Poland] when Hitler and his Nationalsocialists started their terror and they were the ones that ruined the "Weimarer Republik" by arresting and killing any one that was'nt Ayran or belonged to the Socialists, Communists, Unions, people of faith, especially Jews, Gypsies and etc.. You all get the picture. It has been well documented and I don't have to repeat it here.
Thank you.
Sioux Rose
KOMMANDER: I have read "The Shock Doctrine," and highly recommend it, and while there's no question that disaster capitalism practiced on other lands now appears ready to take direct aim at the big enchilada, the remaining money in the U.S. treasury, that does NOT discount the parallels with the rising Nazi forces in Germany. One difference is that instead of Jews acting as scapegoats, the Muslims (those "Islamofascists" and presumed-guilty-until-proven innocent-terrorists) have been given the dubious distinction this time.
It's amazing to me that tactics plainly demonstrated in previous times are not recognized as such just because different groups currently enact them. It's as if history played from a selection of a mere two or three scripts; yet so long as different actors take on the familiar roles in costumes altered to suit the fashion of their times, too few people get it, or recognize that it's the same wolf wearing sheep's clothing out to kill real people and steal real goods. Over and over again.
I believe that our academic training through "the sepration of disciplines" creates in many a tendency to fixate on ONE argument or angle of expertise and focus. All other viable contributing factors are left out. One part of "the transition" we face is learning to multitask in our brains, by realizing that more than one basis for analysis holds value; and that a number of these key factors work co-creatively to bring history and events to pass. Those who argue that there is only one way to see things, or that only economics, or only psychology, or only religious beliefs, etc acts as the key force show a limited form of cognitive reasoning.
I would quibble on one point -- it is not JUST Muslims that have been designated "the enemy" -- but ANYONE can be called a "terrorist" and locked away forever, tortured, and made to disappear.
Gary
Sioux Rose
GARY: Yeah, I forgot about all those Hasidic Jews at Quantanamo, along with those blond-blue eyed Southern Baptists. How could I have been so careless.
Yes, but isn't the current corrupt and incompetent lot running things similar to the Weimar Republic, and wasn't Hitler a populist who channeled popular German anger against the Weimar order (and the raw deal of Versailles) in a very ugly direction?
In other words, the current SCOTUS, US Congress, Executive branch and corporations, are quite vile, but not the fascists we have to worry about. The popular reaction to all this vileness will be where the fascism arises from.
And we on the left will be as helpless as the German leftists - ultimately killed or sent to death camps if they didn't flee.
Sioux Rose
MINITRUE: Right on! And yes, brother, I see it, too!
If I were to state the top factors that have brought this fascism-lite to our land they would include:
1. The control of mainstream media to shape a consensus where none would otherwise exist. (Cygnus has been right-on relating this aspect).
2. The tax laws under Reagan that helped erect a fiscal pyramid engineering big money to remain on top and only the "spoils" to trickle down. (Ubrew has been right-on in relating this factor).
3. The use of sports and religion to link human emotions with specific team affiliations, a pattern that then extends into other more dangerous "us versus them" delineations... like this current Dark Age and its related Crusades.
4. The relaxing of the Constitutional mandates that led to a separation of church and state, as well as a set of counter-balances situated amongst 3 co-equal government branches. Instead we get "unitary executive," or 21st century definition of the latest king, czar, dictator, tyrant, etc.
5. The academic dumbing down as education has come to be seen as "product" oriented, with "test results" the "proof" of worth. Real independent learning and critical thinking are passe.
6. The American diet: Its focus on sugars, fillers, fake flavors, and numerous types of preservatives leaves people poorly nourished, and when they are not getting what they need, they crave sweets or alcohol or a drug to quell the mood swings. Hence, a nation of addicts.
7. 911 as the necessary Reichstag moment to begin decimating civil liberties, and efficiently using fear (and the terrorist threat) to usurp the laws of the lands.
There are other factors, but these would seem to me to be the most critical to the game plan of converting our nation into the biggest treasure chest that the Disaster Capitalists ever had the chance (and hubris) to break into. First they made sure that they owned the guards, then they bought the lawmakers, then they gained access to media to convince those viewing the heists in the light of day, that all this was being done for their (national) security, and/or best interests.
These define a number of fronts upon which a massive effort to raise consciousness is required. Thwarting such progress are:
1. The fact that those who now intone against official government mantras are already being pre-selected for a number of watch lists.
2. The fact that the dis-information campaign has gone on so long and owns so many channels that the vast majority may sense that something is wrong, but are being programmed to vent their outrage at precisely the sources that would save them from themselves, and the deluded worldview that has been so expensively packaged and fed to them.
3. Laws like this one.
4. The "lost in 2 dimensions" right or left, Demo or Repub stalwarts who truly cannot envision any OTHER alternative, even when both offered teams are ostensibly and impossibly sold out. While good people, many progressive-minded play checkers, the dark side is playing 4th dimensional chess! We must learn to think on a NUMBER of simultaneous fronts to take back our world!
Divine Intervention.... Please!
"Divine Intervention.... Please!"
we are the divine and we do intervene.
"we are the divine and we do intervene"
With what... words!?
I'm German, and let me tell you, unless the 'divine' are willing to pick up arms and put their lives on the line instead of their mouths history will repeat itself, which is already happening if one pays attention. Are we going to say what my grand parents in Germany said, that we had no idea what was going on??? We know better, don't we!
It may be time for progressives to re-consider their stand on gun ownership, I have a feeling that we may have to join our beloved friends on the right (at least some of them, I never thought I would say that), they seem to be ahead of us in this regard. Their brains may be wired differently, god knows I have been trying to figure this out for a long time, but they certainly can hold a gun without tripping over their intellect.
They may become our best allies in our fight against fascism, which in my opinion will be the biggest battle of our lives.
Lets get ready!
AML
"in the beginning was . . . the gun?"
Souix - Agree with everything you said and I, too, see the parallels to Germany.
But the one HUGE difference that no one has yet pointed out is how much more power INTERNATIONAL corporations can now have over US politics. This court decision allows any corporation - not just those that (or should I say, 'who') are headquartered in the U.S. - to put their 2 bazillion cents worth into the US elections.
Many of us on this site have commented on the U.S. govt's too-close relationship to the Israelies and Saudis. (And for any Jews out there, I'm not an anti-Semite so get over it already).
Things are going to get much worse before they get better.
Sioux Rose
IOWA: You raise a solid point, and I'll tell you how it scares the beejesus out of me. Imagine a time within the next decade when the over-inflated US dollar no longer carries much international clout. What have we got left here to sell but weapons? Will the "leaders" sell to our ally-today/enemy-tomorrow the very weapons that will be turned on OUR people? Another scenario would be that if these international corporations which now owe no allegiance to any land, and have effectively used their own trade courts to anesthetize the sovereign law of lands to do such wondrous things as argue FOR contaminating waters (it's profitable, after all, if one is only concerned with short term temporal paper wealth as a depiction of worth) or kill dolphin in tuna nets, etc. This mentality may seize any number of now communal facilities. In other words, the short term profit motive may end up selling Americans out in ways not even bargained for by their Faustian designers.
I agree about the grassroots effort- how do we start?
It will be real tough: organizing to enact a 28th Amendment to the Constitution stating that only natural born persons are entitled to Constitutional protections.
How about this: Enlist people to create corporations in your state, register their names as "John Brown, LLC" or "Mary Smith, Inc.", and then go down to city hall and register the entities as candidates for every office from dogcatcher to governor. Then see who challenges the personhood of a corporation.
mad kitty, What a great idea. I had lost hope on John Browns in this comfortably numb country. Revive his spirit. Vote John Brown.
Right! If corporations have ALL the rights of personhood, then they can hold office. If they have all the rights, they have all the responsibilities, i.e., corporations should do jail time the same as any other person when they break the law instead of signing Corporate Integrity Agreements. Shouldn't the Court now decide who the Entity of the corporation is for these purposes? Is it the executive board, the board of directors, or does it include the shareholders, all of them?
The Supreme Court's embrace of corporate personhood should be turned around on corporations to completely "pierce the corporate veil". This case should be taken to its logical end: to eliminate the limited liability protections that corporations currently enjoy.
would this rule out C-sections?
There's so much more we could be doing but off the top of my head:
1) Call up your representatives and tell them you are no longer a Democrat and will be working for a truly progressive candidate come next election. Tell them that voting for the best candidate is your right and no longer will you be held hostage by their sold out party.
2) Try to hook up with progressive groups in your community. The Green Party is getting a lot of new members but they still need help. You can probably mention your state, your town, here on CD and get hooked up with groups.
3) Go to town halls, city council meetings, and publicly speak in favor of progressive ideals and goals. Write letters to the editor about things that concern you. Others will read it and perhaps contact you.
4) Keep yourself informed so that you can speak clearly about issues.
5) Find a niche for action and start working. It may be health care, corporate tax issues, jobs, etc.
6) Make a call for a "progressives unite" meetings, where you can put your heads together and map out a plan. Keep connected with other groups with similar concerns but don't get sucked into a two-party compromise ..... that's a dead end.
Fascism is coming people, and as this court decision and Massachusetts demonstrate, you voted for it.
Enjoy.
It's been here for a long time. People are just now becoming aware of it. Don't support corporations.
I didn't vote for Obama, so don't blame me for growing fascism. Blame Democrats!
Apple Pie Land empirePie January 21st, 2010
Come see the latest slate creation
an arty artifact without the law
It has a missing bit
a silhouette logo of empty space
It’s a missing apple with colored splatter
the bitten bit doesn’t matter
it’s just from the garden but with extra blather
iFigure, iPhone, iNest, iPod
iSlate the lawless newbie in
Logo la la land
to creep on culture
plasma colored, brighter than real
with the extreme agility
of the virtual feel,
defined by what's missing
like....
the O bomb o brand
with due diligence dithering
a brand that is slithering
like a sticker tagged apple
on a ‘Tipping Point’,... a slide
a blank ‘Blink’
too glad to fall from the tree
for an empty pie
for splattered apples without a granny
a dress without a grammy
Logo land,.. Apple pie land
la la lawless land
corporatocracy bland
pixilated, PG rated,
patriot pride debated
so be..
proud to be rogue and sated
In apple pie land
Yes, poetry is good, but beyond that, we need some kind of poetic justice.
Long live the poets and artists!
Yes, but under the ACLU's definition of "free speech" ePie's voice will be heard only to the extent that he has money - and often not even then. Even when left-activists or unions can occasionally scrape up enough money for paid TV or newspaper ads, they are often refused by the TV broadcaster or newspaper - and the ACLU will then defend the corporate media's "freedom" to do this too.
No different than Honduras, where Zelaya's proposals for enhancing genuine freedom and popular democracy were transmorgified into something anti-freedom, becasue they violated an elite-written piece of paper.
Freedom of speech is does not mean freedom to bellyache in private in a hard-to find, room with a door closed - or it's internet equivalent.
It is on par for the law of united states to claim that a non- human (corporations and unions ) is a person.
It betrays the notion of truth and justice.
Corporations are chartered entities created by groups of people coming together to do business. All of those individuals who make up the corporation already have the portion of rights they are entitled to. This gives them a second helping based solely on their ability as a group to make money and need to spend a little in Washington so they can make more.
I'd like to see five supremes impeached.
I am not surprised that SCOTUS ruled this way given how they have drifted towards Fascism over the past 20 years.
The consequences of this will be far reaching. Neither the Republicans or the Democrats will ever seek to end Corporate Personhood. It is just too lucrative for them.