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We Must Stop This Corporate Takeover of American Democracy
The corporate barbarians are through the gate of American democracy. Not satisfied with their all-pervasive influence on our culture, economy and legislative processes, they want more. They want it all.
David Koch and Charles G Koch: the US supreme court's Citizens United decision has enabled the industrialists to fund conservative groups to the tune of $200m already in this electoral cycle. (Photograph: Getty)
Two years ago, the United States supreme court betrayed our Constitution and those who fought to ensure that its protections are enjoyed equally by all persons regardless of religion, race or gender by engaging in an unabashed power-grab on behalf of corporate America. In its now infamous decision in the Citizens United case, five justices declared that corporations must be treated as if they are actual people under the Constitution when it comes to spending money to influence our elections, allowing them for the first time to draw on the corporate checkbook – in any amount and at any time – to run ads explicitly for or against specific candidates.
What's next … a corporate right to vote?
Don't laugh. Just this month, the Republican National Committee filed an amicus brief in a US appeals court contending that the natural extension of the Citizens United rationale is that the century-old ban on corporate contributions directly to candidates and political parties is similarly unconstitutional. They want corporations to be able to sponsor candidates and parties directly while claiming with a straight face this would not result in any sort of corruption. And while, this month, they take no issue with corporations being subject to the existing contribution limits, anyone paying attention knows that eliminating such caps will be corporate America's next prize in its brazen ambition for absolute control over our elections.
The US Constitution has served us very well, but when the supreme court says, for purposes of the first amendment, that corporations are people, that writing checks from the company's bank account is constitutionally-protected speech and that attempts by the federal government and states to impose reasonable restrictions on campaign ads are unconstitutional, our democracy is in grave danger.
I am a proud sponsor of a number of bills that would respond to Citizens United and begin to get a handle on the problem. But something more needs to be done – something more fundamental and indisputable, something that cannot be turned on its head by a rightwing supreme court.
That is why I have introduced a resolution in the Senate (introduced by Representative Ted Deutch in the House) calling for an amendment to the US Constitution that says simply and straightforwardly what everyone – except five members of the United States supreme court – understands: corporations are not people with constitutional rights equal to flesh-and-blood human beings. Corporations are subject to regulation by the people. Corporations may not make campaign contributions – the law of the land for the last century – or dump unlimited sums of money into our elections. And Congress and states have broad power to regulate all election spending.
I did not introduce this lightly. In fact, I have never sought to amend the Constitution before. The US Constitution is an extraordinary document that, in my view, should not be amended often. In light of the supreme court's Citizens United decision, however, I see no alternative. The ruling has radically changed the nature of our democracy. It has further tilted the balance of power toward the rich and the powerful at a time when the wealthiest people in this country have never had it so good.
At a time when corporations have more than $2tn in cash in their bank accounts, make record-breaking profits and swarm Washington with their lobbyists 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the highest court in the land to suggest that there is just not enough corporate "speech" in our system defies the bounds of reason and sanity. The ruling already has led to plans, for example, by industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch to steer more than $200m – potentially much more – to conservative groups ahead of election day 2012. Karl Rove has similar designs.
Does anybody really believe that that is what American democracy is supposed to be about?
I believe that the Citizens United decision will go down as one of the worst in our country's history – and one that demands an amendment to our Constitution in order to restore sovereign power to the people, as our nation's founders intended.
If we do not reverse it and the culture of corporate dominance over our elections that it has exacerbated, there will be no end to the impact that corporate interests have on our campaigns and our democracy.
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91 Comments so far
Show AllYou go Bernie, give 'em hell. And good luck to you. Even if all the bills you have proposed would pass (and we know what the likelihood of that happening is), it will be like the financial "reform" passed after the meltdown and the newly-formed consumer protection agency to protect us little people from the banksters. This system is too corrupt and too broken for little fixes like legislation which are nothing more than the equivalent of slapping a coat of paint on a house which has been eaten by termites from the foundation up.
If this gets any traction at all, it will be a bitter, uphill battle as the corporations will drag this proposed amendment through the mud to the tune of $100's of millions in attack ads. Rational individuals will see through this corprate crapstorm, however, they majority of Americans will allow their perceptions to be shaped by these same artfully created propaganda pieces. That is of course assuming the amendment will actually be offered to the public at all. After all, a good politician is one that stays bought.
An ignorant USAn public has been dumbed down that 10's millions thin k that the Commander in Chief[CC] designation for the POTUS means that he the POTUS is the CC of all the USAn people and don't know the Constitution, that the POTUS is the CC of the military.The Bush gang fostered this for political gain not discouraging the ignorance
If ttahis ammendment were offered as referendum to each sate's population, it would win by a vast majority. People in the US are not quite as stupid as you make them out to be. Polls show 80%= support for this amendment.
The problem is that the amendment will have to get through 2/3 of the corrupt legislative bodies in the 50 States. Much easier to buy the representitives, less of them.
"A Corporation is not a Person" would also eliminate Corporate lobbying, i.e., writing our laws.
Corporate lobbying is tantamount to open corruption. They used to call it "carpet bagging." It's extortion and payola, and has been around for a long time. It is the way our completely corrupted government works, but that doesn't mean it hasn't always been wrong and antithetical to the Constitution as originally written.
Let's hope Bernie's Bill exposes a few fig leaves.
""A Corporation is not a Person" would also eliminate Corporate lobbying, i.e., writing our laws."
This reasoning would also eliminate Union lobbying, campaigning, and writing our laws.
It may eliminate Union lobbying and campaigning but not writing our laws. Roger Beachy, the guy that created GMO seed, was appointed the first Director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) by President Barack Obama. Beachy will join the agency on October 5, 2009. He brought with him S 510 the anti-small farmer bill. Beachy's company is across the street from Monsanto who is his biggest client. Corporations not being people would not change this crap.
Corporatiosn write laws the world over even in Jurisdictions where Coporate personhood is not recognized.
They do this because under the theory of Capitalism and property law the private individiual or Coporation controls the "means of production". They can shut down economies at will and use this fact to dictate policy.
""A Corporation is not a Person" would also eliminate Corporate lobbying, i.e., writing our laws."
How so? Are you suggesting corporations didn't lobby Congress before they were recognized as persons in 1886 in by the Supreme Court?
The right to petition/lobby is guaranteed by the First Amendment, which specifically prohibits Congress from abridging "the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Without the legal fiction of Corporate Personhood, Corporations would have no First Amendment rights, including the right to lobby.
Historically, the right to lobby was an individual right. Lobbying by corporations and other groups has always been associated with corruption.
It might if the amendment was clear: Corporations are not persons, freedom of speech is limited to truthful commercial speech; and stated that elected or appointed federal employees must wait 5 years to work for any corporation or bsiness sector they had contact with during or before their tenure.
Regarding other legitimate criticisms of the limits of this amendment, if corporations can't give political money (and I really like the suggestion above/below that there should be no out-of-state or out-of-district money) we would be more likely to vote for people who would actually be accountable to us.
Maybe it will work, maybe not, but I think we have to try.
There has always been corporate/government corruption, but before CU, it had to be done under the table and, once in a while, it got discovered and even more rarely, someone got punished for it.
The only difference is that now a corporation's minion can just come in with a wheelbarrow full of shrink wrapped $100's and dump them on desks as a vote comes up.
Freedom of corporate speech, ya know.
I realize this is not pertinent to the article but..................
Did Bernie vote for the latest round of sanctions against Iran?
No. I assume, as is always the case, "Leadership" released the following Senators, thus allowing them to vote against the sanctions:
"Senators voting no Thursday spanned the ideological spectrum and included Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), James E. Risch (R-Idaho), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)."
http://obrag.org/?p=5137
Bernie is not a tool of Israel.
The US constitution is long dead. The corporate state is the new paradigm, nothing will stop it. It's not just taking over the US, it's taking over the world. The stage is set they are at the controls. They can manipulate or even crash all of the systems that we are dependent on in todays world. They could crash the US power grid, the world economy, infect us with plague, or start WW3. It's like losing a limb or your sight, you have to deal with it because you have no choice. The human race is going to go through a historical period of corporate governance. We have got to learn how to deal with it, or at least how to survive it.
Wow doing the work of the power elite for them. People can defeat these creeps but need to conquer defeatism first.
I don't see a lot of serious discussion on this site about the political economic reality we are dealing with right now. The corporate state is here now, do you deny it's existence. Strap up dude, get ready!
Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."
Since then, the government has just said, as a litany, "Be afraid, be very afraid!"
Yes of course Bernie, but you work for an un-democratic and thoroughly corrupt institution (the US Senate). Citizens United merely formalized what was already happening in practice. The corruption of the D/R duopoly, winner takes all, big money, corporate media cartel orchestrated "elections" make democracy an oxymoron when applied.
A well-known progressive hero, the late Howard Zinn, repeatedly claimed that the only source of substantive change is from massive civil disobedience. Working within a system that is based on propaganda, lies, hypocrisy, bribery, graft and deep-seated cultural and insitutional corruption will only produce like results. The last 35 years should be very demonstrative of this.
So we need to follow Howard Zinn's advice: organize, protest, disobey. and do not participate in the institutions of repression and tyranny. (don't do business w/ BigBanks and Corporate Tyrants) Occupy Wall St. is just the beginning.
NDAA 2012 was signed by Pres.; No one has been prosecuted for the largest financial crimes in history; no one has been held accountable for War Crimes and Treason; Bradley Manning was tortured for being a whistle-blower, peaceful protesters are severely beaten, pepper-sprayed and imprisoned. How much more evidence do we need? Rumsfeld was right about one thing: The Constitution is nothing but a goddamned piece of paper.
Only a callous ivory-tower elitist, or someone totally uninformed would claim that we are protected by the Bill of Rights (which in practice is practially null and void). With NDAA, most of the Magna Carta of 1215 is null and void. We are now mired in neo-Feudalism
A rational voice in Congress! Thank you, Bernie Sanders.
A bill in the corporate congress, an amendment to the constitution voted on by a corporate congress and a corporate controlled citizenry, an argument before the corporate supreme court,
NONE of these will work.
Only if the voters rebuke ALL corporate funded candidates and elect real outsiders will this degradation stop.
I'll do my part.
There is hardly any interest in developing a party to oppose the duopoly, so there is no way to elect real outsiders.
Lesser evilism reigns supreme.
"port_lookout"
What you say is all true.
So, I say there is nothing to lose by supporting the greens, if you can.
Also, little subversions of the duopoly supporters can be enjoyable because when crazy people tell you that you are crazy there is a little voice inside that says "look who's talking."
Right you are, Mr Alley.
If we all spent a little time helping out our local Greens we'd soon be able to elect some real outsiders.
For those who have interest, here is a good way to go ...
http://www.jillstein.org
That's the problem with unlimited personal and organization and corporate spending on political campaigns. It distorts and destroys the American ideal of "one man, one vote" because it greases the campaigns and facilitates the success of ideologically driven and ideologically enthralled candidates. It greases the campaigns and contributes to the success of candidates who are willing to take a lot of money from a few people—is their motive hard to figure out?
More of my comments at: http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2011/12/elections-for-sale.html
The British did have one good idea.
It's called resignation.
I will feel that Bernie Sanders is worth listening to the day he resigns from office and declares that he will donate his pension to the United Nations.
Manysummits
=====
"does anybody believe that that is what american democracy is supposed to be about?"
actually bernie, you might get quite a few takers on this. the influence of money on the "way of life" here in the bad old u.s. of a. is not just central. it is foundational. corporations have just taken what is bedrock mainstream values among the general population to the next logical stage.
the idea that u.s. citizens have had "exceptional" freedoms and opportunities among all peoples of the world is among the most insane of all myths we are taught as children, and which many continue to believe throughout life. for it is precisely the gargantuan level of ignorance and denial needed to maintain this fiction that serves to ensure that our servitude to this out-of-control power mongering by corporations will continue unabated.
we don't have anything like democracy going on - never have and probably never will. those of us who catch that drift have long since bailed on that doomed "luxury liner."
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
Johan Goethe
At this point, I do really think it must be "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS." What is mandatory, in my view, is a full-scale Revolution, which will necessarily entail FORCE.
Short-List of Things to Do:
Annihilating completely all corporations; Ending entirely the ghastly law of corporate personhood; Sending all the filthy and corrupt politicians to prison for life; Getting all the American peoples' hard-earned tax dollars back from the whores that stole it all; Yanking all the filthy mansions and filthy yachts from all the filthy CEO's and Other Criminals, along with all the bastard corrupt politicians, then giving them all away to people that work hard for a living; Giving black people reparations for all the horrible things that greedy white people did to them and, incidentally, continue to do to them; Educate the brainless masses; Find somewhere on earth that isn't completely RUINED by the horrible and insanely unconscious top one percent of the American population...
lf a corporation is a person can it be held responsible for murder and executed?
The best I have yet seen some person already posted here so forgive ny forgetting who it was BUT...
If money is free speech can i excercise my right to free speech by bribing a cop when I get a traffic ticket?
Well, there is this:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/30/the-myth-of-bernie-sanders/
Peace
Pet
Thank you for posting the link, Pet. You beat me to it.
Naylor just did the fascists a big favor
What do you mean by "stop the corporate takeover?" It is too late, the takeover is complete. The corporations (in reality, those who own & run them) have had everything handed to them on a silver platter. It is over.....
Bernie get a clue Senator. Citizens united gave coporations the right of free speech and free speech equals money. Passing a law to change that ruleing does not change and will not change our "we the people" suppression by corporations.
An amendment to the constitution saying that corporations are not people does not change the fact that they exist and have contractual rights. They come into existance by the states. Once a contract has been signed by both the state and the corporation that is protected by the contracts clause of the constitution. Most states only requirement for chartering corporations is that they profit. No social benifits only private personal gain. That issue was decided in 1816.
Bernie's amendment will only change the relationship of corporations and the 1% to elections and that only. Corporations are much more powerful than that and can through ownership of media and advertisement buffulo the people. Congress critters already jump out of office into million dollar jobs and then jump back into office to change the rules.
The state creates the corporation by a contract. When it is signed the corporation is sovereign and the state has no power over it. The State creates municipal corporations that can give we the people the right to decide issues that effect our health, safety and welfare. Scotus ruled that the state is sovereign over the municipal corporation and do away with your city or town government when it so chooses.
The constitution was written by the rich to insure that they held that position.Scotus has strengthen that over time. There is almost no democracy under our present system. It will take a whole lot more than an amendment to the constitution to allow us the "God given rights" to life (NDAA), Health (Obamacre?) and general good welfare, Bernie
Corporations may be deemed "persons," but many are not U.S. citizens.With corporate headquarters in the Cayman Islands or some other offshore location, are they entitled to interfere with U.S. elections?
They might be able to if they have a "subsidiary" in this country. I wouldn't put it past some of the parasites on Capitol Hill to allow our country to be taken over by foreign corporations so long as they personally can benefit from such legislation.
.......You might want to check out this article and others on this website:
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/articles_2004/corporate_tax_evasion_offshore.html
What I don't understand is, why didn't it require an amendment to the constitution to allow corporations to be considered people? An amendment to the constitution was required to define women as people. Another amendment was required to define blacks as people. But corporations got personhood without the citizens of the United States being consulted. It seems backwards that we have to do alot of work to undo the granting of personhood for corporations! Let's do it, yes. But it is not right that it be needed.
Actually Kathy Moi corporations used the 14th amendment to become persons and not only did that but through the back door of the supreme court. In 1886 18 years after the 14th amendment was ratified Scotus ruled in the case of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific about a tax issue. The clerk of the court, who had been a railroad owner' in reporting on the case said that the court had made corporations people. (this was 1886, even then the rich were leaving corporate jobs and joining our government, the judicial system, to subvert it to their dominance.) The court had not actually decided that. A judge checked it out and said good enough, as a report. It became precedent. Meaning that cases after that could consider corporations as persons. This is huge. No where in our constitution is the word corporation. They came in through the back door of the commerce clause and contract clause and now own your and my ass.
People must be helped to understand what is at stake if we do not reverse citizens united.
Now is the time to stop complaining, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! We need to take Egypt's and the Arab Spring's lead and start protesting in the streets; march on Washington like the Million Man March> join Move to Amend, MoveOn, etc so we can organize our collective clout and start shutting down whole cities until WE THE PEOPLE are LISTENED TO. We are the change agents! We way outnumber the 1%ers and they know that. Hope I see you all at the next rally!!
Darnocles, I think the "DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT" is actually already being done by the Occupied Wall Street (OWS) crowd, in addition to the activist groups and politically active citizens who have been attempting to recall Gov. Walker in Wisconsin, the Ohio activist citizens who beat back efforts to limit earnings of all organized workers in that state this past November, and multiple states that are facing fights over picture ID's for voter registration.
You need to find a group in your city, and get active, talk to other people and include them whenever you to to an event or meeting. Host an event or make phone calls from your home. You are then part of the change that is already underway.
Where is it written that no one counts unless they have the letters "INC" trailing behind them? I guess I missed that part of the civics lesson, "Mitt"....
Corporations are NOT people. They are faceless entities that seek to overun all things they cannot corrupt or profit from. How anyone who ever really worked-or works- for a living can be opposed to the Occupy movement and FOR giving corporations more tax breaks and power is a mystery greater than the pyramids.
All the posters here are right on. Yes give 'em Hell, Bernie!! Finally, good for Chris Hedges, too, for suing Obama for signing the NDAA.
If we succeed in getting CU repealed, we will still be back to graft as usual. Until we can get money out of politics, not much will change.
Please read and share:
http://celdf.live2.radicaldesigns.org/downloads/CELDF%20CITIZENS%20UNITED%20STATEMENT%20JANUARY%2017%202012.pdf
How I see it, most folks running for political Office at the County and State Level, as well as those running to represent their States on Capitol Hill and the White House are already owned by the mega-rich corporations. They practically run our electoral system and pimp our politicians. So money has already taken over democracy in this country, only most of the American people are too blind to see this.
Did you say before they take over....?