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Overturn Citizens United: Amend the Constitution
I was asked to speak at an “Occupy the Courts” rally outside the federal courthouse in Madison, Wisconsin, yesterday. It was nine degrees out, and it was snowing, but about 85 people showed up to denounce the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
People held signs that said, “Supreme Court plus Supreme Corruption Equals Supreme Calamity” and “End Corporate Personhood.”
The Raging Grannies made fun of the decision in song after song.
Mike McCabe, the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, rightly said that it “effectively legalized bribery again” in our political system and that we need to “fight to recriminalize bribery.”
Wisconsin State Assemblywoman Chris Taylor said we need to amend not only the federal Constitution but our state constitution as well if we are to eliminate corporate control of our government.
Here is, by and large, what I said, as my teeth were chattering and my ears were freezing:
“Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court put a stake through the heart of democracy in America.
It ruled, amazingly, that we can’t regulate corporate expenditures in elections so long as they are “independent” of the candidates.
In doing so, it relied on two encrusted legal falsehoods:
First, that corporations = persons.
And second, that money = speech.
And it betrayed an appalling naivete about how our system works:
The 5-4 majority said—check this out—that “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”
And even if they did give rise to the appearance of corruption, the court asserted, without foundation, that “the appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.”
What planet were those justices on?
The American people are already losing faith in our democracy because of the influence of money in politics.
That’s why 80 percent opposed this ruling, including 76 percent of Republicans!
Since this ruling, we’re already seeing the enormous increase of money in politics with the so-called Super PACS.
The only way we have a prayer of democracy is if we overturn Citizens United. And there are just two ways to do that.
You can hope and pray for a different composition on the Court, a more liberal court, to do the job, but that’s no guarantee and it’s an impermanent fix.
Or we can fix it once and for all and pass a Constitutional Amendment that says, unequivocally,
that money is not speech,
that corporations are not persons, and
that corporations can’t spend money to elect this candidate or to trash that candidate.
Fortunately, the people are increasingly in favor of such an approach. Already, the two biggest cities in the United States, New York and LA, have gone on record in favor of such an amendment. Other cities, like our own Madison, Wisconsin, have also passed resolutions advocating this. As have Boulder, Colorado and Missoula, Montana.
And at the national level, Bernie Sanders has introduced a bill to amend the Constitution, as has Sen. Tom Udall, as well as Representative Donna Edwards and John Yarmuth in the House.
So today we occupy the courts.
Tomorrow we must occupy the Constitution.
And some day soon we slay the dragon of corporate personhood and establish, for ourselves and our posterity, a real democracy right here in America.”
For more information, please go to movetoamend.org.
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48 Comments so far
Show AllHow to overturn 'Citizens Untied': Dissolve every single corporate charter, and ban the issuing of new ones for a year. Then see how enthusiastic Corporations are about committing criminal acts.
Perhaps the most incredibly butt-stupid idea I've ever seen suggested here. And that's saying something.
And your suggestion is... What? Do nothing? Let the Corporations and their puppet Politicians continue to violate you every time you bend over to pick up your paycheque?
If you dissolve the Corporate charters, you force them back into limited company status, beholden to enforceable laws (anti-trust and others), and the owners, investors and operators can no longer hide their actions behind the Corporate 'super-citizenship' that the Corporate charters grant them.
If you have a better idea, speak up. Otherwise, get used to wearing that slave collar.
Rothschild's Amendment idea is already a better idea than yours, why should we need to better it before you have? ;)
Pulling all of the charters and banning them for a full year is a bit of a over-the-top, heavy-handed, Stalinesque sort of solution don't you think?
AND it has about as much chance of happening in the U.S. in our lifetimes as Collectivization of Agriculture does.
I'm not alone in thinking it's time to end Corporate charters:
http://www.ratical.org/corporations/
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Controlling_Corporations/NewCourse_CorpsRights.html
http://www.alternativeradio.org/products/gror002
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=1810
when coming outta left field, it's always good to have those links to back you up, otherwise people will think you're nuts. (except for the part about sacrificing leaders, that's not nuts).
I always thought the big corporate plantation farms was just our version of collectivized agriculture, and stalin's USSR was just one, gigantic "company town", in terms of "the reality on the ground". Am I far off, in this surmise? In other words, the 1%ers managing the affairs of the 99ers without regard for "the consent of the governed".
Good point ;)
The related PIPA SOPA controversy continues to be critiqued in articulation of the flaws of the legal argument. 'handing out water that is not wet'
Another contribution - TED Talk Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea Jan 20
http://www.ted.com/talkshttp://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html
So... we should work within the system... waiting... it's coming... oh! Oh!... to... change the system! Yahoo! I think I got it! A plan not so crazy it might work, but just crazy enough that people might believe it'll work. Genius.
Waiting? For what pray tell... the light at the end of the tunnel roaring toward you?
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
Abraham Lincoln
Excuse my poor writing, but I was waiting for... waiting... for... a thought.
You are confusing "the system" in the Washington Consensus, Imperialist, Corporatist, Red/Blue, TV-bullshit sense with "the system" in the Constitutional, Republican, Democratic, Libertine sense.
Rothschild's "movetoamend" is as wussy as the bulk of Progressive ideas, but it is right next to some really good ideas that actually have enough balls to work. ;)
For instance,it doesn't take that long a step to get from (1)an Amendment to end Corporate Personhood, to (2)the need for several more significant Amendments, to (3)the need for a Constitutional Convention(s), to (4)the utility of a largely new Constitution(s) and a 2nd Republic.
Rothschild and millions of others have already taken Step (1), which is -in its way- as bold a step as that of the (true) Tea Partiers in 1773.
By doing this they put themselves on the very outside edge of the political space allowed for by the Overseers in Imperial Capital.
Step (2) puts them fully outside of that space.
Step (3) breaks all their ties to it and turns them into Rebels.
Step (4) makes them Revolutionaries.
When one is on a hike with people less fit, one slows down and helps them keep up, one doesn't run ahead only to stop every once and a while to mock and deride them for being slow. ;)
we don't need to amend the constitution
we need to enforce the constitution
once again mr rothschild is demonstrating his absolute disconnect from reality
who does he think he is - katrina vanden heuvel
Here is, by and large, what I said, as my teeth were chattering and my ears were freezing:
“Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court put a stake through the heart of democracy in America. (and today I put a stake through your brain)
How about George Soros, Oprah, Baba Streisand, etc ? Should they still be allowed to contribute millions upon millions ?
How about unions ? The MPAA ? Any limits on THEIR money ? How about any and all other left-wing groups / individuals ? Do you want them and their hundreds of millions taken out of the political process also ?
OR maybe it's just 'those you disagree with' ???
Hmmmm ?????
Anyone who actually aspires to high political office should automatically be disqualified on grounds of demonstrated mental illness or defect.
ANY large concentrations of wealth, be they societies or individuals, should be banned from ANY contribution to ANY candidate. People or groups who break this law would be forced to watch as their wealth is forcibly stripped from them and redistributed to the neediest and most destitute.
Do like the ancient Celts did. Elect a ruler, and when he screws up and brings ruin to the country, sacrifice them and use their suffering to demonstrate to the next ruler that they too will be held accountable.
'The only person fit to be President is one who is dragged kicking and screaming into office, with the promise of early release for good behavior' :)
Sounds like a goof platform. But what do we name the party? ;)
If within the confines of our present system we want a modicum of democracy, we need to do exactly as the author states. There is no other viable alternative within the confines of our present system.
If you want to talk about changing the system, then we have another conversation entirely.
To Galenwainwright...what planet are you living on currently? There is not a snowballs chance in hell of what you suggest happening. It would be wonderful if it did, but just exactly how would you suggest implementing this grand idea? How would you get the concept past our corporate lick spittle congress? I can hardly wait to hear your reply!
But, but... what about sacrificing rulers? I like that idea!
I am utterly aware of the chances of any kind of sane or just reform of the system. The system and the wider pseudo-culture is completely corrupt. Only physical revolution would change it, and most people are too unwilling to give up their iCrap and 'Reality TeeVee' to do so.
I'm just hoping to dodge the larger pieces of this wreck when it explodes over our heads like the second 'Death Star(tm)'.
After suffering through CNN at my friends house, and listening to my friends dissertation regarding the insanity of the Republicans, versus the sanity of the Democrats, I am reevaluating my assessment of your views.
Burning down the house.
"and castles made of sand fall to the sea, eventually." jimi hendrix
if corporations have achieved the same stature as a living breathing human being, the only logical course of action that would result in a positive outcome is to make them subject to the various restrictions/penalties prescribed for any individual who breaks the law. up to and including the death penalty. in real terms, that would mean these "people" being held to the same standards of socially responsible behavior as anyone else.
it goes without saying that this includes the presumption that they are independent of, not in control of or synonymous with the apparatus of law enforcement.
these ficticious "people" want to pretend to inhabit that lofty domain, but only to the extent it serves their power-addicted purposes. they must be forced to choose one way or the other - either get out of the political process with these insane amounts of money, or open yourself up to total accountability.
"...make them subject to the various restrictions/penalties prescribed for any individual who breaks the law. up to and including the death penalty. in real terms, that would mean these "people" being held to the same standards of socially responsible behavior as anyone else."
You mean just like China does? Ironic, ain't it?
the irony is that the scotus has effectively embraced a version of ideal personhood as someone with paranoid schitzophrenia, psychopathic meglomania and a not-so-mild case of foul smelling flatulence.
Overturn Citizens United: Amend the Constitution
And, while we're at it, let's introduce "government of the people, by the people, for the people." That might work. At least it would be a novel experience.
But what about guardian angels? Don't we have room for guardian angels?
Matthew Rothschild is, as usual, right. The U.S. Constitution needs to be amended to prevent idoicies and abominations like Citizens United. It sorely needs other amendments as well, if it is ever to be a blueprint for democracy.
The underlying problem is that the political and electoral arenas in the U.S. have become irrelevant in the quest for positive change.
Unless and until we organize movements, parties, unions and organizations willing and able to exert enough power to force change, we are misdirecting our limited collective resources and energies.
Hopefully the Occupy movements are going in that direction.
What part of Congress shall make no law do you believe the Supreme Court got wrong?
Amendment 1
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
What is wrong with like minded citizens assembling money and talents as non-profit corporations and using speech and press todemand a redress of grievances from government?
I find it hypocritical that Common Cause, a 501 (c)(4) corporation exempt from publicizing its donors, is pushing for accountability and an end to corporate participation in elections. And I find it priceless that Common Cause claims money is not speech while asking for donations on their website.
http://judgepedia.org/index.php/Common_Cause
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4860191
Mainstream media corporations are the ultimate Super Pacs and they are exempt from campaign laws.
From 1791 to 1886 1st Amendment freedoms of speech, press and assembly were the sole rights of flesh and blood citizens.
From 1886 to 1973 flesh and blood citizens and media corporations enjoyed equal freedoms of speech and the press.
From 1974 to present only the commercial media enjoy unrestricted freedom of speech and the press. Following reports of serious financial abuses in the 1972 Presidential campaign, Congress amended the FECA in 1974 to set limits on contributions by individuals, political parties and PACs.
2 USC 431 (9) (B) (i) The term "expenditure" does not include any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, unless such facilities are owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate;
BenDoubleCrossed -- Good point. The more I think about it, the more I believe that the MSM news is controlled. We don't hear about important news, and what we do hear is distorted.
The Internet, as well as personal knowledge about news, allows us to understand this. I'm not sure it's money alone that keeps the MSM muzzled. I'd like to see in depth study of the control exercised over MSM news.
To begin with, it seems to me there ought to be a steady stream of emigres from the MSM complaining that they weren't free to explore certain topics, ask certain questions, etc. The results of such study won't, ipso facto, appear in the MSM outlets. We need a special web site or group devoted to just that subject.
There have been lots of critical things said about MSM news -- for example, Lies of Our Times (LOOT), published between January 1990 and December 1994 (per Wikipedia), which I used to subscribe to. But I'm unaware of any serious work on this issue going on today. Perhaps other commenters can enlighten me on this.
Before you push for still more restrictions on the rights of flesh and blood to participate watch this short movie:
http://www.ij.org/freedomflix/33-sampson
Campaign laws that restrict participation by flesh and blood do not limit the corporate voice!
Sadly, overturning Citizens United doesn't even begin to address the mess this country has got itself into. It's not just the corrupt politicians, the entire system is corrupt, from the inside out. Nothing but allowing - or helping it - to completely collapse so that we can have a chance to start afresh will do it. Anything else is like putting a Band Aid on a cancer.
As for the Constitution itself, hell, the entire thing has to be overhauled and or re-instated since the only thing that's still upheld today is the right of the people to buy arms. Everything else has been overruled, overturned, returned, reversed, destroyed, shredded and otherwise used as toilet paper like the 'goddamn piece of paper' it is.
I agree--it will be easier to just set the constitution and all the corruption it ensconses aside than to amend it. That is what has happened in the middle east--isn't it-- the whole corrupt system, constitution and all was thrown out. Are things that bad here--it feels like it. Will it happen? Let's elect an outright authoritarian like Newt President and we shall see what will happen, we shall see.
as the court has declared corporations to be people,
would an amendment denouncing this be considered ex post facto?
Wouldn't it be nice to just have public financing of ALL campaigns...no exceptions? That would effectively undo Citizens United and put an end to a myriad of other abuses.
The naming of any such movement or Party will take care of itself when and if enough people first gather around this sine qua non goal..
Will repealing CU take money out of politics? I think not.
real people need to prevail on this issue. otherwise the tragedy is not that lifeless entities, structures, rationalizations are magically elevated to human status. it's that personhood is fundamentally degraded to nothing more than the impulse for monetary gain.
Before Citizens United came upon us already Corporate money was controlling our two Party's. What CU exposed for the larger population was how much the 1% owned and controlled our government. Repealing this will not stop the this control. Only something like Kucinich's H J Res 100 to make mandatory that all federal elections run on public financing thereby excluding Big Money from our electoral process. Get behind H J Res 100!!
bnerin -- I agree with you and others that reversing CU isn't going to solve the problem. Check out the Wikipedia article on PAC's. The subject is extremely complex. The rich, through PACS, controlled what was said about candidates before CU, which ironically seems to have increased disclosure of who's contributing beyond what was required before.
Aren't PACs organized as corporations?
Nothing will "solve the problem" but I do believe that reversing CU is a necessary first step.
cassandra -- I don't know if PACs are corporations. Good question. I agree that reversing CU is a necessary first step, but the prevailing "left wing" wisdom these days is that reversing CU, as by constitutional amendment, would make more of a difference than it would, in my opinion.
The physical action should take place in Delaware. This state is where most, if not all, corporations do their incorporating. Get the boot on the neck, people.
The reason that Rothschild's prescription rings kind of hollow is because it doesn't have any force behind it. Many people can offer many prescriptions. Some might work better than others, if only any of them had some force behind them. The force has to come from the people. When we have the force, then the particular shape of the prescription doesn't matter. When we have the force, the butter knife can cut leather. Hey, not as efficiently, and yes we do like efficiency, but that's irrelevant. We don't have the force, yet, and Rothschild et al are not proposing any way to fire up the force. We don't have the force yet because the people are stoned on petro-opiates. This modern day opium war waged by elites against the people is brilliant, but also predictable, because the British did it a few centuries ago to the Chinese. That crown has a stronger influence over here than you might think. Alienated from the entire rest of the world, Merkans respect only the British. Now, nobody talks about this latter-day opium war which is why nobody knows about it. Rothschild won't mention it. He might be out of a job if he did. The best way to turn the tables is to help the elites destroy themselves and their opium production by feeding their hubris and mindless/reckless excesses. You know they're on a roll. We need the people to find themselves in a heap of wreckage with clear evidence of who caused it. Then the force will be with us, instead of with the opiate pusher. While this reeks of the Demoks' evil stream of blank checks designed to create same wreckage, that's ok, because there is a difference of intent. Demoks intended to occupy the throne. We intend to occupy our local communities so that they cannot be sabotaged again. Big difference. Get to work, people.
Well said and spoken like a true Roundhead (that's a compliment); you're also much closer to the truth than you may know, seeing as "the city of london" financial district controls upwards of 70% of the world's financial flow (I think that's right). We don't mean to occupy the throne. We mean to break up this gods-damned throne and burn it in a bonfire. Those of us with a mystical, supernatural bent-of-mind think there is already an Entity, and Its' high court, which presides over the affairs of this world. We don't need human pretenders on false thrones, and wicked high courts, f#cking things up anymore. No more. These pretenders shall stand on the same ground as do we, and look us level, in the eye.
Matt,
Thank you for speaking out for us at OCCUPY THE COURTS - MADISON, and for helping to make OTC the HUGE SUCCESS that it was.
The mainstream media wants to see a big rally on the Mall in Washington, D.C., and, if they don't see that, they consider an action a failure. We look at it completely differently. MTA is a truly "grass roots" organization. From our perspective OTC was a "tape measure home run!"
We had at least 140 actions in 46 states. We ranged from Key West, FL to Anchorage, AK; and from Honolulu, HI to Bangor, ME, and just about everywhere in between! We will establish dozens of new MTA affiliates as the result of OTC and our website has been visited over 759,518 times since December 2, 2011!!!
OTC actions ranged in size from 10 to 400 (+). If our average action had 50 attending, that means that approximately 7,000 people nationwide came out on a workday, in the middle of the winter (with snow and frigid temperatures across the midwest/northeast, and pouring down rain up and down the west coast) to demand an end to "Corporate Personhood" . . . that's pretty darned good if you ask me!
OTC was not an end in itself. MTA is coming out of OTC on a huge wave of momentum that we are going to use to ride all the way to a successful, effective, Constitutional amendment!
Thank you to the thousands of Americans who took to the streets with us on 1/20/2012, and to the hundreds of thousands who supported us in spirit. Go to www.movetoamend.org to start an MTA affiliate in your city or town. We look forward to working with you, all, to restore "small d" democracy to America.
ONWARD!
Steve Justino
Move to Amend, National Action Coordinator, OCCUPY THE COURTS