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My comment to the Supreme Court: Corporations Are Not "People"
Submitted by btchakir on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 1:12pm.
I have personally created several corporations in my time, and never once have I thought any of them to be separate "people" - if I had I would have been granting myself more than the "one man, one vote" concept of our Constitution and all related laws.
Now we have the Supreme Court allowing Corporations (and, yes, Labor Unions - also not separate "people") the ability to spend unregulated amounts of money on elections... because they are "people" within the law.
This is scary. In his weekly radio address, President Obama said:
"This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy. It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way -- or to punish those who don't.
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"I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest. The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections."
(You can get all of Obama's comments in his weekly address HERE.)
I believe one of the main issues that the Conservatives have claimed to have brought to the Supreme Court is the idea that they do not make law, but only interpret the Constitution.
Well, they have not only made law here, they have overturned laws that have served us well since the Teddy Roosevelt Administration in 1907 - 102 years. During that century-plus, the law was updated, improved, added to by both Democrats and Republicans and made consistently better, all in an effort to guarantee our citizens (ie: human beings not organizations) the absolute power of "one man, one vote" without overpaid arm bending and potential blackmail by corporate interests.
So what do we do with a law-making Supreme Court that clearly has a majority of its members firmly planted in corporate pockets? Dahlia Lithwick, in Slate, has called the Supreme Court's action The Pinocchio Project - they have turned the concept of the corporation into a "real, live boy." Justice Stevens, in his partial dissent, commented that the Framers of the Constitution kept a "cautious view of corporate power" - something the current Supreme Court seems to be not only uncautious of but supportive of.
Can Congress create law to overturn this decision? I don't know. What we need is the unlikely event that will throw the Court's majority back to a more centrist (or, dare I say it, more progressive) majority. Remember, Justice Earl Warren, who brought a truly Constitutional view of Civil Rights to the Court in the 50s and 60s, was a Conservative Republican when appointed. There is the odd chance that a right-leaning Justice will actually see the error that was made here and turn the Court around.
It's possible. It's unlikely.
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Interesting
And this looks like a spot to rant some more about this INSULT TO DEMOCRACY. (Oh, I forget. We export 'democracy' rather than nurture it at home!)
First, on the idea that because a corporation is a "group of individuals', it qualifies for individual free $$$peech rights:
Today Thom Hartmann had a guest who was defending this notion; he spoke like someone who has never worked for a corporation!
No one working for a corporation has a right to speak their own mind while doing the work of the corporation. Speak off the corporate message and any employee gets booted.
What a myth that guest was promoting.
Employees who forfeit their freedom of speech to BE corporate employees, hardly make up a group exercising Free Speech!!!
A corporation is not a group of individuals exercising free speech AS a corporation. A corporation is a group with a line that everyone drawing a paycheck tows. A few individuals set the corporation’s line and only those with a power edge are setting the opinions/speech which become the company line. There is nothing 'free' about the atmosphere of a corporation and what is expected of employees. To claim otherwise is absurd!
To become a corporate employee, is to give up all free will and rights while serving for the corporation and doing the corporation's business.
Some possible directions to take, but will anything be done?
Maybe others are thinking up even more options, but what if there is no will to pursue any possible solution?
Here are some that come to mind:
Something must be done, and what are the options and the possibilities of success?
a/ Congressional legislation. (Concern one: Wouldn't specific legislation regarding corporations alone be challenged in court and struck down again as limiting to the Corporations' 'Free $$$peech'? Concern two: Wouldn't a control on all 'persons' (natural and corporate) regarding elections unduly punish everyone for the corporations' sins? Concern three: If passed, public-funding of elections would still not be able to restrain/contain the election-time spending of corporations because they could continue to finance programs and ads and mailers to influence public opinion and choices, couldn't they?)
b/ Constitutional amendment assuring that personhood and the rights of persons are for natural persons only. (One concern: By the time such an amendment made it through the amendment protocol, made the rounds of each state and even if it got the requisite state backing, wouldn't a con$olidation of corporate domination over the Houses of Congress be even more ingrained and assure the amendment would be defeated? In other words, the time element is the concern.)
c/ Change in jurists on the SCOTUS bench via nominating and approving progressive-minded jurists when openings arise. However, this might take quite a while. Then there is additional time needed for a suitable case to come to appeal and be chosen for SCOTUS review.)
d/ Change in number of Supreme Court Justices. (Appointing two more jurists who are NOT part of the Federalist Society cult or who are not Opus Dei or Fascist manipulators. How would this work? Does this arise directly from Congress or from the White House or both? An eleven jurist court could put these fascist jurists in the minority.))
e/ Then there is IMPEACHMENT of jurists. (Should jurists who lie and mislead during interviews and hearings with Legislators during the confirmation process be allowed to get away with it? And, can there be impeachment of a Chief Justice who may over-reach and call before the bench a case that was never previously argued on the grounds he wishes to rule on? Also, can such an impeachment process investigate the lengths to which a case can be CREATED and falsely brought to litigation for the purposes of changing law at the SCOTUS level (that possibly including conspiracy to defraud for the purposes of granting Corporations more legal latitude)? Is such a thing as conspiracy a reason for impeachment of a jurist?)
I'd say e/ Impeachment would be the ethical and upright route to take. But I think d/ making SCOTUS an eleven jurist court might be a better route just because a large nation needs MORE plurality in its views anyway. Let SCOTUS become a court for The People instead of the Corporations alone!
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Amend the 14th Amendment
Amend the 14th amendment. Deny corporations personhood. They do not obey the laws of nature, nor those of moral man.
Close the gap between the rhetoric,
and the reality.- President Obama, 01-29-10
The World Needs More SEDER!!!