Today the Supreme court eased restrictions against corporate campaign spending. I cannot see anything good coming from this; in fact, I can see lots of bad. A group has been started on Facebook called a We The People" NOT "We the Corporations." This is their mission statement: "Corporations are not people. We stand opposed to allowing corporations the same political campaign rights as living, breathing humans. "
If we are Christians, can we really allow this sort of blurring and confusion to go unchallenged? Are persons and corporations interchangable? Are corporations made in the image of God? If we let this fly, we'll need to do some serious bible revisions, starting with John 3:16:
For God, Inc. so loved the world, that It gave Itself that whatever corporation believes on It should not perish but have everlasting life.
Of course, this could make Leviticus more interesting:
Leviticus 5:1 " If a corporation sins because it does not speak up when it hears a public charge to testify regarding something it has seen or learned about, it will be held responsible."
IMO this sort of nonsense is what happens when we throw out centuries of Western thought about human nature, and embrace the idea that persons are socially constructed. I could say some nasty things about nominalism right now but I'll restrain myself. Instead, here's some interesting possible fallout from the SCOTUS decision that various "We The People" members point out:
Elizabeth Lorick There needs to be a national call to ammend the Constitution to include the separation of business and state.
Juan Bracich "I'm wondering if today's ruling also opens the door for corporations running for congress. If we take them for their word, what's to stop a Chinese company's US division from technically running a surrogate in it's place for say Congress?"
Richard A. Tucker Is anyone else noting the obvious about this court decision? That the people who make up these corporations already had free speech and now they have special rights the rest of us are denied because we're not corporations with deep pockets? How did the judges on the court miss this fact?
Andrew Herrmann Mussolini said: "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
James Morrow: What can you do about it? Corporations are considered individuals by the Constitution, I don't like it at all, but it is legal, not that i like it. (to which Stephen E Southwell responds: ) From the declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" The intent was obviously not corporations. Corporations being an artificial creation of the state do not derive their inalienable rights from the Creator, but from the state itself.
Tamra Temple And think it through. Putin Incorporated, China Conglomerate, Delaware Division, Libya LLC, and other corporations that can say Iran USA
David Adkins Serious question... now that the Supremes have decided that corporations have the same rights as individuals, how does the 2nd amendment apply? Are they now allowed to keep their own militias? (to which Stephen E Southwell replies) On the other hand, how about we draft corporations into the military? Make them serve on juries for $8 per day? Put the whole corporation in jail when they rip people off?
Pete Wolfy Hanson The Chair recognizes the Senator from the great Corporation of Johnson & Johnson!
Pamela Moyer "Now that corporations are people, perhaps we should reinstate the draft and send them to war."
Mike Kitts Corporate shareholders have 2 votes; their own personal vote, and the shareholder vote to decide how the corporate personage will vote. The average citizes is aced out of participating in a democratic form of government in favor of the benign oligarchy of the corporations.
Denise Keeter Goff Goldman Sacs can now buy elections for congressmen who will always bail them out. Exxon finances can pick our next President and drill anywhere. Insurance companies can pay the Chamber of Commerce to put on false TV ads that change public support for universal healthcare from a majority to a minority while pretending t...o support the White House. OOPS that already happened... The American people CAN be bought so easily. The Supreme Court was supposed to protect us from the worst of ourselves and from powerful interests and it has failed.See More
Mike Treder "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if thepeople tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomesstronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, isfascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by anyother controlling private power." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Donna Iwanski Greenberg "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyedcorporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trialof strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."~President Thomas Jefferson
Lana Sutton So when do we elect our first corporation as president now that our corpocracy is operating out in the open for all to see?
Then there's Greg Palast's Journalism and Film blog, with an entry:
Manchurian Candidates:
Supreme Court allows China and others unlimited spending in US elections
And finally, Keith Olbermann's Diary:
In short, there are now no checks on the ability of corporations or unions or other giant aggregations of power... to decide our elections.
None.
They can spend all the money they want.
And if they can spend all the money they want -- sooner, rather than later -- they will implant the legislators of their choice in every office from President to head of the Visiting Nurse Service.
And if Senators and Congressmen and Governors and Mayors and Councilmen and everyone in between are entirely beholden to the corporations for election and re-election to office, soon they will erase whatever checks there might still exist to just slow down the ability of corporations to decide... the laws.
It is almost literally true that any political science fiction nightmare you can now dream up -- no matter whether you are conservative or liberal -- it is now legal. Because the people who can make it legal, can now be entirely bought and sold -- no actual citizens required in the process.
And the entirely bought and sold politicians, can change any laws. And any legal defense you can structure now, can be undone by the politicians who will be bought and sold into office this November, or two years from now. And any legal defense which honest politicians can somehow wedge up against them this November, or two years from now, can be undone by the next even larger set of politicians who will be bought and sold into office in 2014, or 2016, or 2018.
Mentioning Lincoln's supposed ruminations about arresting Roger B. Taney... he didn't say the original of this, but what the hell:
Right now, you can prostitute all of the politicians some of the time, and prostitute some of the politicians all the time, but you cannot prostitute all the politicians all the time.
Thanks to Chief Justice Roberts this will change.
8 comments:
The Constitution guarantees freedom of the press. But the press is not a person; the press is typically corporately owned.
Much as I admire the Constitution of the United States, I do not hold it to be divinely inspired, : ) But even if someone does believe that, try substituting the word "Press" or "corporation" consistently throughout the constitution. At least for now, it seems to sound nonsensical:
"No PRESS/CORPORATION except a natural born PRESS/CORPORATION, or a PRESS/CORPORATION of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any PRESS/CORPORATION be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
"The PRESS/CORPORATION shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States..."
The PRESS/CORPORATION shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the PRESS/CORPORATIONS present concur; and THE PRESS/CORPORATION shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States (Remember: read ambassadores, ministers, cosuls, judges and officers corporately!)
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the PRESS/CORPOATIONS to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the PRESS/CORPORATIONS.
Check out the discussion at The Economist:
http://tinyurl.com/yb3uhez
Substituting one word for another and expecting it to make sense always leads to absurdities. That's why the old "Mad Libs" game was so much fun... for kids.
I don't think the Constitution was divinely inspired, but I do think it was a brilliant document and I am not as ready as some people might be to run it through the shredder.
Nobody is suggesting that we make corporations eligible for President, Beth; so playing silly games does nothing to further intelligent conversation.
Corporations are legal fictions composed of people. Churches are also composed of people.
So if someone passes a law saying churches do not have freedom to speak about values that relate to political matters - such as, for example, an ethical statement, or a Covenant annual meeting resolution - are you going to be persuaded that they are right?
If they demonstrate the logic of their perspective by pasting "church" or "Covenant annual meeting" in where the word "person" exists in the US Constitution, are you going to find that persuasive?
I disagree with you, Rick, about your thoughts about the press, and the church being comparable in this regard to the corporations. The fact is that the press' power is only in the persuasiveness of truth and words. Especially with the internet, the press has only a limited power to corrupt our democracy.
Likewise, churches and religious institutions are not-for-profit organizations which are dependent upon payment for services which may not earn profits and donations.
For-profit corporations now may utilize their general funds to corrupt members of Congress - even more than they already have done so, and that's quite a lot already.
The fact is that corporations funding candidates for public office out of their funds gives them immeasurable power beyond the citizenry of this country. Buying any office in the land will be probable, not unlikely.
See you Sunday! ;)
How about we go to the source and read what Justice John Paul Stevens stated in the third paragraph of the dissent in this case:
"In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races."
(http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf [page 89; emphases mine])
A couple of pages later he writes, "The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution."
Clearly, the Justice is not pulling any punches. I, too, am gravely concerned about the ramifications of this case.
Joe Fancher
It's like going to a town hall meeting and saying the only one who get's to use the microphone is the bully with the knife, because he shouldn't be denied freedom of speech.
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