Amend the Constitution! Corporations Aren't Persons

[Better Believe It]

Amend the Constitution
Corporations Aren't Persons
By Matthew Rothschild, April 2010 issue


ON FEBRUARY 16, ABOUT 200 people gathered on the steps of the Wisconsin state capitol. “It’s fitting that we stand out in the cold,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. “That’s where the Supreme Court has left us.”

He was referring to the court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which granted corporations the right to spend unlimited funds on so-called independent expenditures to influence the outcome of elections. The crowd heartily agreed with McCabe. Signs said: “No Corporate Takeover of Elections,” “Free Speech, Not Fee Speech,” “Money Is Not Speech, Corporations Are Not Persons.” And a chant went up: “Overrule the Court.”

Ben Manski, executive director of the Liberty Tree Foundation, drew the crowd in with a historical analogy.

“Susan B. Anthony, the great suffragist and abolitionist, was born” on February 15, 1820, he said. “Were she alive now, she would be here, celebrating with us, marching to overrule the Court. On a future day, a multitude will gather on these same steps and look back at what we here dare to do, and they will thank you.”

What the crowd was daring to do was nothing less than kick off a nationwide grassroots campaign to amend the Constitution not only to overturn the court’s reckless decision but also to state, once and for all, that corporations do not have the same rights as persons.

Fighting Bob La Follette, the great Senator from Wisconsin and the founder of this magazine, warned throughout his career about the looming threat posed by corporate power. When he ran for President in 1924, he said: “Democracy cannot live side by side with the control of government by private monopoly. We must choose, on the one hand, between representative government, with its guarantee of peace, liberty, and economic freedom and prosperity for all the people, and on the other, war, tyranny, and the impoverishment of the many for the enrichment of the favored few.”

Please read the full article at:

http://progressive.org/mrapril10.html

[Uncle Joe]

1. From a psychological standpoint, I would suggest a couple of changes to their signs or slogans.

"People take back the elections," "Money kills or stifles free speech" "Corporations are inhuman."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x527925

Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Better Believe It.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. The problem is that so many Congresscritters get $$$$ from corporations and it would be expecting

a lot to assume they would actually vote against corporate interests.

It would definitely be biting the hand that feeds them.

[jimshoes]

3. Ya know,

After nearly a decade of having my senses pummeled by the ludicrous and inane blitz of neo-con right wing ideology, spin, lies, tortured logic, sophistry, and other mind numbing rhetoric that flows constantly from the lips of the likes of their paid gasbags it's no wonder that people have a hard time getting worked up over another of what seems like just another outrage to be forced on a probably far too compliant citizenry. The US Supreme court has just sold the United States to the highest bidder and nobody seems to be doing jack shit about it. Maybe it's just outrage overload and maybe that's what they are counting on, but I can't see any fucking good at all coming from this ill thought decision. I can't see into the future but from where I'm sitting it doesn't bode well for those of us that can't buy the White House.

[OneBlueSky]

4. sure they are . . . they got dicks, just like other men . . .

and they feel free to swing them with impunity . . .