REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Movement to end corporate personhood

POSTED BY: CANTTAKESKY
UPDATED: Monday, December 5, 2011 19:37
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Sunday, December 4, 2011 7:42 AM

CANTTAKESKY


These people want to define "persons" as living. I think it makes a lot more sense than defining "marriage" as between only a man and a woman. Where are all the Mormons on this?

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/165391/los-angeles-to-call-for-end-to-
corporate-personhood-mainstream-media-silent
/

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 9:34 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Yeah, I know about that. They're with us--or we're with them, take your pick. I've also noticed "Naturally, there is no mention of this movement and resolution before the LA City Council in the mainstream media." The movement's been around for a while, so that speaks volumes to me...

Ending "corporate personhood" is one of the biggies among OWSers, one only has to count the number of signs about it in any of our demonstrations to know that. And MoveToAmend.org people, with signs giving out their website, have been among us virtually from the start of OWS. I hope we give them attention.



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Sunday, December 4, 2011 9:36 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Hello,

I can not advocate defining persons as 'living' when there is the potential for creating nonliving persons in the near future.

--Anthony



_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner


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Sunday, December 4, 2011 9:42 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Just FYI:
Quote:

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
Their main statement.

We'll be doing an action with them on Jan. 20:
Quote:

January 20, 2012: Move to Amend Occupies the Courts!

Inspired by our friends at Occupy Wall Street, and Dr. Cornel West, Move To Amend is planning bold action to mark the second anniversary of the infamous Citizens United v. FEC decision!

Occupy the Courts will be a one day occupation of Federal courthouses across the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Friday January 20, 2012.

Move to Amend volunteers across the USA will lead the charge on the judiciary which created — and continues to expand — corporate personhood rights.

Americans across the country are on the march, and they are marching OUR way. They carry signs that say, “Corporations are NOT people! Money is NOT Speech!” And they are chanting those truths at the top of their lungs! The time has come to make these truths evident to the courts.

Join us Friday, January 20, 2012 at a Federal Court building near you! http://movetoamend.org/ feel like getting involved?

Actually, several of their signs are ones I made up:

"If corporations are people, I want to see their birth certificates"
"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one"
"Money is not speech, corporations are not people"

and one of my huskies wears one when I take them to demonstrations:
"If corporations are people, so am I!"

There are numerous groups which were inspired by, have joined or work in coalition with OWS. This is just one of them. Sorry I didn't think to mention it before; there are so many groups joining us, it would be a lengthy post.

MoveToAmend is one of their groups; other states are doing the same: http://movetoamend.org/news/vermonts-push-end-corporate-personhood , http://movetoamend.org/events/stuart-fl-move-amend-florida-tour , the Sierra Club has a group http://missouri.sierraclub.org/thb/newsletter/2011/11/move_to_amend.ht
ml
and others like The Working Families Party, Make the Road New York, the Coalition for the Homeless, the Alliance for Quality Education, Community Voices Heard, United New York, Chinatown Tenants Union and Strong Economy For All, TimesUp!, Campaign for the Future of Higher Education, and others. Lots of community groups, college groups, and of course those evil socialists, unions and MoveOn.



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Sunday, December 4, 2011 10:01 AM

DREAMTROVE


I support corporate personhood. I just want to limit their rights to the same as other persons: like, they can't commit crimes, or ask the govt. for 16 trillion dollars. If they break the law, they should go to jail, if they rip people off, they should be sued and have to pay out, and perhaps do some community service.

But if you remove the citizenship from them, then the govt. can take them over, which is often sited as one of the primary things that went wrong in nazi germany that caused it to turn into hell on earth. I think this society is already a disaster, but change doesn't always mean salvation. I can easily see that it would not take too many steps to turn us into the fourth reich, and I suspect that the removal of corporate personhood as a likely first step.

Whenever people rally against the injustice (like occupy, the tea party) it's important to carefully examine the potential for disaster. I saw a lot of people at occupy carrying signs of the assyrian fist, it was a popular symbol down on wall street. It's most notably the symbol of the IWW, which called for an end to the wage system and replacement with an industrial class system. Regardless of what one thinks of wobblies, I have mixed feelings myself, I suspect the underlying reality is it's likely that most of the occupiers weren't not familiar with wobblies at all. Wobbly socialism has been defunct since 1924, but the symbol has been used by a number of socialist workers revolutions throughout the globe. It's probably not what I'm looking for in a govt. and maybe it's what some of them want, but I think they're more using it than thinking about it.

It's common practice in revolutions, "out with the old, pay no attention to what we're replacing it with."

So, this anti-14th a movement worries me. It could end very badly.


That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 10:39 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


I find that amazing, given what the decision actually MEANS in today's world. It's a freebie, a gimme to large corporations to overtake the rights of actual, individual human beings. That's how it was intended, and that's been the consequence. In this case, those making the decision knew EXACTLY what they intended, and what the outcome would be, in making their decisions.

The fist is a long-standing symbol, not a replication of a specific statement. It was around long before that, and has been used in many other ways:
Quote:

The raised fist (also known as the clenched fist) is a symbol of solidarity and support. It is also used as a salute to express unity, strength, defiance, or resistance. The salute dates back to ancient Assyria as a symbol of resistance in the face of violence.

Assyrian depictions of the goddess Ishtar show her raising a clenched fist.[3] A raised fist was used as a logo by the Industrial Workers of the World[4] in 1917. The graphic symbol was popularized in 1948 by Taller de Gráfica Popular, a print shop in Mexico that used art to advance revolutionary social causes.[5] The symbol has been picked up and incorporated around the world by various groups fighting oppression.

The raised fist salute consists of raising one arm in the air with a clenched fist. Different movements sometimes use different terms to describe the raised fist salute. During the Spanish Civil War, it was sometimes known as the anti-fascist salute. The traditional version of the salute, originally a symbol of the broader workers' movement, became associated with the parties of the Comintern during the 1920s and 1930s.

You want a list of all the organizations/groups that have used it? Check Wikipedia.
Quote:

This fist, or versions of it, were adopted by "the movement," appearing in numerous posters and flyers for student, antiwar, women's, and other political activities within the United States.

Other minor variants of these appeared in slightly different treatments around the U.S. A similar version, though probably evolved from different iconographic ancestry, appeared in the groundbreaking prints made by the Atelier Populaire Paris 1968 poster workshop. Its persistence as a movement icon is evident by its occasional reappearance, as in a 2000 Women Take Back the Night flyer, the 2004 logo for a chapter of Earth First! [9], and the CD cover for progressive music nonprofit organization Axis of Justice.

Yet the militant fist continues to be coopted, even as a tool for capitalism [16] and right-wing and conservative groups [17]. The other side uses this potent image for labor film festivals [18] environmental activism [19], and the labor resistance in Wisconsin [20, 21]. The fist has become universal, context is now crucial to understanding its meaning. The Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011 that spread throughout the US proved fertile ground for more street graphics - some new [22][23], some recycling the iconic "hand" of Frank Cieciorka (Stop the Draft Week, for event 10/16/1967, designed by Frank Cieciorka). http://www.docspopuli.org/articles/Fist.html interpretation of the fist is something to which you are entitled; I respectfully suggest that your interpretation is a personal one reflective of your own family experience.

I also disagree with your portrayal of the movement as anti-14th Amendment. We're dealing with reality; reality is why the decision was made to consider corporations as persons (which is an idiotic concept on its face), and the reality of the intent is what we are fighting. Neither has any relevance to the 14th Amendment, in my opinion.

I do, however, freely agree that any revolution carries the inherent danger that what it takes down may not be worse than what comes after. That is the danger of all revolution. But that we should never attempt to change things because of that isn't something I accept.


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Sunday, December 4, 2011 11:47 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Bull. Shit.

Not only does the IWW still exist, and happens to be kicking Starbucks ass all over the place, THEY were the ones who stepped in when Truckers were gettin jacked by high fuel prices.

Just because the Gov more or less waged an outright extermination campaign against em they've never really recovered from, don't count em out.

Of course, your precious little buzzword which sends you into Rappy-world has naught to do with what is essentially a form of COLLECTIVISM, no matter what word they wish to ascribe to it themselves.

Worse is your own kneejerk reactions, especially when you go pushing your own damn buttons by self-feeding trigger words to your own conditioning.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 12:20 PM

DREAMTROVE


Frem,

Nonsense. Don't psychoanalyze me, you suck at it.

I didn't know wobbies were still around, I see they are, in some form. Notice I didn't call the IWW jackboots, I just think people don't pay a lot of attention to what's going on.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 2:09 PM

CANTTAKESKY


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I support corporate personhood. ....So, this anti-14th a movement worries me.

How is it anti-14th?

We'll have to part ways on this one, DT. Corporate personhood is a legal artifact brought about by the govt I am not too fond of and bought by the corporate world I am equally not fond of. It is not real. It is there only to allow absence of accountability, to protect shareholders and CEO's and Presidents from going to jail.

Persons are human beings with heartbeats. Period.

And Anthony, if one day we do invent new lifeforms which seek legal personhoods, we can add them later. I'm a sci fi fan just like anyone else. I have no problems expanding the definition to individual sentient beings. Currently though, there is no need to define persons otherwise.

-----
Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth. -- Lucy Parsons (1853-1942, labor activist and anarcho-communist)

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 2:40 PM

FREMDFIRMA



You didn't know, and yet were present for multiple discussions in which the topic came up, often in detail - such as the thread about some of the OWS posters/flyers ?

Not entirely sure I buy that, and I wouldn't be kicking you in the shins without good cause and you bloody well know it.

On a lighter note - so, Corporate Personhood and all, does that make what happened to WWASPS effectively an "Assassination" ?
Cause I am so OK with that it's unreal.

Someone call Guido, I gotta contract for him...

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 2:46 PM

DREAMTROVE


How does corporate personhood prevent them from going to jail? I'm a person an I can go to jail.

The origin of corporate citizenship is a memo attached to a decision on the case Santa Clara County vs. The Southern Pacific Railroad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Ra
ilroad

It's a 14th a. case. The point of the memo is that the court is unanimous in the opinion that the railroad is a citizen, and therefore it is protected under the 14th a. re: freedom of movement.

The thing is, without the 14th, and subsequent decision on corporate citizenship, the us govt. would be able to take over corporations and we would end up with our own ig farben. All the decision does is grant corporations the consitutional rights we have, the right to free speech, without which, the govt. could dictate to the media as britain does, so on and so forth.

Nowhere does the constitution permit its citizens to run slipshop over the rights of humanity. Since the environment is my major issue, I'd be right there with you if I thought the 14th was responsible for the corporate environmental destruction, but I'm sure that it's not, and that without corporate citizenship, we'd be in much worse shape.

I know it's an unpopular position, every protest from either side of the aisle, and those on neither side have jumped on the "kill the 14th" but I'm not on board. (except, okay, the validity of the public debt, I have issues with.)

But I really don't want state-run corporations. Italy did it first, then Germany, then Russia. It did not work out well. I definitely see that happening if we get rid of corporate citizenship. I also don't see where it protects them if they commit crimes. I think that they're protected by the money in politics, but they don't need to be citizens to do that.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 2:50 PM

M52NICKERSON

DALEK!


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
But if you remove the citizenship from them, then the govt. can take them over,



Person-hood does not prevent that.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 2:54 PM

DREAMTROVE


Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

You didn't know, and yet were present for multiple discussions in which the topic came up, often in detail - such as the thread about some of the OWS posters/flyers ?




Frem

First, moving down this edit because you responded while I was writing it. From the last post.

ETA: Frem, my feelings about socialism come from a lot of personal research into why the holocaust and WWII happened, and why they keep happening every year, which I think they do. My analysis is also almost entirely *process* based, not policy. It's not the ideas of socialists that create disaster, it's the process inherent in the design of socialism that causes them. But it does cause them, it's not a coincidence.


Now, re: wobblies, no, I didn't know they were still around. I thought they got the axe in '24, but I wobbled over to wiki and saw that you are correct. I also know what they are, it's not particularly scary, but I think people circulate a lot of this without knowing. It's an anti- mindset. We're anti-capitalism, ergo we're socialist, we're anti-republican ergo we're democrats. I think this is lazy thinking, and people take advantage of it. It's a coke or pepsi, mcD's or BK, a sports fan mentality. I could be wrong, maybe everyone was down with IWW, but I really doubt it. Perhaps it was just me that was out of it, I could be wrong on this one.

Do wobblies really have that big of a societal presence? I would've thought I would've noticed their not being dead yet. Anyone else want to weigh in?

Quote:


On a lighter note - so, Corporate Personhood and all, does that make what happened to WWASPS effectively an "Assassination" ?
Cause I am so OK with that it's unreal.


Actually, you bring up an awesome point that I never thought of. Quick before someone gets rid of it:
Not just WWASPS...
The redline shutdown by GM? Murder.
Msft stealing DR's code to make its own baby? Rape.
The Exxon-Halliburton-Bechtel backroom deals? Organized crime.
Apple's Foxconn deal? slave trade.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 3:00 PM

DREAMTROVE


Quote:

Originally posted by M52NICKERSON:
Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
But if you remove the citizenship from them, then the govt. can take them over,



Person-hood does not prevent that.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.



Nick, citizenship does. They're protected against unreasonable searches and seizures.


Frem, continuing...

How about corporate prison? When a corporation commits a crime against another person (or corporation) then you send the cop corporation after it and send it to corporate jail. They have to move their headquarter to cell block 13, cannot receive incoming mail unless it's preapproved, and we'll have to consider GM's request for conjugal visits with Exxon.

ETA: I swung over to wiki entry on wwasps, nice name, and they actually have a program called "Teen Escort Service"

ETA2: Concept of the minute: international corporate court!

ETA3: Corporate Warcrimes

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 4:59 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


"They're protected against unreasonable searches and seizures."

Hello,

I want all persons to have this protection in our domain, not merely citizens.

--Anthony


_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner


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Sunday, December 4, 2011 5:45 PM

DREAMTROVE


Anthony,

I can see that yes, mexican individuals should not be, and perhaps a nafta passport, as much as I find the concept a little cringeworthy, would solve the problem, but I do not want to extend this protection to foreign corporations. I think if Toyota of America is a corporation registered here, than so be it, but I worry about our colonization by corporations.


That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 6:19 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Hello,

Whacking blindly at corporations without considering the ancillary effects of law will result in innocent bystanders getting hurt.

Any attack on corporate elite status must be precisely targeted to singular effect.

--Anthony



_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner


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Sunday, December 4, 2011 6:34 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

is a memo attached to a decision
But not the decision itself. It was never "decided" by a judge as such, but the memo was written in by a court reporter who had ties to (guess what?) the railroads. That's the problem with only knowing half of the history DT.
Quote:

Whacking blindly at corporations without considering the ancillary effects of law will result in innocent bystanders getting hurt.
And innocent bystanders aren't already being hurt?

The founding fathers... and in fact many early politicians... had already considered the limits and duties of corporations. In early days, corporations had much more limited charters... they were granted by a state, they were for a specific purpose, they had limited terms (number of years) and could not own other corporations. Trust me on this one, Tony, this is well-trod ground. The rules governing corporations need a serious rewrite, and there are people who are capable of doing just that.

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 7:19 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


As I've said before, I'll believe corporations are people when Rick Perry executes one.


Sure, it's a joke and a throwaway line, but it also happens to have quite a bit of truth in it.

Show me one single corporation that was treated the way an individual would be for the same crime. BP killed more people than Michael Jackson's doctor, yet who's the one in jail? Enron fucked more people than Bernie Madoff, and who got the harsher sentence?

You want corporations to have the RIGHTS of citizenship? Fine. Give them the RESPONSIBILITIES as well. When a mining company in West Virginia disregards safety regulations knowingly and kills 29 people, the board of directors should be tried as a mass murderer and sentenced to life in maximum security prison, without possibility of parole. Or the death penalty, if you're really into that kind of thing. After all, what did Nadal Hassan do that was any worse than what Massey Energy did? (Hint: Nobody allowed him to merge with another company in order to sidestep his debts and liabilities)

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Sunday, December 4, 2011 7:20 PM

CANTTAKESKY


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
How does corporate personhood prevent them from going to jail? I'm a person an I can go to jail.

How do you put a corporation in jail? It doesn't fit inside a cell, yanno?

Sorry, more seriously, a corporation has all of the benefits of the 14th, but none of the risks and responsibilities of a normal citizen. And the corporate person takes advantage of that to commit all manner of white collar crime. They steal, they rob, they kill, they maim, they injure, and very rarely does any living person answer for it.

The corporation doesn't usually get prosecuted for crimes like murder, and when it is, it becomes immensely difficult to prove wrong doing, even though the same level of evidence would have gotten a living person convicted. When it involves an artificial entity, normal crime solving like alibis and weapons don't apply. How do you prosecute tobacco companies for murder, for example, despite widespread knowledge and belief that their products kill people? Are real living persons allowed to do that? Sell products that everyone believes kills people, but get away with it just because they put a warning that says, "This product can kill you"?

Here is an article on that: http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/mokhiberweissman/corporatehom
icide033103.html


Not to hit below the belt, but how would you prosecute a gas corporation for killing people by fracking? Who would go to jail for those murders? Why would you go to jail if you murdered someone by poisoning their water, and a corporation just has to pay a fine? How is that fair?

Look at this. A person who commits atrocities overseas can be tried at home.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2008/10/30/us-first-verdict-overseas-torture

Yet we had to go to the Supreme Court to simply see if it will HEAR the case of a corporation accused of committing atrocities overseas.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/17/supreme-court_n_1015953.html

The double standard has been allowing for some very egregious crimes to go unpunished.

The 14th Amendment was written for real, living persons. It was never meant to be applied to artificial legal constructs. This misapplication has resulted in a privileged class of "persons" with nearly no legal accountability (outside of taxes) perpetuating gross abuses of our law. Asking that we return to the original spirit and purpose of the 14th Amendment does not mean we are anti-14th. I very much support the 14th--for US citizens with birth or naturalization certificates--which is what the law says.

Furthermore, it is widely known that despite citations of Santa Clara County vs. The Southern Pacific Railroad as the legal precedent of corporate personhood, the equation of corporation as persons was made as a statement the judge made before arguments, not as part of his legal decision:

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_personality

...the court reporter's comments included a statement the Chief Justice made before oral arguments began, telling the attorneys during pre-trial that "the court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." Later opinions misinterpreted these pre-argument comments as part of the legal decision.



It is a false dilemma to assume that anti-corporate personhood is anti-14th. It is also a false dilemma to assume anti-corporate personhood is pro-socialism. You know well, I am neither anti-14th nor pro-socialism.



-----
Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth. -- Lucy Parsons (1853-1942, labor activist and anarcho-communist)

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Monday, December 5, 2011 3:46 AM

DREAMTROVE



Quote:

Sig: It was never "decided" by a judge as such

Well, it was, not in the court room, but it's the chief justice of the supreme court saying it in response to the court recorders question, that the court was unanimous in its decision that it was, it's just that it was *so* assumed in the context of the discussion that no one explicitly stated it.

It's not the story of a corrupt court recorder. Nice try though.


Quote:

CTS: How do you put a corporation in jail? It doesn't fit inside a cell, yanno?


The reason a corporation is a citizen is because it's made up of citizens who are acting together through their right to free association. You can arrest them individually.

Citizens don't have any responsibilities. Some people think they should, I'm not really one of those people, because I think the concept could be easily hijacked to make the people work for the state.

I agree there should be some way other than lawsuits to take down a corporation. As it is, you have to follow the normal criminal law, and attack either those that took the action (poured goop into the water, etc.) or those who ordered it, or were negligent in preventing it.
Quote:


Look at this. A person who commits atrocities overseas can be tried at home.


This is a whole nother can of worms we can add to the reasons not to be an american. the US has really claimed world jurisdiction here.

Quote:


The 14th Amendment was written for real, living persons. It was never meant to be applied to artificial legal constructs.


I really agree. I think it was a fluke, but I think it was a good idea. I think the result was a free society, and the result of taking it away would at least be a retreat into a chinese labor situation, and maybe worse. Picture the situation in the US in the 19th c. which was not that different from China today.

And yes, we all know where it comes from, but I want to also eschew this notion of "personhood" which no one ever legally said. It said "citizenship." A corporation pays taxes, does it not? It is supposed to, to some extent abide by the law, right? Why should it not be protected under the constitution?

And then, consider, use some imagination, what would happen if corporations continued to exist but without protection? Would they then be turned into good obedient dogs by Madison's angels of govt? This is antithetical to your own world view. Giving govt. the ability to trample on the rights of corporations is not going to make things *better* or society *freer*.




That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Monday, December 5, 2011 5:16 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

The thing is, without the 14th, and subsequent decision on corporate citizenship, the us govt. would be able to take over corporations and we would end up with our own ig farben. All the decision does is grant corporations the consitutional rights we have, the right to free speech, without which, the govt. could dictate to the media as britain does, so on and so forth.


Em. I've always been anti-corporate personhood myself, though I've been willing to listen to the counterpoints.

I concede that this may be how it works (as I make no claim to specific knowledge of how things work, and have only logic and furious guesswork), but theoretically freedom of the press and assembly (as perhaps a corporation) was supposed to be guaranteed by the FIRST Amendment. If what you're saying is true, this is actually more of another example of government passing redundant, less clear and more specific/circumstantial laws, and those actually tend to have a bad outcome because they're worded so they can enable something else (worse).

First Amendment: 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 peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You don't have to have corporate personhood to have freedom of the press or freedom of assembly along corporation lines, and if anything, the press has become even WORSE government bootlickers since that decision came down. That all ties in with campaign donations and lobbyists and front groups and PACs and "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" corruption that this decision made possible.

Jes' Sayin'. If they already have free speech and freedom of assembly, why does their organization also need further special protections? Doesn't that give their organization an unfair advantage over less organized and individual voices? Like say in ability to pool money, donate, or otherwise drown out individual voices?

As essential part of a democracy, it's assumed all people will vote for and voice what they perceive to be their best interests. This interpretation of both the first amendment and the 14th essentially gives a person in a corporation two or more votes compared to a person not in that corporation, who only gets one.

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Monday, December 5, 2011 5:43 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
Just FYI:
Quote:

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
Their main statement.



I'd have no problem with this if they included unions and the ultra-rich of all denominations in the "Money is not speech" part. Limit what BofA and the Teamsters and the Koch brothers and Soros and Pickens and Bloomberg can contribute. And not just directly to political parties, but to PACs and front organizations like the Tea Party or MoveOn.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, December 5, 2011 5:51 AM

BYTEMITE


I think I'd be okay with that too, Geezer.

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Monday, December 5, 2011 5:58 AM

CANTTAKESKY


Quote:

Originally posted by Bytemite:
Jes' Sayin'. If they already have free speech and freedom of assembly, why does their organization also need further special protections? Doesn't that give their organization an unfair advantage over less organized and individual voices? Like say in ability to pool money, donate, or otherwise drown out individual voices?

Bingo.

-----
Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth. -- Lucy Parsons (1853-1942, labor activist and anarcho-communist)

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Monday, December 5, 2011 5:58 AM

DREAMTROVE


Byte,

Organizations generally exist with govt. sanction, thus they have the right to exist, but not freedom, so the govt. can grant license to them, as it does with schools, hospitals, and NGOs, but it can also take that license away. Apocalyptic visions on either side aside, the way this actually works in practice when you apply it to corporations is that the govt. gives license to its friends, and denies it to others, as we saw with television networks and phone companies.

This is pretty much how china works todays, and the way the US worked prior to the SCC v SPR decision in 1886, and the sherman antitrust in 1890, and for some time after that, because the case wasn't applied as precedent for a couple of decades. When it was revisited it was viewed at the time as corruption that the corporations wanted independence from the federal govt., which they did. I think that the mistake was actually not in allowing it but in not going further and creating a constitutional amendment defining separation of corporation and state. As it is, the separation only goes one way, the inability of the govt. to take over a corporation.

However, the situation has been sliding back, with the "deregulation" weakening of antitrust laws and glass-steagall, creating this "banks own everything" trend from the 1990s forward.

If we allow corporate citizenship to fall, it won't mean a sudden accountability for corporations, it will mean a govt. power to decide who can and who can't be a corporation, which will mean we'll have the govt. selecting its cronies and friends for corporate rights, but not independents, and it will mean video servers for google and CNN but not for you and me. It will also mean the power of the govt. to shut down any information source that is doing something it doesn't like or that is disagreeing with its policies.

In the 1990s when FOX news, regardless of what you may think of them, set up, the Clinton admin and its allies looked for any way they could to prevent it from happening. Their motive was simple and pure: They didn't want a conservative news channel. They had a media monopoly and liked it that way. The corporate citizenship concept and subsequent laws including Nixon's separation of content and broadcast anti-trust laws of the 1970s protected FOX's right to have a news channel.

We might, as I often do, strongly disagree with corporations, or want them to be held accountable, but I have the same feelings about individuals and political groups. Still, I want the people to have the *right* to do something I disagree with. I don't think they should have "special rights" that are not granted to citizens (I couldn't legally go an pour tetrachloroethylene into the water supply) but I do want them to have equal protection as citizens under the constitution, especially the right to freedom of expression, to peaceably assemble to petition their govt. for a redress of grievances, to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure, etc.

If we don't have that, the only corporations we will have are the ones Dick Cheney and Tim Geitner want us to have, or whoever else has that much power to influence govt. decisions (maybe Hillary Clinton?)

ETA: No, they don't have those rights. People within the corporation have those rights, but the organization only has those rights because of the corporate citizenship clause.

ETA2: There is no corporate personhood. The decision was on corporate citizenship, there's a distinction. The point was that the collective body be protected under the constitution.

ETA3: The reason the press is so bad is that the ruling is basically ignored re: the old media, but actually, the internet press is far freer than the old press ever was. The rights for the media were rolled back by licensure, which could happen again, and I really don't want it to.

ETA4: You can form a corporation whenever you want. It's not that difficult, nor is it particularly expensive. Of course, you might lose that right.

ETA5: The corporation actually can't buy the candidates directly, so they resort to buying the people and getting them to buy the politicians, it's a tricky little money bounce. This is a separate issue I think, and one that I would cover in "separation of corporation and state."

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Monday, December 5, 2011 6:17 AM

BYTEMITE


Freedom of assembly does not mean "with a license." That may be how it currently works (or worked in the past?), which I would agree is bad, but if that's how it works then we should CHANGE that.

Making government unable to issue a license? Sign me up.

Quote:

ETA5: The corporation actually can't buy the candidates directly, so they resort to buying the people and getting them to buy the politicians, it's a tricky little money bounce. This is a separate issue I think, and one that I would cover in "separation of corporation and state."


Hmm. I might be willing to consider that.

I suppose this might be an issue of a problem having multiple solutions (or multiple problems conflated together as the same thing).

At least we can mostly agree on both problems (or solutions?) existing. So, let's fix 'em. Let's get separation of corporation and state and no issuance of licenses going, and we'll work out whether corporate personhood is necessary or redundant later.

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Monday, December 5, 2011 6:40 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


What Mike said:
Quote:

Show me one single corporation that was treated the way an individual would be for the same crime. BP killed more people than Michael Jackson's doctor, yet who's the one in jail? Enron fucked more people than Bernie Madoff, and who got the harsher sentence?
Corporate personhood has absolutely nothing to do with holding corporations responsible as persons or citizens, and anyone who doesn't know that by now is naive or lying. The law can be used to say whatever you want, regardless of your actual meaning or intent.

A corporation can never be held accountable. We already know that, and this just makes it easier for them to escape responsibility. We've seen it time and time again; a corporation gets caught doing something illegal, they get fined...almost ALWAYS far less than the profit they made out of doing whatever they did. Rarely does anyone go to jail, and now I doubt ANYONE will; who do you hold accountable for breaking the law, if the corporation itself is a single entity??? Either finger pointing goes on all around (oil spill), or the government steps in and "makes it right" at a cost to US, or the corporation breaks up and everyone goes their merry way, pocketing their ill-gotten gains cheerfully and leaving a swath of dead and injured bodies behind them. THERE CAN BE NO ACTUAL HOLDING TO ACCOUNT OF AN A "CORPORATE PERSON".

I too would be quite content to see ALL forms of backer-financed manipulation stopped, from both sides--all sides. That covers more of our signs and wishes: "Campaign Finance Reform". Corporate Personhood was created for the benefit of the corporations, to incresae their power and influence, and for no other reason. It doesn't matter what the Supremes say; they knew that and that's why they did it. Corporations are under FAR less (if any) danger of being taken over by the government than WE are in danger of having our government taken over by corporations, what little of it isn't already.



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Monday, December 5, 2011 7:22 AM

CANTTAKESKY


Quote:

Originally posted by Bytemite:
Making government unable to issue a license? Sign me up.

At the risk of sounding like a Bytemite groupie today... Yes. Sign me up too.

There are other ways, BETTER ways, to deal with the dangers DT foresees without personhood or citizenship protection.

-----
Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth. -- Lucy Parsons (1853-1942, labor activist and anarcho-communist)

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Monday, December 5, 2011 7:57 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Hello,

If corporations are people, then isn't the practice of corporations owning corporations an act of slavery?

--Anthony


_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner


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Monday, December 5, 2011 8:17 AM

BYTEMITE


I think Anthony wins the "Zen Koan Award For Being So True On Uncountable Levels."

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Monday, December 5, 2011 8:40 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
Just FYI:
Quote:

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
Their main statement.



I'd have no problem with this if they included unions and the ultra-rich of all denominations in the "Money is not speech" part. Limit what BofA and the Teamsters and the Koch brothers and Soros and Pickens and Bloomberg can contribute. And not just directly to political parties, but to PACs and front organizations like the Tea Party or MoveOn.

"Keep the Shiny side up"




That's a damned good idea. And the precedent is already there: *IF* a corporation is a "person", then it's *A* person. Singular. You and I have specific limits on what we can contribute to political candidates, do we not? Why shouldn't a corporation, acting as "a person", have to hew to the same limitations?

We have our differences, but on this I think you're 100% on target.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Monday, December 5, 2011 1:34 PM

DREAMTROVE


Byte,

Agreed.


Niki has a point
Quote:


A corporation can never be held accountable.


with one or two exceptions:
1) to its consumers
2) to its shareholders.
The problem with these checks on corporate behavior were when 1) became the govt. and not the people for a number of large corporations (almost all of our problem children, if not all) and when 2) became the big banks.

If we could get rid of the concepts of "govt. as customer" and "bank as shareholder" then corporations would at least be returned to some form of accountability.


CTS,

I think personhood is a talking point and citizenship protections are completely logical, as the rights guaranteed by the constitution are pretty fundamental. I don't see any reason corporations shouldn't have all of those rights save one, and that of course is the second.

(so obvious I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet.)

Quote:

Anthony
If corporations are people, then isn't the practice of corporations owning corporations an act of slavery?


lol. good one anthony, we'll add that to the stuff me and frem posted above.


Mike, Geezer, good points, with the singular exception that no one has ever put forth the legal rule that a corporation is a person, only a citizen, it's a subtle distinction.

But yes, a corporation should be limited to a personal contribution, I think that's fair, but I'm also with Byte, I think separation of corporation and state, so no corporate contributions at all.



That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Monday, December 5, 2011 7:37 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


I think I'm anti corporate personhood, but I don't know anything about this subject so I can't say for sure unless I have more information, I'll ask Byte.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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