The Progressive: Corporations Aren't Persons

[marmar]

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. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://progressive.org/mrapril10.html

[WarKillsChildren]

1. 1926 United Kingdom general strike

America needs a national strike to revert this. Seriously the English did it 1926. Show them there is only so far they can push us before we hurt them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_United_Kingdom_general_strike

[Warpy]

2. Corporations are not persons and money is property, not speech

and it looks like we might need constitutional amendments to spell these things out, given the hideous makeup of the USSC.

Future generations can puzzle over how we felt it necessary to point out the obvious.

The doctrine of corporate personhood allowed corporations to enter into contracts and buy and sell property and that is where it should have ended.

This insane court packed with fascists have never understood any of this.