The inalienable right to free speech was endowed on We The (mere mortal) People by our Creator. But in the most arrogant example of judicial activism ever, Chief Judicial Activist John “Benedict Arnold” Roberts and his merry band of royalist robed reactionary ramblers have both betrayed the founders vision of democracy and bestowed this right on corporations based on the notion that corporations are “persons” something any four year old would immediately recognize as foolishness. Corporations are not people. Did you go to school with any corporations; have you ever seen one walking down the street? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against corporations, I’m a VP at one and we derive our livelihood from our clients, most of which are also corporations. I just don’t want to be ruled by corporations, for people governed in the interest of others cannot remain truly free.
Yes, I said royalists, you know aristocrats, which our founders fought a revolution against to throw off our backs! Thomas Jefferson warned America to, “crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” After all, the Boston Tea Party was as much about the corporate stranglehold that the monopolistic and transnational East India Company sought to place on the colonist’s livelihoods as it was about defiance of the despotic British monarch.
The extreme court could have simply ruled on the merits of the Citizens United v FEC case, they chose activism, expanding the breadth of the ruling and sweeping away 100 years of state and federal legislation and legal precedent from Teddy “Trust Bustin” Roosevelt to McCain-Feingold. Progressive Republican Teddy Roosevelt recognized the threat to democracy that large corporations posed in the last gilded age when he proposed public funding of all elections and said, “All contributions by corporations to any political committee for any political purpose should be forbidden by law.” But the five corporatist appointees on the bench did their master’s bidding and loosed the floodgates of the corporate ownership’s cash on our elections, allowing unlimited advertising during election campaigns for political propaganda. Injustices Roberts and Alito should be impeached for lying under oath since both provided sworn testimony during their confirmation hearings that they would respect existing law and uphold established precedent. Priestly robes aside, these were either exhibitions of very poor judgment by Roberts and Alito or worse, outright lies.
Ask yourself, what is an American Corporation? Corporations aren’t born, they’re not naturalized, and don’t get to vote when they turn 18, they are not citizens. Saudi Arabia’s or China’s government owned oil companies ARAMCO or PetroChina, respectively can incorporate in Delaware for $20 making them legal “American” Corporations. Transnational and foreign corporations with American subsidiaries will be able to use unlimited funds to fill the airwaves with slanted information and outright lies during elections from Dog Catcher to President. Once corporations have successfully used legalized blackmail to cow a couple of our representatives or bribery to install their representatives to replace ours, the rest will dutifully fall in line for free out of fear of the corporate funds, yielding a tremendous return on their investment.
Imagine a corporation approaching a lawmaker with positions in the public interest, but not theirs and making it known that they are prepared to launch a media blitz smearing him or her in the last weeks of their campaign. Or a corporation buttonholing a sympathetic, attractive person and telling them, you don’t need to raise funds from the citizen constituents of the office we’ve selected you for, we will run all your campaign ads for you, oh and here is a list your positions on the issues. Heck, why not just cut to the chase and introduce the altruistic representative from the Altria Group, Senator Joe Camel?
This anti-democratic atrocity must not go unchallenged. Laws must be enacted to restrain this aggregated corporate power, because when profits are involved we certainly cannot count on corporate restraint. Passing the Fair Elections Now Act, requiring shareholder approval for such expenditures and holding CEO’s (actual persons) personally accountable for such messages would be a good start. But ultimately the Constitution must be amended to reserve the rights of personhood to real human beings only and to deny super-personhood to these immortal, omnipresent, amoral, faceless artificial beings. Go to movetoamend.org or freespeechforpeople.org for information.
Are we going to replace the word “men” with “corporations” in the Pledge, Preamble and Declaration of Independence? Will we still yet hold the truth self evident that our government is instituted among Men and derives its just powers from the consent of the governed? Or will we hoist the logo spangled banner of corporate servitude?
The Burlington Area Progressives are hosting Attorney Eugene Gasiorkiewicz to present “The Ethics of Corporate Entitlement in U.S. Elections” and psychologist Dr. David Nichols, Ph.D. to speak about “The Electorate’s Feelings of Disenfranchisement and Suppression of the Vote”. The event will be Thursday February 18th – 7:00 PM at the CATHE Center, 125 East State St. in Burlington. The public should be outraged and all are encouraged to attend! Admission is free however donations are accepted to defray the costs. Speak now or forget about it! For more information call (262) 237-4351.
Sean Cranley – Corporate Serf No. 399-22-0812
Burlington, Inc.
