SUPREME COURT ABOUT TO DO THE UNTHINKABLE!

Waitaminnit...I thought "Cheetos" was the name of a country, not a corporation...Capital: Extra Crunchy...

Come to think of it, let's drop all pretense and vote a corporation for president !

Nascar Prez, Exxon Prez, Cheetos, you name it ;)

Flip side would be...

Court Rewards Exxon for Valdez Oil Spill
http://www.gregpalast.com/court-rewards-exxon-for-valdez-oil-spill/

OR,,,

Our global economy, like our political system, has been hijacked by a tiny oligarchy, composed mostly of wealthy white men who serve corporations. They have pledged or raised a staggering $18 trillion, looted largely from state treasuries, to prop up banks and other financial institutions that engaged in suicidal acts of speculation and ruined the world economy. They have formulated trade deals so corporations can speculate across borders with currency, food and natural resources even as, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, 1.02 billion people on the planet struggle with hunger. Globalization has obliterated the ability of many poor countries to protect food staples such as corn, rice, beans and wheat with subsidies or taxes on imported staples. The abolishment of these protections has permitted the giant mechanized farms to wipe out tens of millions of small farmers—2 million in Mexico alone—bankrupting many and driving them off their land. Those who could once feed themselves can no longer find enough food, and the wealthiest governments use institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization like pit bulls to establish economic supremacy. There is little that most
governments seem able to do to fight back.

OR...

Vulture Bond Story
Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on one company that has won the right to collect $20 million from the government of Zambia after buying its debt for $4 million.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FC37F4B5EC10D27C

OR...

THIRD WORLD AMERICA !
http://current.com/items/89833556_third-world-america.htm

OR ALL OF THE ABOVE ?

Ask Scalia, Roberts & Alito for size ;)

Csmonut,

You wrote: "...by proclaiming a corporation to be a personhood, it leaves them open to lawsuits wherein they become personally responsible for any damage the corp. may do. Does that make sense?"

While I can see the direction of your thoughts, believe it or not the legal effect of corporate "personhood" is exactly the opposite: it SHIELDS the employees and directors of the corporation from liability. If the corporation operates in a manner that causes an injury, it is the corporation (a fictitious person) that is liable and NOT the individual employees and shareholders. This has been the law of corporations for decades now (not a new thing), and it has resulted in a veritable explosion of economic activity and job creation.

The reason is that people can do business through these corporation-persons and put only as much or as little of their personal assets at risk as they wish. If, for example, I had $10 million and wanted to open a string of workout gyms, I could take $5 million and invest in the corporation, borrowing any additional funds I might need to cover construction costs and losses during the period of time until the corporation becomes profitable.

If it NEVER becomes profitable (or if someone is injured while working out on poorly maintained equipment and successfully sues the corporation for for a crippling sum), the bankruptcy will take the $5 million I invested, but creditors may NOT pursue the $5 million in personal wealth I chose not to invest in the corporation. My decision to invest $5 million does not expose the OTHER $5 million because the corporate personhood SHIELDS me from liability beyond what I have already contributed to the corporation.

This last bit is critically important. Many (most?) people would not invest in companies if they knew that any investment exposed ALL of their assets to possible loss. And without such investments, the companies would not exist to create jobs or expand to create MORE jobs.

Have I made this area clearer or more confusing? As I said in my previous post, there are a number of exceptions to this protection from liability. Just because a person is a corporate employee they are not immune from liability if, for example, they act outside the scope of their employment. So if a guy is driving on company business and suddenly decides to guzzle a fifth of whiskey, he will almost certainly be liable in the subsequent crash since the whiskey is highly unlikely to be an activity that was part of his job description or consistent with corporate policy.

Recognizing the inherent nature of the influence peddling that has gone on since before Henry Adams (timeless autobiography, that) and how more entrenched and powerful it has become, the questions remain of what needs to done, and what can be done.
Some reforms over time with superhuman effort do seem possible.
Although one contributes in every way one can, the pathetic score of achievement in that realm and the nature of time itself, conspires to push most to the conclusion that, in this reality, the most logical response is primary dedication to personal, selfish, (and ultimately temporary) pursuits.
What is needed is a thoroughgoing re-thinking of a social and legal system designed and sanctioned to loot resources and exploit humans and any other living creature at hand. But remember, we created it.
Rip and run is so much a part of the human cosmology I myself am not sanguine about the outcome. No secondary consequences have ever stood in the way of any human hunger in any sense, for food, money, power, or comfort. If, by chance, a percent or two of the human population achieves the top rung of the Maslovian hierarchy and slakes those thirsts, there are a billion more hungry mouths and careening toxic egos to drown out any small impact they might have.
Oddly enough, I'm actually more optimistic than ever that there is a chance science and reason can be the catalyst for righting the sinking ship we're on.
Unfortunately though, if I were to honestly put the chances in a mathematical percentage, it would be in the single digits.

If corporations want personhood, fine, but on one condition - corporations must then be answerable just like a person, and take responsibility for its actions. If there is manslaughter in any form, corporations should be arraigned and tried, and if the sentence is life, it should be closed down permanently. If the sentence is death, the corporation should be executed - i.e. completely taken apart and dismantled, and those running it be imprisoned too. If corporations treat workers like slaves, if they cause pollution, if they commit fraud, etc., they should be tried, judged and sentenced the same way as would a person having committed these crimes. No double standards.

This is the first I have heard of this.
It would appear a large campaign needs to be organized to get the ear of our elected officials.
Someone posted an idea about a million man march that hangs out in DC till someone listens. Not a bad idea.
Boycott the large corps. products? Hmm...I'll have to check in on this.

Whitenoise,
What you have always posted has been very important...and this is at the top of the heap.
Thanks for the info.

The corporations already own all the governments with this they make sure that no progressive or radical types get into national office to threaten the profits of the elite or their continuing plans for the new world order!

Since the supreme court has at least 6 former Corporate lawyers on it at this point it will be a forgone assumption the religion of Corporatism is here to stay for a while.

Depressing. How about we all email Stewart, Maher, Moore, Olbermann etc. and get some coverage on this issue. Frustrating to be unsure the best way to reverse this direction. Any more suggestions on the best way to get coverage that's loud enough to reverse this?

Ending corporate personhood and enacting rigid campaign finance reform are the most critical things to be done today. Without this happening, global warming and other environmental issues will never be adequately addressed, along with a dump truck full of other issues.

If you think this can be done with a third party, you will definitely find it easier to build your own Dubai-esque country out in the Pacific.

The Democrats have their corporate lap "blue dogs," and a number of moderates on the corporate payola, but the right wing is owned lock, stock, and barrel by corporate America. It is ingrained in their ideology to kiss the ass of corporations and fear, hate, loathe, and despise the government.

Ralph Nader, the anti-corporatists' greatest hope at changing the system from the outside, was an utter failure. Had he worked within the party, he would have found many Democrats and Democratic leaders who agreed with him, and he might have done a lot more than raise the awareness of 2% of the voting public.

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said: "The banking industry owns this place" after Republicans and Blue Dogs stopped "cram down" legislation allowing a portion of homeowners to refinance their mortgages. You will find many Democratic leaders and zero Republicans who are on board with the anti-corporatist agenda.

Welcome to the monkey house. Please do not feed the animals.

Justice Sotomayor: End Corporate Personhood... maybe !!!???
http://current.com/items/90980443_justice-sotomayor-end-corporate-personhood-may...

Corporations have been claiming personhood in order to protect their profits from undue strain under regulations or fair taxation ever since Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1886, a United States Supreme Court case dealing with taxation of railroad properties.

At the California Constitutional Convention of 1878, the state legislature drew up a new constitution that denied railroads the right to deduct the amount of their debts (mortgages) from the taxable value of their property, a right which was given to individuals. Southern Pacific Railroad Company refused to pay taxes under these new changes. The taxpaying railroads challenged this law, based on a conflicting federal statute of 1866 which gave them privileges inconsistent with state taxation. Basically, Big Railroad, one of the largest corporations in the United States at the time, didn’t want to pay their fair share of taxes, so the corporation claimed personhood.

The case is most notable for the statement that corporations are entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. As Justice William O. Douglas wrote in 1949, “the Santa Clara case becomes one of the most momentous of all our decisions…Corporations were now armed with constitutional prerogatives.”

Of course, corporations are not people. They don’t vote. They don’t breathe the polluted air some of their industries help to create. They have no children to drink the poisoned water they pump from their factories. Now that citizens see the toll deregulation has taken (tainted environment, outsourced jobs, and widening class divide, including a desperate underclass ruled by a tiny coterie of fat cat CEOs and bailed out financial institutions,) Sotomayor’s statement doesn’t seem as controversial as it may have a decade ago.

How are Roberts and Alito "totally corrupt?" I disagree with their politics, but would not say they are any more corrupt than any other political appointee.

Welcome to the Fourth Reich.

I find this extremely troubling, but I am not surprised considering that Bush managed to get the totally corrupt Roberts and Alito accepted into the Supreme Court.

THX

"That great whistleblower Tom Paine warned that if the majority of the people were denied the truth and the ideas of truth, it was time to storm what he called the Bastille of words. That time is now. " - John Pilger

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=5435601

Why does this matter?

Corporations already wield tremendous influence in our political system by virtue of the billions of dollars they spend on campaign contributions and lobbying every year, even in a system with limits on political giving.

So far in 2009, just the companies that work in the health care industry have spent more than $263 million on lobbyists. If the Supreme Court rules that any limitation on corporate contributions – which have been in place since 1907 when Congress passed the Tillman Act – are unconstitutional, corporations and unions will completely crowd out the general public and will become the principal source of money for any candidate who hopes to win a seat in Congress.

It is difficult to imagine a world in which corporations enjoy more influence in Washington than they do now. Corporations would have so much money to donate to candidates that they could use it to drown out the voices of individual citizens.

As difficult as change is now, reforms dealing with climate change or skyrocketing health care costs would only be possible in such a world if they somehow benefitted the huge corporations that were bankrolling elections.

More likely, companies would oppose these and other populist measures, like they do now, in favor of legislation addressing their specific corporate interests, only to greater effect.

What can I do?

Our friends at Public Citizen have launched the Don't Get Rolled campaign that asks you to pledge to protest against overturning the unlimited corporate contributions ban.

Go to http://www.dontgetrolled.org to find out how you can participate. Also, please contact your member of Congress and ask them to keep big money out of politics by co-sponsoring the Fair Elections Now Act.

We need your voice to end the pay-to-play political system in Washington. To find out more information go to http://www.commoncause.org/FairElectionsNowAct

"...the concentration of power and the subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations ... in the same proportion as their ignorance." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America,

Is it my imagination or is there a certain spectrum of regular Current contributors missing from this thread? I suppose being principled only when it is convenient to be so makes life a lot easier...

Thanks whitenoise...probably the most important story/topic since the November 2008 election cycle.

peterzylstramoore-----But presenting the idea that capping corporate donations is an attack on their free speach is only an attack if you assume that people with 1000 times as much money should be able to speak 1000 times louder, which is of course the way our media and our elections work'. Ditto, What he said, right on, fight the power, GUILLOTINE!!! ( In short, I completely agree )

Great posts, great responses! Now, if we could only focus this knowledge in a powerful and effective way into the halls of Congress and the chamber of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, like Congress, is steeped in, and often primarily driven by established interests. Both have often lagged behind the evolution of the nation and society they were created by to serve.
For a real eye-opener listen to Justice Antonin Scalia's (Dick Cheney's other hunting buddy) twisted performance on C-Span (audio only) in questioning the Justice Department attorney presenting the case for limiting corporate political contributions.
These problems have been decades in the making and they have obviously gotten worse under Reagan, Bush, et al. This will take a concentrated effort of a lot of fully committed people over a long time to correct.
Time for a real million man march on Washington yet?
This time maybe keeping a million people milling outside the halls of Congress until the actual work needed is done.

out of the skillet and into the fire. Just what are we to do start a cival war or something??? I'm starting to wonder if maybe Texas should leave the Union and become there own country.

Big Media's silence on this is deafening ;)

" The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power. " : President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press" - Mark Twain

American Presidency open to the winner of the corporate version of the apprentice ( common average American need not apply)

This is effectively another nail in the coffin.. end of a representative government ... America what have you become for this to be seriously considered.

This is the real war

Great and informative post Whitehoise. The election reforms are words bandied about by candidates who are being given millions of dollars by the lobbies. Once again where is the honesty from even the most liberal of them. Until there is at least a third party and a fourth etc., we will be subject to the vulgarities of our "elected" few.
New party name nominations? Anyone?

INDEED... and it seems that for the US rabble and their masters/owners it would be back to where we never left...

1783-1799: The Miracle of Democracy

In a magical inversion of reality, U.S. histories repeatedly refer to assemblies, governors and presidents as being elected by “popular” vote. In truth, however, in the United States, popular votes are strictly verboten.

Blacks in the new “democracy” are items of property who cannot vote or hold office. Indentured whites, are simply slaves of another name and another color and who can not vote or hold office. Indians, upon whose stolen land the new nation stands, and who were described in the racist Declaration of Independence as “merciless Indian savages”, cannot vote or hold office. In most states in this brave new homeland of “religious freedom”, Catholics and Jews cannot vote or hold office. Women, regardless of race, creed, color or religion, are chattels who cannot vote or hold office. White men, even those most sacred of all God's creatures; white, Protestant, non-indentured men, cannot vote or hold office unless they meet a further qualification for membership in the ruling class; they must be very, very rich.

Although it varied from state to state, the property qualification which opened the doors to participation in the new demockracy was as much as $4000, an astronomical sum in the eighteenth century, equal to millions of dollars today.

The right to vote and hold office and all political and economic power in the new demockracy was, of course, held by a tiny handful of what would later come to be known as fascists, a small fraction of one percent of the population, the ultra-wealthy, white, male, Protestant, slave-owning, land speculating, terrorist, thoroughly unscrupulous elite; a self-appointed aristocracy of hypocrisy which looked down in open contempt upon most of their fellow human beings including ordinary Americans of all races.

"Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates." - Gore Vidal
"Elections are held to delude the populace into believing that they are participating in government." - Gerald F. Lieberman

Whenever a people... entrust the defence of their country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens.": A Framer - Anonymous 'framer' of the US Constitution - Source: Independent Gazetteer, January 29, 1791

FREEDOM IS PARTICIPATION TO POWER - CICERO

President Obama won the election with too many votes to steal. The Supreme Court is going to make sure, money candidates win in the future. SAD!

Only people who are 'paid for', will be able to get elected. Money talks in America. Citizens be damned. If corporate America can't choose who wins, they have the Supremes once again to change our political process. SAD!

Ok what the heck does an ad for a movie run as the leading link have to do with any of that? This is at least as ad like as a peacefreedomandhappybunnies piece. It severely cheapens anything trying to be said here and makes me wonder if this whole thing isn't viral.

As for the rest of it there's like 8 links there.

For anyone trying to figure out what is actually going on I suggest the Moyers article.

The corporations own American more than they ever h ave. Musolinni said "don't call it Fascism, call it Croporatism."

Corporate personhood must be killed at all costs, like i have said before I will believe a corporation is a person when I see video evidence of a corporation getting a colonoscopy.

As always, a big thank you for your posts! Thanks also for the intro to your web site "whitenoiserants" - great job!

Hm, the American public seems to be losing their civic minds. We protest healthcare and speeches that encourage our children to do well in school, but this goes under the radar.

For those interested in better news sources, for Television I recommend realnews.com (as awful as the name sounds) and for written I recommend strongly zmag.org/znet

Without real campaign finance reform and repealing the "personhood" of corporations there is no real representative democracy. They would feign that this is a violation of their free speech while taking away ours! Our Founding Fathers warned us of this as well as Lincoln and others. Corporations now own this country. And I agree, this should be much higher and getting more attention than what sexual orientation Drew Barrymore is. I too have been disappointed of late with what has been considered top news here. I thought this site was for News you won't see on the MSM, not to just cut and paste from those same networks.

Current used to post very good articles like this on the front page when it was solely user interactive voting that determined what made it to the top. Now it is just about as administrative as any other news network. The only thing is that we are still allowed to post and share articles. I find much more good info from connections then I do from the front page. Apparently it was making some waves, but once I saw McD's ads posted on this site, I knew it was the beginning of the end.....

This post is probably the most important post in the last number of weeks. We need to realize why were unable to get descent healthcare reform, or to get a whitehouse and congress out of brutal and aggressive wars, why though productivity has over doubled since the 80's workers incomes haven't gone up? It's because our whitehouse and all levels of government are control by funding of corporations and those who can afford to donate (the elite).

If we want real equal personhood, then each person should get the same amount of public funds (provided by a tax to the wealthy) to donate to the party he last voted for. For 2 dollars a person, a miniscule tax increase you'd have 700 million dollars for a federal campaign. For probably about 10 dollars a person you could fund all campaigns, for senate, for congress, for mayoral and other positions. Not a bad price for democracy.

But presenting the idea that capping corporate donations is attack on their free speach is only attack if you assume that people with 1000 times as much money should be able to speak 1000 times louder, which is of course the way our media and our elections work.

Democratizing the election funding and the funding for media are the two biggest problems in the world today, most other problems spanning from this.

The fact that Drew Barrymore's sexual orientation made it as the number News??? article on current, and this article isn't is what's wrong with this site.

Its amazing how ignorant the American public is. How many times are politicians going to tell us they will push for election campaign reform and do nothing about it??

TED KENNEDY ALSO WARNED US !

The Roberts-Alito Hearings & Ted Kennedy

Anyone who watched the confirmation hearings of both Sam Alito and John Roberts must remember the harsh questioning that Ted Kennedy gave these two men.

Ted Kennedy understood they were lying by omission. Neither Alito nor Roberts were honest at their own hearings. They lied about what they'd do once on the USSC. They should be Impeached for their lies.

Roberts said he would honor and respect precedent and what is known as stare decisis. Ted Kennedy took a lot of criticism for his harsh criticisms of Roberts and Alito by many people in America. Kennedy was one of the few U.S. Senators who did not buy into their lies and obfuscations of the truth.

The late Senator Kennedy also understood they are members of the Federalist Society which shares many extreme views including rolling back the Voting Rights Act, Privacy rights and opposes the Miranda Ruling. One should go and become familiar with this very extreme Federalist Society, and its members who now infest all the courts in America.

The left must take note of the extremists from the Federalist Society who now infest all courts across America and not allow the right wing to say any longer there is "judicial activists from the left" on the courts. The judicial activists on the courts in America today are from the right wing and the Federalist Society. Ted Olson is another Federalist Society member and so too, is Orrin Hatch.

In closing, Roberts and Alito should be Impeached for lying before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during their confirmation hearings. This is no joke. A few years back Ted Kennedy commented on the lies of these two men after they were already on the bench at the USSC.

Federalist Society
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society

What makes The Federalist Society so damaging is that fundamentally they (like Scalia) are intellectually dishonest. One need only read Scalia's opinions on issues he has deeply held POLITICAL beliefs - like Raich, Kelo, BushVGore to see that he is just as willing to invoke contemporaneous understanding and social structure to make his case as are the "living constitutionalists". And this largely applies to most Federalist Society arguements and advocates as well.
http://www.fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/1244175.aspx