UNITED WE STAND - AT LEAST ON ONE ISSUE APPARENTLY

Despite the perception that American Citizens are universally divided against themselves, there do appear to be things that most Americans agree upon. For example, it appears that American citizens of virtually every political point of view agree that America's ubiquitous system of financing campaigns with “donations" not only appears in conflict with the United States Constitution’s most basic ideals, but also creates the appearance of - and opportunity for - bribery.

Despite Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution…

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

…many American Citizens also share a perceived inability to change this unfortunate fact of life in the United States through any means, in part because they believe that America grants corporations the very same rights granted to flesh and blood American Citizens.  Allegedly, the Supreme Court sealed this legal precedent granting corporations citizenship long before any of us were born. 

CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE TOO?

However, the perception that the Supreme Court granted corporations rights to those of flesh and blood citizens is apparently built upon the most tenuous of legal precedents.  According to an article at the website The Straight Dope, the granting of citizenship rights to corporations was not a carefully thought out Supreme Court Decision of the 19^th century, but a bit of judicial slight of hand in which a court reporter included a comment by a judge in a decision's “headnotes” as if it were decided law.

“Then the court reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis, stepped in. Although the title makes him sound like a mere clerk, the court reporter is an important official who digests dense rulings and summarizes key findings in published "headnotes." (Davis had already had a long career in public service, and at one point was president of the board of directors for the Newburgh & New York Railroad Company.) In a letter, Davis asked Waite whether he could include the latter's courtroom comment--which would ordinarily never see print--in the headnotes. Waite gave an ambivalent response that Davis took as a yes. Eureka, instant landmark ruling. ” 

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2469/how-can-a-corporation-be-legally-considered-a-person 

A different source describes the landmark precedent more directly. 

 “… a two-sentence assertion by a single judge elevated corporations to the status of persons under the law, prepared the way for the rise of global corporate rule, and thereby changed the course of history.”

http://www.ratical.org/corporations/SCvSPR1886.html  

Despite being set in this rather unique manner, the "precedent" continues to buttress arguments that the 14^th Amendment (ratified in 1868 to guarantee former slaves equal rights after the Civil War) provides corporations with the same rights granted to flesh and blood American Citizens (former slaves or not). 

IN WASHINGTON DC, THE CORPORATIONS WIN AGAIN - AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN...

Most recently, in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission (NOTE the extremely interesting disclaimer in the headnote!), the Supreme Court struck down any limit whatsoever on corporate spending on political advertisements (aka propaganda), prompting the online magazine Slate to state in the subtitle of the January 21, 2010 article “Pinocchio Project” that “...the Supreme Court turns a corporation into a real live boy.”  After this ruling, even international corporations that pay no taxes in the US (many capable of spending more in one election on one issue than all spending of all types combined in the 2008 election) will have political power in the United States Congress so sweeping that it all but abolishes what little power We the People still hold over our own “representatives.”

No matter what one believes about the marriage of corporate and government power in democratic societies or the relative merit of removing any limit to spending on political advertisements by global corporations in American elections, American Citizens also face another corrosive threat to Government of We the People, campaign “donations.”  Despite the existence serious conflicts of interests in votes of our "representatives," “political action committees” allow corporations, individuals, - even foreign nations - to provide those representatives with, cash “donations,” gifts, subsidized travel and a wide variety of other things of value.  How can our representatives act impartially after receiving things of value from powerful interests who desire - if not expect - the "support" of the representative? 

OFFERING/ACCEPTING THINGS OF VALUE UNDER A CONFLICT OF INTEREST EQUALS FREE SPEECH?

It is hard to accept the idea that giving someone money or other things of value constitutes speech, let alone "free" speech.  Instead the "donations" appear as economic transactions, in which one thing of value is usually exchanged for another.  It is one thing to contact your representative and use your free speech to advocate that the representative vote in a certain way.  It is quite a different thing to give that representative money or gifts (or who know what else) while advocating that the representative vote in a certain way.  The first appears as democratic action, the second a bribe (whether it is or not).  Perhaps the only reason that a person, corporation or organization with a clear conflict of interest providing an elected representative with money or other things of value is not considered bribery is that the people who are receiving the things of value are the same people charged with deciding if it is legal to accept them.  This fact also plays a role in most American Citizens' perception of helplessness with regard to the possibility of ending this Washington DC "tradition."  

ENSURING GOVERNMENT OF WE THE PEOPLE EXCLUDES IMAGINARY "PEOPLE"

The Supreme Court must revisit Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad and Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission to establish that corporations are not actual human beings with civil rights.   In addition, the United States Congress must criminalize the acceptance of “donations” by Representatives of the People of the United States (or at least the failure to recuse themselves from votes in which “donation” related conflicts of interests exist).  Until then, America's legal foundations and tax law will probably evolve even more rapidly in service to corporate interests at the expense of the American Citizens, and elected representatives will continue to appear to be little more than paid agents of corporate, foreign and political interests whose goals rarely appear to coincide with those of We the People of the United States.     

Groff Schroeder

President of the Board of Directors

Freethinkers of Colorado Springs

January 21-28, 2010

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