Wednesday, September 23, 2009 — On a sudden whim, we’re going to alter the way we operate this digital division of our ancient operation. Instead of letting it lie fallow for weeks at a time, we’re going to snatch up intriguing bits of flotsam and jetsam that have some relevance to our next paper, and post them here, perhaps with a cryptic remark or two.
We were thrilled to Google up today, as we tried to take stock of Associate Justice Sotomayor’s commnts about corporate personhood, this Timeline of Personhood Rights and Powers, by Jan Edwards, “with much help from Doug Hammerstrom, Bill Meyers, Molly Morgan, Mary Zepernick, Virginia Rasmussen, Thomas Linzey, Jane Anne Morris, and Richard Grossman.” For essential background on this topic check out POCLAD, whose research laid the foundation for what public understanding of this injustice we have. Kudos to the estimable David T. Ratcliffe for making it broadly available at his “rat haus.”
We’ll go back to assembling Friday’s paper now. Lord knows how this will figure into it. At this point, all we can say is that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seems to have decided, by taking up the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, to complete the work done over the past century by the corporate stooges who preceeded them, and enshrine into law the unassailable superiority of corporations over people. Meanwhile, Associate Justice Sotomayor appears to be casually tossing the legal equivalent of a nuclear hand grenade from hand to hand, and asking, “Are you sure you want to play that game, boys?”
Phill
The concept of corporate personhood, approved in a very dubious way by the Supreme Court, permits corporations to get away with all kinds of nefarious crap a human would go to jail for.
Roberts and Scalia and the right-wingers seem to be ready to give corporations more power, rather than less, in their upcoming reconsideration of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case.
Sotomayor, meanwhile, seems to be saying “That’s a can of worms you might wish you had not opened.” That is, if enough votes could be had, corporate personhood itself might end up getting declared unconstitutional.
The hard thing here is that with the court’s present makeup, they probably don’t have sufficient humanity among them to vote right.
The good thing is that if the issue gets on the table, at least people might start to think about it. Congress could always pass a law saying corporate personhood is bullshit.
This one is worth going to the mat for. Corporate personhood has got to go. Unless and until it does, we’re all consumers. Once it’s gone, we’re citizens again.
That help any, Phill? Thanks for asking.
Explain the grenade bit for those of us who don’t have the time to follow all the bits.
Thanks, Jabba.
There’s also a huge library of information on corporate personhood here: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/ (I pasted the url into my user name in case it doesn’t show up a link here).