Help me, here. The Constitution was built to protect "people's" rights. A corporation was,...

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

,...given the standing of "a person" by a branch of our government called the SCOTUS. Since then, corporations (entities
of many persons with one purpose, PROFIT) have been endowed with laws favoring their protection because THEY ARE BIG, and us individual persons are SMALL.

NOW, corporations are hurting because they have SUCKED ALL THEY CAN GET out of SMALL individuals. NOW, corporations want MORE power over our nation than what they've got!!!

:shrug:

Forgive me if I simply can NO LONGER call this nation a "DEMOCRACY" when corporations have far FAR more power than citizens: more power to propagandize, to control laws, to control people's lives. How can we call ourselves a "democracy", anymore? Honestly?

[anonymous171]

1. Corporations aren't hurting at all. They don't "hurt." They only exploit. nt

[waiting for hope]

2. I think they hurt when their exploitations cause

negligence and create situations where people can get seriously sick or killed.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

3. They "hurt" when their "BIG" status is threatened by the interests of us SMALL citizens.

They are threatened and putting in big bucks to convince all of us that, our interests are threatening to us, rather than their profits.

[Statistical]

6. I think it is the difference between profits and more profits.

Neither outcome is "hurting".

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

10. If power rather than livelihood is the game, I imagine there is a difference,

When a "power" broker does not have to worry about basic needs, EVER, the only pain is loss of power/profits.

May sound weird to the majority of us SMALL people but,..."pain" is measured very differently among those who have total security of all basic needs and way above that.

[waiting for hope]

4. We haven't been a democracy for quite some

time - many are coming to the realization now - when it may be too late. Campaign Finance Reform is DOA, and they will dig their fangs into politics deeper now.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

8. I'm not disagreeing with you just to be disagreeable. We have been fighting for democracy,...

,...all along, and that fight is NEVER TOO LATE because it has kept us all going, this long.

Democracy is ALL ABOUT FIGHTING AGAINST oppression and inequality and injustice.

Maybe, you don't want to admit it but,...we certainly have been FIGHTERS FOR DEMOCRACY. Otherwise, our nation would look like it did in 1909, BEFORE women had a right to vote and children could no longer be forced to labor and laborers could no longer be treated like slaves and blacks could no longer be treated like something other than human beings and the elderly could no longer be tossed away and education was accessible to all people and roads were built allowing far greater access across this nation and community protections were developed via firefighters/police and,...

It is AMAZING what has been built by all those willing to FIGHT FOR A DEMOCRACY THAT SERVES ALL ITS CITIZENS.

Maybe, too many take for granted WHAT IT TAKES to build a democracy? You have to WORK FOR IT!!!

If we WANT to be heard ABOVE the corporacrats, we HAVE TO BE ACTIVE AND VOCAL above their commercials ((DUH))). We can NOT allow their PROFITS drown out our voices, our lives, OUR IMPORTANCE AND VALUE, our dreams,... We can NOT allow those whose interest is purely money to persuade us to HATE or DEMEAN or JUDGE one another,...there are always those who are struggling to possess the strength necessary to make it through life's challenges and difficulties,...THEY ARE all of us.

The corporacrats ENGAGE our feeling sorry for ourselves, ALWAYS. They constantly manipulate our feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. That's what they do,...to profit. They make money by manipulating human weakness. That is evil, my friend,...human evil.

SO, you seem to have given up on democracy, altogether. Did you do it by your will,...or theirs?

[waiting for hope]

20. Okay - so you say I've given up?

Where did you get that? You are the one saying this country is no longer a democracy.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

24. I apologize if I misinterpreted your position. I thought you meant "democracy is dead".

You did not say that, did you.

You did not say you have given up on democracy, either.

You pointed out 'what is' without pointing out 'what can be', with commitment and purpose.

I mistakenly interpreted your post as "giving up" on democracy rather than either giving towards or fighting for democracy.

I apologize. I do the best I can and must do better at understanding others' perspective.

[waiting for hope]

26. It's all good -

I do that myself sometimes ... especially when I post late at night, I have a tendency to over think things! :)

[DeSwiss]

5. While I agree with your basic view.....

...technically we've never been a democracy. We've always http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/">been a republic.

- K&R

[rhett o rick]

18. Ah yes. I don't know you but would like to be so presumptive to tell you that calling

our country a "republic" is a right-wing meme. I am not accusing you, just sayin. I believe that Thom Hartmann calls our government a Constitutional, Democratic Republic. Most people know that, and us Democracy for short. The repukes are offended that democracy sounds too much like Democrat so they insist on calling it a republic because that sounds better (idiots).

What ever it's called, it is dieing fast.

[DeSwiss]

22. It's what I was taught in HS.....

...in undergrad, and in graduate school. Of course I don't think they teach much about government or civics in HS anymore like they did in my day. But the definition as I use it and as is typically used (I thought), refers to a government which not headed by a monarch and has some form of representative government. It was not a reference having to do with left or right-wing parties, ideologies or philosophies per se. If anything most would say it's in the center, politically - with totalitarianism at one extreme and anarchy at the other.

But democracies have been notoriously unfair to minorities and resulting in extreme swings back and forth when majority rules. At least as in the closest form of "direct-democracy" that we can document, as was attempted by the Greeks during the classical period in the ancient past. It was partly responsible for their undoing, by weakening them militarily and politically for later conquest by the Romans as the Greek city-states has exhausted themselves fighting each other. Majority rule sounds good on paper, but republics rule by laws in order to be fair to everyone, not just the one who can get the most votes.

Neither did we have direct-democracy with the pre-cursors to the Constitution: the Articles of Confederation. In the U.S.'s own early attempts at organization, their only provisions for franchised citizenship applied to white - male - landowners. One was considered a U.S. citizen if they were also citizens of one of the 13 original colonies at the time of the U.S.'s declared independence from Great Britain. And yet at the same time they enslaved around 4 million people. And all women in the U.S were disenfranchised for 144 years from the beginning of independence. So democracy isn't always a better way, if you don't already have power when it begins or if you are in a minority.

Here's the Wiki though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republics#United_States">United States
Main article: Republicanism in the United States

A distinct set of definitions for the word republic evolved in the United States. In common parlance a republic is a state that does not practice direct democracy but rather has a government indirectly controlled by the people. In the rest of the world this is known as representative democracy. This understanding of the term was originally developed by James Madison, and notably employed in Federalist Paper No. 10. This meaning was widely adopted early in the history of the United States, including in Noah Webster's dictionary of 1828. It was a novel meaning to the term, representative democracy was not an idea mentioned by Machiavelli and did not exist in the classical republics.<48>

The term republic does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, but does appear in Article IV of the Constitution which "guarantee(s) to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government." What exactly the writers of the constitution felt this should mean is uncertain. The Supreme Court, in Luther v. Borden (1849), declared that the definition of republic was a "political question" in which it would not intervene. In two later cases, it did establish a basic definition. In United States v. Cruikshank (1875), the court ruled that the "equal rights of citizens" were inherent to the idea of republic. The opinion of the court from In re Duncan<49> held that the "right of the people to choose their government" is also part of the definition.

Beyond these basic definitions the word republic has a number of other connotations. W. Paul Adams observes that republic is most often used in the United States as a synonym for state or government, but with more positive connotations than either of those terms.<50> Republicanism is often referred to as the founding ideology of the United States. Traditionally scholars believed this American republicanism was a derivation of the liberal ideologies of John Locke and others developed in Europe.

The political philosophy of republicanism initiated by Machiavelli was thought to have had little impact on the founders of the United States. In the 1960s and 1970s a revisionist school lead by the likes of Bernard Bailyn began to argue that republicanism was just as or even more important than liberalism in the creation of the United States.<51> This issue is still much disputed and scholars like Kramnick completely reject this view.<52>

- The one thing that I'll definitely agree about, is that whatever it is that thing we've got is called, the Repukes messed it up and made it worse than it was. But then in my experience, they pretty much always have. It's the one thing that they've always done best......

[rhett o rick]

27. Wow, you did your homework. (no sarcasim). Very well put.

I am very sensitive and have a hair trigger (don't let the gun nuts read this) and wasn't sure as to your intent when yu said republic. Seems yu know much more than me. Be cool.

[kitfalbo]

7. Hmmm

Yet we can't arrest corporations or execute them for murder.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

9. Good point.

I could go on a rant about the gazillions made from corporations OFF the Iraq debacle. But, I'll zip-it, for now.

[DeSwiss]

21. Nor must they serve.....

...in the wars they profit from and are most often the cause of.

[abumbyanyothername]

11. An idea to restrain the power of corporations (and others)

All persons, natural or otherwise, are to be taxed on all earnings over $1 million at a rate of 100%.

For purposes of this provision, dividends declared and paid by corporations are deducted from revenue in the calculation of earnings. Such dividends in the hands of other corporations or natural persons count as income/revenue in the calculation of that person's $1 million limit.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

12. *LOL*

Armageddon!!!!

You know, socialism is defined as government's control over production.

What would merely a cap on income be defined as? :shrug:

[Sebastian Doyle]

15. Sanity

or at least that's what I would call it.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

17. Some might even call it, "democracy".

Did "capitalism" define "democracy" the day "corporations" were declared "persons"?

:shrug:

I'm not demonizing capitalism, per se. NO! I figure 'democracy' is akin to 'meritocracy', and to the extent 'capitalism' is based upon 'meritocracy', I am totally with it.

However, what I see is a capitalism that has built an empire unto itself, oppressing democracy AND meritocracy.

That is what I observe.

[BeatleBoot]

13. An Individual's Rights

Not the "people's rights".

And our nation is not a "Democracy".

Our nation is a "Constitutional Republic".

All a democracy means is that if the other 9 people decide, they can eat the 10th person.

Ancient Greece was a Democracy and they never had a Constitution and Bill of Rights to protect the individual. It was government by referendum.

We have a Constitutional Republic with a Bill of Right's that protect each citizen.

All that said, fuck the Corporations, they are NOT individuals.

[Jade Fox]

14. Sadly, this is nothing new...

The USA has always been a Democracy--as long as it didn't interfere with Capitalism. The Corporations have replaced the Robber-barons which replaced the European Nobles and so on.

The good news is that, according to Philip Slater, Democracy is inevitable.

[xchrom]

16. kick -- nt

[Dragonfli]

19. Honestly - We Can't - We are no longer a Republic, but rather a corporatocracy...

..Morphing still, into a stable "something" much less representative and "for" the people than a Democratic Republic.
The only part as yet un-clarified is how authoritarian our newly forming government shall be.

After that is settled you will know what to call it.

[jotsy]

23. All forms of government have to have been sold as something that would work for all.

Not sure it matters what you call it, because in the end, power can not help but corrupt. The beauty in the design of our government has indeed been stripped away with the help of those we have trusted most. This diabolical alliance has operated in tandem and left a nation that bears little if any resemblance to its intent.

Is it time to reboot? I say that's likely a yes, but unsure how to set about revolutionary change without further degradation to a tested land.

We need lots of luck, and more hope; mirrored by our devotion and matched by our effort. I'm tired already, but sure it's worth it, as such is the challenge of a telling era.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

25. People don't much discuss their perception of what government should be.

I always assumed government was intended to "protect the people's interest".

Where did I get that idea? :shrug:

Basic civics and government classes in high school, my parents, even church taught me government was an entity 'of and by and for the people' of this country,...ALL the people. I'm not THAT old to recall community action groups caring for the WHOLE community because, that is what good people did/do,...care for the whole and not merely themselves. We were participants in GOVERNMENT, governance,...compassionate, good governance over one another,...caring for each and every other.

Nowadays, one works hard to avoid a free-for-all HATE ON this on or that one or the other. The compassion/empathy deficit would be unbelievable but for the corporate mindset of greed and materialism. Human beings in the USA are only worth the amount of stuff they possess or access they have to health and energy.

It is pitiful, really,...what we have become, morally speaking, as a nation. It is a damn shame that we are ALL DEFINED, not by our own character but rather the amoral objectives of entities given the undeserved title of a "person". Those entities are called, corporations. Those entities ARE NOT "PERSONS". They are anti-persons because they seek to derive wealth and power OFF PERSONS.