A constitutional amendment to undo corporate "personhood"

[Kelvin Mace]

Yes, this wording has problems for the "good guys" (a free press), but it is a start, and I invite, nay, entreat you to offer suggestions on crafting it undo the evil Fat Tony and his toadies unleashed on us yesterday:

"Corporations, partnerships, and all other "artificial persons", shall exists at the sufferance of the People, and shall enjoy only those rights and privileges, mandated by the People, while complying with all duties and responsibilities expected of the People."

[ChickMagic]

1. Good luck with that

Our "representatives" are already owned by the corporations. This law just gives them cover. Why on earth would they want to change the ruling? They are making out like bandits. There may be a couple of true mavericks, but we can't even get 51 votes on anything lately. 2/3 of congress plus ratification by the states? I just don't see it.

[LiberalFighter]

2. Need to add Supreme Court Justices that consider corporations to be persons.

[ixion]

3. I believe there is already verbage specifically about corporations NOT being persons

it is simply a matter of enforcing that verbage.

One of the primary motives for separating from GB was the oppression inflicted on the colonies from Britain's corporations.

Same for India. It was that oppression that enabled Gandhi to start his non-violent resistance movement.

We have the advantage of being corporeal. All we have to do is remove the power we give to the shadows on the wall.

[Selatius]

6. The British East India Company was granted a monopoly over the Thirteen Colonies

This was an act of British Parliament after heavy lobbying by the British East India Company. Parliament declared that the Colonists could only purchase tea from the British East India Company and no other.

This hurt the economy of the colonies because of inevitable price gouging, which stimulated an underground economy of tea smuggling and smuggling of other goods against the wishes of English Parliament.

What's worse, Parliament banned the Thirteen Colonies from respectively printing their own paper currency and insisted that the Colonies borrow money, at interest, from English bankers. This collapsed the money supply overnight, essentially dumping them into an economic depression. This, also, angered the colonists.

[ixion]

7. Yep, a great example

and something our bought-and-paid-for Congress would do well to heed. Not that they will, of course.

[Selatius]

9. The Colonists were made of sterner stuff. They rebelled. We haven't so far.

Also, the Colonists had the luxury of not having representation in Parliament. The illusion of democracy can be as much an enslaver of people as an army could. Take the Iranians, for instance. For decades since the '79 Revolution, the people of Iran had been led to believe they were now free of the dictatorship of the Shah, and the Mullahs took care to maintain this veneer of freedom until the guy they wanted wasn't going to win. They rigged their last election, and it was so blatant that Iranians saw what was happening.

What did they do when they realized that their notion of freedom was just a stupid illusion and that they've been suckered for all that time? They rebelled. They attacked government buildings and openly fought the pro-government militias. They damn near had their own Bastille Day. Though they were eventually crushed with brutal police and military power, the people at least now realize they are slaves, and in that respect, they are ahead of the game compared to most Americans. Americans still think they have a choice. They still think they are free, and that's the worst tragedy of all.

[Kelvin Mace]

10. Rebelling means missing American Idol

or the NBA playoffs, or something "equally important".

As usual, it falls to us to fight for what other people can't be bothered to care about.

[drm604]

15. Which makes the current right-wing tea-party allegory quite ironic.

The Boston Tea Party was an act against corporate governance. The modern day teabaggers are protesting in favor of corporate control.

[Selatius]

4. It should be even simpler than that. Make it a negative statement.

Corporations, partnerships, and all other "artificial persons" shall not enjoy any protection afforded to humans under the Bill of Rights.

Try to get a conservative judge to shoot a fucking loophole into that statement. With the statement you highlighted, it can be undermined simply by getting enough pro-corporate stooges in Congress to pass a bill asserting corporations deserve constitutional protections. You have to understand that in this Republic, the people decide nothing except who sits in the seats. The ones who sit in the seats decide everything else.

This statement would essentially strip down corporate personhood to 1789 levels, the year the Constitution went into effect. Coincidentally, it's also the year the citizens of France rebelled against the powerful, wealthy aristocracy and chopped off their heads.

[Overseas]

5. Let's push hard to revoke Corporate Personhood.

Corporations are not U.S. citizens. We can't throw the seller of Vioxx in prison as a serial killer, as we would do with an individual that poisoned hundreds of people.

A very simple amendment, to make sure our free speech rights apply to natural individual persons and not some artificial entities conglomerated of many people and billions of private dollars.

Motion to Amend

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

* Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
* Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our vote and participation count.
* Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments.

http://www.movetoamend.org/motion-amend

[CrownPrinceBandar]

8. How do we do it in a way that won't neuter unions?...........

I'm assuming we don't want to throw the collective bargaining baby out with the bathwater?

[vincna]

11. Good point. Be careful what you wish for. - nt

[Kelvin Mace]

12. Here's the problem

the sharp toy is dangerous, and other than the press and individuals, I don't see outlawing unions the use of the sharp toy as a problem. I am willing to deny unions this "right" in order preserve it exclusively for the press and the individual.

I don't see a way around it. I'll entertain arguments to the contrary.

[tonysam]

13. It's not going to happen.

However, people still have the right to vote, so we can try to get candidates who represent the PEOPLE, not Big Biz, the natural GOP constituency.

[starroute]

18. It's more about getting the idea out there and starting the process

A women's suffrage amendment was introduced at every session of Congress from 1878 to 1919 before it passed. (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/nineteentham.htm)

We can't afford to wait that long on this -- and I'm hoping the specific campaign spending problem can be addressed in a more immediate way -- but the general issue of corporate power is going to be at the center of every debate for years to come.

Getting the change we'd like to see out there right now to serve as a focus for discussion can only be helpful.

For example, I can see a couple of different approaches even in this thread. One is the idea that (as was originally intended a couple of centuries ago) corporations should be created only to serve a specific public need and should be disbanded when that need is either fulfilled or abused. Another is that corporations can be allowed to exist as they choose but should simply be denied the rights of personhood.

And there are related issues, such as the recent tendency of corporations to use "intellectual property" to lock up everything from Mickey Mouse to seed crops, not to mention stifling criticism of their actions by claiming copyright violations.

One concise statement of what sort of constitutional language could handle all these issues would be a great way of both focusing public attention and countering the tendency to run off in all directions.

[steveorg]

14. Call it the Anti-Fascist Amendment

The corporation as person problem has led to Corporatism, aka Fascism. This kind of amendment can go a long way to bringing campaign finance and lobbying in check. However, I suspect this is a bit stronger than would survive. I think that it would also have to provide certain rights to these entities, such as limited commercial speech.

In any case, amendments need names and the best names are descriptive and educate. Even right-wingers would have a hard time being publicly against anti-Fascism.

PFAW has an amendment idea going that is not nearly as good. I suggested the "Anti-Fascist Amendment" name in an email and an anti-personhood approach to them yesterday instead of the Amendment that they proposed. Here's their petition link: http://site.pfaw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Amend

Perhaps if they heard from more of us, they'd take up the cause. You can contact them at http://site.pfaw.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=1141&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

16. Your framing is good. Everyone knows fascism is bad - that's why it's hurled as

an insult so often - usually by people who have no idea what it actually is.

[treestar]

17. The personhood thing is only about suing and being sued

If they can't sue because they aren't people, they'll claim they can't be sued. Each plaintiff injured by their actions would have to figure out an individual to sue, and that individual could be judgment proof.

There would end up being exceptions.

Maybe the answer is buy shares and go to board meetings and vote. Many shareholders don't bother, interestingly enough.

[Kelvin Mace]

21. The Supreme Court

just said that personhood is about pouring billions into political campaigns to get their candidate elected. It was gone beyond lawsuits. In ten years, it will be illegal to sue a corporation thanks to this ruling, but corporations will certainly be permitted to sue you.

[treestar]

25. I don't follow that

If they can pour billions in, so can individuals.

But one of the main reasons they exist is so one can sue the business. It could be impossible to figure out who the shareholders are and to find them.

People should buy even just one share of stock in them. They could have voting rights and be able to file derivative suits.

If we all bought shares of stock and actually went to the shareholder's meetings and voted (so many just take proxies) we could start controlling them ourselves. Funny that never occurs to us.

[Kelvin Mace]

26. Individuals may have billions

but an industry (oil, chemical, etc) can have 100s of billions. There are far more multi-billion dollar corporations in the world than billionaires.

[MiniMe]

19. A constitutional amendment requires 2/3 of the states to approve

And that is only after it passes bt a huge majority in congress. The founding fathers made it hard to amend on purpose, that is why there is only 27 amendments to the constitution.

[IggleDoer]

20. If a corporation is a "person" ...

can I marry a corporation?

[yowzayowzayowza]

22. Or go with it and regulate the market.

All corp expenditures in the Federal Elections Market are taxed at say 50% which goes to public financing of elections.

Twould certainly be better to put this Genie back in the bottle tho.

[gkhouston]

23. How is this not a national security concern? Seriously? Couldn't any multinational

corporation have the potential to come in and essentially buy any/every election it wanted to? :shrug:

on edit: Do we really want other countries making our laws?? Isn't that the fear factor (based in truth, for a change!) to sink this brain-dead bone-stupid ruling?

[gkhouston]

24. self-delete; dupe. n/t