How a Legal Case Over an Idiotic Right-Wing Anti-Hillary Film Might End Up Destroying Our Democracy

...is an abomination. Part and parcel of the cult of personality that is cultivated by the Establishment...kitties are more interested in the piece of yarn dangling in front of them than the hand that dangles it...Americans are likewise more concerned with the personalities and their emotive effect than with the strategists who work to create the effect.

We saw her taking payoffs in Arkansas through the Tyson cattle futures contracts. We saw her create a hellish mess with health care reform that set it back for over a decade.

Like Obama, she is there to shuck and jive, to dangle reform before your eyes that is so unworkable that it evokes tremendous opposition.

She is as criminal as Bush, McCain and Obama in the support of these wars based on lies. If conservatives are attacking Hillary, then they are doing all real anti-war Progressives a real service. Who in their right mind would believe that the S&L crook and War Pig McCain and the loathsome Feinstein would come up with a bill that served any interests but their own?

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Money not only makes strange bedfellows but sometimes when there is enough of it involved it turns platonic bed sharers into out and out whores. Corporations need to be knocked back down to a position of non interference with our or any political system. What America has at the moment is a grand auction where the highest bidder will be bestowed both the power to affect lives and the legal consent to do so courtesy of our U.S. Government.

There is no part of our government that is not effected by corporate infiltration. In fact most times it is hard to distinguish between the two.

If our country does not get a handle on these corporations and their corporate mutations then we will lose not only this country but perhaps the world.

A One World Order concept was never born out of any government but rather was and is espoused by corporate leaders and their groupies. They lack shame and/or moral convictions to stand in the way of the bottom line as they have proved every chance they got. It sometimes is funny to me that there are those who hold them up to high esteem while when I look at them all I see is a deficiency that was not achieved through their skill but was actually a mere defect at birth.

The logical conclusion of a any corporation is not our survival but it's survival.

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my blood ran cold. This current Court will in all probability rule in favor of corporate interests, just as another Court did in 1869. If the Court does this, with help from the various legal "experts" at the ACLU and other places, then we as a nation will exist in name only.

I am a human being with certain inalienable rights according to the Constitution, as well as certain other important legal documents. A corporation is NOT human being, it is a legal entity set up to produce a profit for its shareholders, period. They were wrong in 1869 and created the mess we now have today, abetted by the likes of the Clintons and the Republican Party of the last 40 years or so.

When free speech is exercised by individuals, it is a good thing as long as it does not promote treason, violence, or hate. When "free speech" is used by corporations as we are seeing today, you get compromised news and information; hate speech masquerading as free speech; raging to prevent free public discourse on important issues; and you get mind control on a level that threatens the public safety and free democracy. For corporations to hide behind their false personhood and claim that they have the right of free speech the same as I do, is an abomination and should be stopped. This kind of free speech gives cover to CEOs with deep pockets who do not have the courage to step out into the open and use their right of free speech because they know that they will be vilified and shown up for the power mad individuals that they really are. By hiding behind the corporate front, they can feel safe because most people will not stand up to a corporation and win.

It is time for us as people, not just as citizens of the United States, but as people around the world to stand up to American corporations. It is time to say NO MORE! We do this with public action - protests, public actions at town halls, running for offices at all levels of government, and we do this with our purchasing power. Start looking at ways you can cut back on your purchases. Look for green companies from whom to purchase. Make soaps, cleansers, shampoos, food, clothes. Reduce your power consumption. Use public transportation if possible rather than your car. In short, shut down the cashflow enough, and all of us together can put a stranglehold on American business (example, reduced energy usage is leading to reduced energy cash and a reduction in rates! See article on Alternet)

And, finally, make sure that your elected representatives know that you are watching who is contributing to their campaigns, and pull your support, both financial and volunteer, as well as your vote for any candidate that does not put their constituents ahead of corporate money. E-mail them until their servers crash, set up phone calls and FAXs until their phone lines crash, and flood their mail with letters until they are overwhelmed. It takes effort, but it must work if we are to remain a free, democratic nation.

Because, you see, if the Court rules in favor of corporate free speech as a right, we will cease to be a free democratic nation of human beings, and that is the final decision.

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Blu Ray Maker

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One of my colleagues summarized the matter thusly: Restrictions on corporate "contributions" to the electoral process do not hinder a corporation's ability to register their opinion like any other individual citizen. They inhibit their ability to AMPLIFY their opinion.

The First Ammendment does not protect nor guarantee the right to drown out one's opponents in political debate through the sheer volume that money can provide. If it did, why can't I pull up a truck decked out with a large PA system outside a rally for a Republican candidate for office and crank the thing up to the point that the candidates individual voice could no longer be heard over the noise? I can't believe that this First Ammendment BS with regard to corporate money in the electoral process even got out of the starting gate. This is a HUGE case, and I don't think the authors of this thread are overstating its importance to the future of democracy here.

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Incorporation is meant to protect the individuals from facing personal Liablity and prosecution. Are the CEO,CFO's,COO's Boradmembers, Shareholders and employees willing to be personally sued or convicted for crimes committed by their organization?
So if a corp is nothing more than a conglomeration of it's individuals, then it is those individuals who are Liable for it's actions.
Are these people willing to give up their immunity? willing to be personally sued or convicted just to grant their entity 'Free Speech'.
What a fabulous way to force Business Ethics.
Your Corps created an enviromental hazard- so your Top brass, the Board and the Shareholders are personally Responsible.People Died as a result of the Corps actions - so now it's Man Slaughter or Murder charges.
These idiots want to relinquish their right to personal immunity by incorporation- so be it.
I take a slip and fall at Walmarts- I'm sueing everyone from the CEO to the janitor.
In criminal cases the corp won't be just fined but crippled because it's entire mgt will be under indictment, or in prison.
They Claim CEO comp package Restrictions will reduce the pool of 'good people' to hire- how about if they are now personally at risk of charges related to the Corp actions. Ya think any 'good people' are going to be interested in putting their asses on the line as a CEO, A Boardmember or Investor??
Essentially this case will destroy the protections afforded by Incorporation. Brilliant!
Heres another point the Dumb SOB who's to argue the case for the Corps tries to claim- Unions and Corps are comparable. If so then corps should be fighting for their Rank and files increased Pay scale, Bennies and Safe working conditions. They Don't?? Well then perhaps their Rank and file should be sueing the Individuals who are working as Their 'Representatives' or should at least have the power to kick them out of their positions. Wouldn't that be great employees capable of Firing the CEO,CFO,COO, Boardmembers.Seems the Shareholder have that kind of influence- why not the employees if these Corps are merely the logo which fights for the interests of ALL it's members.

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It's very EXPENSIVE speech,
bought, paid and created for the sole intent of defamation of character during an election campaign. For all intents and purposes, an anti Hillary advertisement, full of Republican slanted opinions designed by corporate interest with an agenda to undermine an opponent and create an opportunity for profiting their own company and investors by any means possible?.
This intent, if unmonitored, would give license to corporate interests to create a deluge of politically based noise pollution that makes what we're already having to tolerate in it's ethically questionable form, look like an unwanted Hare Krishna or 7th Day Adventist pamphlet you get for wandering down the wrong street.
It isn't a film by which we will be informed or enlightened by an unbiased collection of revelations, revealing previously undiscovered facts.
Currently running programs on fake news outlets already play an unending stream of anti-American ideology, so if you have that big a hard on for playing this crap, why not allow it to play there, where their own base can enjoy it, instead of pretending this is an issue about the individual rights given to an American citizen? Corporations may have an American employee or two,
(and you might even call some CEO's a U.S. citizen because he might actually come from here,, although all evidence probably points to the contrary, being as you have to give a shit about the welfare of your country and it's citizens to REALLY qualify for the honor,) but a corporation can't (and should never,)
be called an American citizen, or hold the same rights. EVER.
Unless your f-ing retarded and or some kind of an evil bastard.

Don't corporations hold enough power and sway over current media outlets?
Free speech issues need a f-ck of a lot less corporate influence hiding under an amendment designed for citizens, who hold no sway over financially motivated rhetoric, regardless of a citizens creation of the most biased and strange film, book, pamphlet, blog, what have you...
Corporations have proven themselves regularly irresponsible for their own lies and destructive unethical behaviors AGAINST American citizens, fearlessly flaunting their ability to use a nigh bottomless monetary resource to hold due process frozen in appeals for indefinite periods of time, while the people they harm grow old and die waiting for justice that will never come. Meanwhile, we, the public, begin to believe the amount of time that passes without a judgment somehow equates to a form of innocence or lack of evidence. Or we just plain forget, as the stories go farther back into the numbers of the pages of our newspapers, get less and less air time and eventually slip into obscurity. Being as they hold positions of power, some begin to forget or even blame the victim.
Do we really want to give corporations the same unbridled freedoms set for individual Americans? I think they have more than enough right f-cking now. We've seen what they can do if given free reign to profit from our ignorance. We can't pretend they have the same investment in the importance of free speech that we do.
Corporations are not people and never will be.

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The ACLU of all organizations should understand that freedom is for people, not for corporations.

Very disappointing.

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The "corporation" has been around for so long (since at least 1067) in the Anglophone world that we've never had a chance to know a world without this well-entrenched scam.

A "corporation" does not exist in actuality, only in law when the law has been used for criminal purposes. No "corporation" does anything. No "corporation" is alive. Men act, not "corporations".

Bill Gates is not only the best known "corporate" head--it's hard to think of another. Lee Iococa (sp?) comes to mind, but 99% of CEOs are quite invisible, which makes it harder to target them, whether with custard pies or scorn.

The overprivileged corporation is the enemy of the people.

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In the mass media, there is a finite amount of air time. Allowing unfettered corporate speech necessarily precludes those without deep corporate pockets from taking a significant part in the nation's discourse. Free speech requires free air time; free sir time requires a Fairness Doctrine. It is shameful that instead of arguing over whether individual citizens have access rights to the nation's media infrastructure, we are arguing about whether there should be any restrictions whatsoever on corporate access. Money is power; money is not speech. Speech is supposed to be a way to turn the power of people against the power of money, so that the will of the people will govern the nation. In the current system, speech is just another mechanism for money to be converted into power (and then back into more money, of course). Corporate speech should be defined as commercial speech. It should be subject to laws requiring it to be truthful and politically neutral. Media corporations, which are typically only accessories for larger corporate conglomerates, should endure the same restrictions. Free speech comes from the mouths of individual citizens, not from armies of professional liars.

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That the film contains a germ of truth, and exposes Hillary as a HUMAN BEING with all the faults and blemishes of any other human being. What then?
Do we REALLY expect perfection in our political candidates and leaders when it's absent in US?
By now, anyone who's been at least marginally alive and living on Planet Earth has seen the nasty tactics the rethugs are employing to destroy everything Democratic, even though their smear tactics are backfiring on them. Oh, sure, the usual idiots actually believe their drivel, and always will, but they represent a minority of us.

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THE PATHOLOGY OF COMMERCE: CASE HISTORIES

To assess the "personality" of the corporate "person," a checklist is employed, using diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social "personality": it is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. Four case studies, drawn from a universe of corporate activity, clearly demonstrate harm to workers, human health, animals and the biosphere. Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a "psychopath."

http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=312

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Corporations have been considered the same as persons (under the 14th amendment) since the 1886 Supreme Court Decision in the case of Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, when a court reporter erroneously recorded the court justices decision in the wrong manner and it has been accepted in favor of corporations ever since.

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What on god's green earth would make anyone believe that we have "a democracy?" Where the hell does this writer live?

"Tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth," to paraphrase Reichsminister Josef Goebbels (and for "America's" historically illiterate public, Goebbels was Adolf Hitler's Minister of Propaganda; Adolf Hitler was . . . oh, never mind!).

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the bottom line is that if..as expected..the gang of five extends blanket constitutional protections to corporate interests.. it would be handing them the country (or whatever of it they still dont own) on a plate...

whatever issues you might have at the moment have already been rendered academic by the impending action of the GO5.. whatever does get pushed past the repugnican obstructionists will be immediately overturned once the corporate congress takes over in 2011...

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The majority of big Corp's intent is money. The majority of individual's intent is a good happy life and a safe, intelligent country.
That being said, who should we trust?

I think the answer is very clear for all non-malevolent humans.

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