The actual effect of nullifying corporate personhood would be marginal at best; proxies are trivially found.

Here's some real scorched-earth for you:

1. Raid the Pentagon, CIA headquarters, etc. to collect evidence on war criminals, including past presidents
2. Screw al Qaeda; declare war on Gladio
3. Arrest Kissinger, Posada, and other war criminals.
4. Constitutional amendment eliminating Presidential and gubernatorial pardons.
5. Constitutional amendment investing the sole power to initiate armed conflict in the legislature via declarations of war.
6. Constitutional amendment prohibiting espionage, whether by government agencies or private fronts.
7. Constitutional amendment requiring proportional representation via STV or CPO-STV for all legislatures (this makes the Senate redundant).
8. Constitutional amendment requiring Condorcet-complete methods for single-winner elections (this also eliminates the electoral college).
9. Repeal the National Security Act, CIA Act, et al.
10. Revoke all presidential pardons ever granted.

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very enlightening article on this dominant parasitic lifeform called The Corporation:
http://www.tripzine.com/listing.php?smlid=327

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As long as this would INSURE and correct the basic problem, political contributions from corporations to political campaigns and political parties, I'm all for it.

But outlawing that would have to be done first, or the rest of it becomes impossible.

Business should be outlawed from having ANY BUSINESS sticking its nose into politics.

FOREVER. In ANY way, WITHOUT loopholes.

Because the end result of any such contributions IS ALWAYS FASCISM. Fascism that leaves the rest of the world with a dilemma and a very messy problem to REMOVE FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

ALWAYS.

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If corporations were really people most of them would be assholes without a clue as to what democracy really means. The more fictitious rights corporations have the more wrongs they commit. The current people in high government roles are mostly corpsuckers who vote only for greed. Death to the fake people called corporations for they are destroying us and the environment.

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They do.

We no longer have a government.

Does it feel to you like we have a government? Does it?

Folks, wake UP - there has been a coup in this country. That is why it looks, feels, sounds, and acts like it does now. This time it is the oiligarchy and the pharmas, what will be next?

In the beginning years of America, some of our founders were wise and originally they created legal restrictions to limit corporations, but the corporates deliberately eroded these restrictions because they had so much to gain.

We the citizens, in our zeal for growth and expansion, let them undo all these limits and in the 1890s, they granted themselves ALL the rights of a person with NONE of the responsibilities. But a corporation is not a person is IT?

A corporation, like a bureaucracy, acts without conscience. It acts with agenda. It has no motivation other than to compete to win or to control. It has no feelings, only goals and objectives. It cares not about the worker, the environment, sustainability of the earth, or society. It exists to make money, to sell, or to administer and views us only as consumers or clients, not citizens. It tells us differently through slogans and advertising.

Folks, corporations know no national boundaries and will always go where labor and resources are the cheapest. Bureaucracies will decide the procedures you are to follow, they do not always act to serve the citizens. Perhaps they were created to serve our needs but now we serve their system.

These entities do not create culture, they create systems, things, or products. That's all. Just systems, things or products. A corporation is not patriotic but it will sell you flags, fireworks and gee-gaws so you can act like you are patriotic - as they define it for you. A bureaucracy will direct and control, if they choose to, your patiotism as defined by their processes and rules.

So, what happens when the bureaucracies serve the corporations and not the citizens? More to the point, what happens when the military serves only corporations and bureaucracies?

Our founders tried to restrict them, Lincoln tried to warn us about them, Roosevelt tried to restrict them again, Eisenhower tried to tell us to beware and so have many, MANY writers and activist from labor activists to Martin Luther King Jr. and to many of the folks you read on Alternet today. Still, we blindly went along with the corporations all until we lost our chance at Democracy.

What do we end up with? A president (um... decider) who says "your'e on your own" to the citizens and "heck of a job Brownie" to his bureaucracy and "mission accomplished" to his military staff. We end up with a global economy not because we compete as a country but because we all, as wage slave, compete with each other to make the corporations even bigger and more powerful. This is not what a Democracy is or should be.
Monopoly is the opposite of competition.

Have we lost the "last, best, hope on earth"?

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legislation delineating the rights of corporations vs. real people is key, but its not enough.

We need a set of laws or possibly an constituitional amendment that established the separation of corporation and state, just as we have a separation of church and state.

1. oorporations cannot donate to political campaigns, except through the taxes they pay, they don't get to vote in the booth and they don't get to vote with $
2. public funding of elections, whole or partial
3. REAL lobbying reform, keep special interests out of the pants of our politicians, some of them obviously need the discipline
4. limits on the revolving door between public service and corporate service, this is a tough one, but something is needed
5. as above, legislation reversing the trend granting corporations the rights of people

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I've wondered if progressives couldn't turn this into a much larger discussion over exactly what DEFINES a life that is entitled to 14th amendment protection to begin with. Can you all imagine the firestorm that would erupt over that????

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If corporate personhood -- in the eyes of the law -- is largely an American invention, then I'd like to know how the rest of the world handles it.

Anyone?

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...is so that when government finally finds a spine and takes on corporations, the most effective fighting force will be hired by the corporations (because they will be corporate armies), and the people's army will be not be able to challenge them.

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This is one of the most important agenda items for progressives. It could give us a leg to stand on in fighting the takeover of the political process by business.

See the 2004 documentary movie "The Corporation" and/or visit Thom hartman's site.

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This is the first thing I have read that speaks to the core of the world's current problems, and globalization is just another term for Corporatization of the world. By definition, the only ethics that apply to any corporate entity are those imposed by statutes, laws that determine all limits placed on the corporate entity. No human qualities are allowed other than these restrictions of their behavior prescribed by regulatory legislation. Corporate leadership is legally culpable if they do anything else, something called fiduciary responsibility. Therefore the corporation cannot self-regulate and compete properly. It is up to the real citizens to control their behavior through the governmental processes that created the corporation entity. It may be too late and globalization may have allowed the collective corporate entity citizens to move into a world where the current governmental entity is impotent and unprepared.

By the way, if small business is the backbone of our economy, then why is it that 90% of my essential spending goes to corporations? I think that the small businessperson (typical Republican and struggling) needs to realize why they are carrying such a burden. Corporations are given a walk on taxes and control the regulaton of the small business environment. This constitutional ammendment is a good idea, but to do it real people, citizens, will need to be made aware that they have already lost their voice. With the current lack of responsible regulation of these artificial 'people-without-conscience' that the Brits gave us so long ago, real-people citicens may not be able to force current representative and their parties to PUT REAL PEOPLE FIRST. The current system is legally corrupt, powered by purchased conflicts-of-interest, and is responsible for the destruction of the American middle class. By the way, that American dream is already dead, sorry. It is time to dream differently and actively manage and control these monster corporations. Corporations owe real-people citizens much in return for the special rights they have been granted. And, we are not wrong to demand that our representatives stop representing corporations as citizens over real-people citizens.

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I really have tried to ease up on my conservative upbringing, but its socialist communist ideas like this that keep dragging me from the center back to the right.
Lets take this out of the koo-koo world of abstract theory and put it into reality for a minute. Lets just say you and your friends want to sell tie-dyed t-shirts, hemp necklaces and bongs out of the back of your 69 Volkswagon mini-bus and follow phish around. If you want to be a law-abiding citizen and do this right you should:
1. file a business in your home state
2. get some kind of liability insurance
3. develop a business plan
If for some strange reason your plans don't work out and your little enterprise;
1. gets sued
2. doesn't succeed or goes in debt
It will be the very laws that you are griping about that protect you. If it weren't for the laws that seperate corporations, companies and SMALL BUSINESSES from the people that own and operate them, individuals and "people" like us would never be able to start, maintain or operate these types of businesses- but then again we could all just wait for the "man" to take care of us and give us all government-sponsored programs and jobs...

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The article is right on the money. Joel Bakan said in his book that became a movie: If you put the corporation on the couch you would find a sociopath. The only ethic of the corporation business form is the bottom line and decision making is limited to cost benefit analysis. That is if the cars catch on fire or the pills cause heart attacks; should we recall them or pay the lawsuits?

These legal "persons" can not be thrown in jail or put on death row. Humans come and go but the corporation lives on.
I.G.Farben was disolved by the Nuremberg court but has reappeared under other names- have you taken a Bayer asprin lately?

Read Mokhiber's criminal corporations, its on the net.

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Here is a list of the developments in US history that led to the current notion of 'corporate personhood'.

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

This just goes to show how ridiculous the legal argument has become. If you review this list, you see that the 13th and 14th amendments banned slavery - so if a corporation is a person, doesn't that raise an issue - should we allow 'legal persons' to be owned by other 'persons'? Nevertheless the 13th and 14th amendments are the basis of the legal arguments for 'corporate personhood'. It's all just a bid to avoid legal regulation of business activities.

Corporate structures are easy to understand in that people don't like to be held accountable for their actions. They'd rather pay a CEO to take those risks for them; that's why CEOs are always getting fat bonuses - not for protecting the company, not for protecting the community, but simply for protecting the shareholders. That's the structure of the global oil business right now, for example. The oil traders, investment banks and hedge funds make all the money; the CEOs arrange the schemes with the federal government (Cheney's energy task force meetings), and the PR teams (conservative think tanks funded by various channels, such as teh Competitive Enterprise Institute) try to justify the criminality by providing a constant stream of BS to the major media outlets, who, surprise! are owned by the same shareholders who control Big Oil and Big Pharma.

Why incorporate your business? It is so that you can shield your other assets from any losses incurred by the business - but if that corporation engages in criminal behavior, then I think the shareholders should be held responsible. If they say they 'didn't know', the response should be, 'That's no excuse." The idea that CEO's and CFO's can be charged while the shareholders skate away is simply wrong. For example, the big US investment banks knew what Lay and Skilling were up to in the Enron case, and they should have been in the dock as well.

A corporation is easy to turn into a racket - a criminal enterprise run by underlings. Like the mafia, the leaders never get their hands dirty; they never even meet the people who get their hands dirty. It's not just corporate personhood that's created this situtaion; it's also corporate ownership rules - the fact that corporations can 'own' other corporations. These shell games make it easier to hide the money as well as the responsibility - a quick offshore transfer to a Cayman Islands subsidiary allows one to avoid paying taxes - just ask Cheney.

Of course, you can always be sued by your shareholders - so why can't the general community sue the shareholders for corporate damages? If a corporation is a firewall that protects the shareholders from the consequences of their actions, then under what situations do they lose their immunity from prosecution?

Currently corporate entities can almost entirely ignore the laws that common citizens are expected to obey; they can even re-write laws that displease the shareholders with government assistance. This is why US democracy has become so weak - why 98% of incumbents are automatically re-elected - and it's also the reason why we live in a propaganda state. Cutting the media outlets free from the corporate octopus is also a necessary first step if you want to preserve the concept of a democratic republic.

Another approach to this mess is to introduce the corporate death penalty - break the law enough times and the corporation charter is dissolved, the shareholders lose all legal protections and become directly responsible for the actions of the corporation, and the assets are sold off for the benefit of the injured parties.

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I don't understand why corporate personhood was never shot down on the grounds it violates the one citizen-one vote principle. Corporate officers are granted the potential to "vote" (well, lobby or be represented) both as individuals and again as a group "citizen." Seems like a reason to kill the idea right there, no?

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This was a great article Josh. The main issue, from which all others devolve, is the power of the wealthy via their corporate entities to control the US. Your proposal is a great strategy becaused it can be framed in simple terms that people can find easy to understand and relate to on a personal level. Beyond that, it is a great strategy because it really expresses a primary need in returning power to the people and offers a practical method of attaining the goal.

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I have posted on the power of corporations (or I should say the power we allow them to have) to distort the dialog that should exist between people and our government and am very glad to hear it expanded upon here.

To remove the personhood that corporations currently have would go a long, long way toward bringing them under reign.

The greater problem I suspect, beyond building momentum to declare corporations non-persons in the law, would be to weaken the hold they have over our media (or at least increase regulation) so that messages about the power and excesses of the media can be relayed to anyone and everyone.

The revoking of corporate charters (as well as, if they are proven guilty, throwing the heads of the corporations into real jail) can be the ultimate punishment for corporations that now seem to be able to do what they want to do anywhere in the world.

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“I’ve got to do for me and mine.”
~ Wash Hogwallop
O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I believe our representatives have abdicated their stewardship of democracy for all. Congressman Hogwallop has betrayed us. We don’t ask more in taxes from the rich simply because they hold most of the wealth. They also hold a greater responsibility to keep our democratic system well oiled and running smoothly. The rich and powerful have their hands on the wheel of America’s prosperity. When they act irresponsibly, they drive the rest of us into a ditch. It is a purposeful and calculated act against the well being of us all. I say to those who are starting to understand this: We can no longer just boo the rascals from the bleachers. The officiating is all corrupt. The players are on steroids, the hotdogs are carcinogenic, and skyboxes overshadow everything. It’s time to get in the game!

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BRAVO, Joshua! You have hit the NAIL on the proverbial HEAD!!! As a professional journalist and editor with an abiding passion for progressive politics, but a job oriented to other issues, I have wanted to write this for years, but didn't feel I had the right platform to spread the word.
I've always said that the judge who issued the decision in the 1880s-1890s conferring personhood on corporations ought to have been run out of town on a rail. And you're absolutely right, until a movement to reverse this dreadful state of affairs is launched and succeeds, nothing else matters.
Anyone wanna start one?

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The whole sorry state of current affairs regarding corporations and their so-called corporation "rights" claimed under the Bill of Rights and other amendments to the Constitution all boils down to a Supreme Court ruling in 1886. The case was County of Santa Clara vs. The Southern Pacific Railroad. However, a close reading of that ruling will show:

1.) There was no ruling in that case that corporations were “persons” rather than “artificial persons,” with an equal footing under the Bill of Rights as humans. Further,

2.) There has never been a Supreme Court decision to the effect that corporations are equal to natural persons and not artificial persons, and

3.) There were at that time no opinions issued to that effect, and therefore no dissenting opinions on this immensely important constitutional issue, and

4.) There was no public debate of the issue among the justices, and no discussion in open court.

There is a written record that the Chief Justice made such a statement in open court that corporations were “persons” rather than “artificial persons,” with an equal footing under the Bill of Rights as humans. However, this was not a formal ruling of the court but the opinion of Chief Justice Waite. Even opinions of Chief Justices are still just opinions however - not law.

This particular opinion has been derided many times by some heavy duty jurists. For instance, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black pointed out, fifty years later, “I do not believe the word ‘person’ in the Fourteenth Amendment includes corporations. … Neither the history nor the language of the Fourteenth Amendment justifies the belief that corporations are included within its protection.”

Sixty years later, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas made the same point, writing that, “There was no history, logic or reason given to support that view [that corporations are legally ‘persons’].”

I won't repeat the story of how one man's opinion overturned the American Revolution and made corporate slaves of most of the world. Thom Hartman tells it much better than I could. Please go here to read it.

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Your article omits the key point- individuals DO NOT have equal rights with corporate persons - look at the tax code - Corps pay taxes based on NET INCOME and individuals pay taxes based on GROSS INCOME; so Corps get to deduct the costs of maintaining their health and existence and individuals don't -

We need the INDIVIDUALS EQUAL RIGHTS WITH CORPORATIONS ACT - so that when Corps use their $$$ to get special treatment like with the tax code, individuals get their rights upgraded to be equal to what the Corps have obtained for themselves -

IMHO -

namaste :)

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Above, markie1024 wrote:

I've always said that the judge who issued the decision in the 1880s-1890s conferring personhood on corporations ought to have been run out of town on a rail.

It's even worse than that, Markie -- the judge never made that decision. From historian Thom Hartmann:

"...in the 1886 case, we are told by over a hundred years' worth of history books and law books, the Supreme Court decided that corporations were, in fact, persons, and entitled to human rights, including the right of equal protection under the law -- freedom from discrimination.

"What was really amazing to me was that when I went down to the old Vermont State Supreme Court law library here in Vermont, and read an original copy of the Court's proceedings in the 1886 "Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad" case, the Justices actually said no such thing. In fact, the decision says, at its end, that because they could find a California state law that covered the case "it is not necessary to consider any other questions" such as the constitutionality of the railroad's claim to personhood.

"But in the headnote to the case -- a commentary written by the clerk, which is NOT legally binding, it's just a commentary to help out law students and whatnot, summarizing the case -- the Court's clerk wrote: "The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

"That discovery -- that we'd been operating for over 100 years on an incorrect headnote -- led me to discover that the clerk, J.C. Bancroft Davis, was a former corrupt official of the U.S. Grant administration and the former president of a railroad, and in collusion with another corrupt Supreme Court Justice, Stephen Field, who had been told by the railroads that if they'd help him get this through they'd sponsor him for the presidency."

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If Congress were simply to amend the IRC in 2 small, simple ways: 1) Corporations are NOT allowed to deduct lobbying expenses AND 2) individual taxpayers ARE allowed to deduct their expoenses incurred in lobbying the Congressional Representatives and Senators they vote for.

These 2 small, simple changes would yield an amazing effect on national politics - and the change would be evident nearly immediately.

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"Unless you become more watchful in your States and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will in the end find that the most important powers of Government have been given or bartered away, and the control of your dearest interests have been passed into the hands of these corporations."
-- Andrew Jackson, farewell address, 04 March 1837

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We treat the stock market like a casino.
We must use our stock ownership to take power of corporations.
We must not give away our power to proxies of management, but give our proxies to our own selected representative.
Know what corporations in which you have voting shares.
Know what corporations are owned by the investment funds in which you have put your assets. Who gets the proxies for those huge funds?? In what corporations are your pension funds invested? In what corporations are your bank account savings and CD's invested by the financial institution?
Take back your power over corporations!!!
Invest only in responsible corporations. There are websites with rating systems to find them.
Now that oil corporations, like Exxon/Mobile, weapons dealers, like The Carlyle Group, war equipment manufacturers, and contractors, like Haliburton, are profiting by the billions from the war in Iraq, have you bought their stock to benefit from the war? Then you bear the guilt as well as the profits!!

The big managers of corporations knew there was going to be a big turn down in the stock market years ago -- that's when they needed buyers for their holdings. So what did they do? They promoted stock ownership to the general public to take their losses when the market when down.

Now we are all interconnected and interdependent, so you won't want those dirty corporations to loose money because your investment assets will loose value.

Take control of your stock portfolio and unite with other responsible shareholders --- start your own investors unions!!!

1)"Beware the military industrial complex."
~Pres. Dwight D.Eisenhower, farewell address, 1961
2)"Unless you become more watchful in your States and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will in the end find that the most important powers of Government have been given or bartered away, and the control of your dearest interests have been passed into the hands of these corporations."
-- Andrew Jackson, farewell address, 04 March 1837
3)"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
"We must devise a system in which peace is more rewarding than war." - -- Margaret Meade --
4)"Be the change you wish to see in the world." ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

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Hmmm. I read the article with interest because it was an interesting--if not modest--proposal. I've got a gripe, though, depending on the implementation of said proposal.

So--just academically for a sec--let's take away "collective free speech excercised by discretionary political spending" (the issue as I read it) from corporations. That would put them on the par--collectively speaking--with say, churches, which must remain politically neutral (wink, nod) in order to keep their tax exempt status.

Which brings me to a minor tangent: if you revoke the right of the members of corporation to excercise free speech in the form of campaign contributions, must you also grant a corporations tax exempt status, in line with the 14th ammendment?

More importantly, recall that the specific issue of taxation without representation was also one of those "founding concepts" upon which we founded a society in which government may not impose a tax, and then deny the taxed a voice in how that money is spent, and (more germane to this article) by whom, specifically. Now, there are plenty of ways to kill the corporate tax and still accomplish the only meaningful purpose of government--guarding our lives, securing our property, and upholding our individual rights. The flat ("fair") tax is one such proposal. Simply assesing income tax on individuals/shareholders when they cash in corporate stock and making tax-free the corporate profits that are plowed back in to the business is another. Both have significant advantages, and significant problems.

There are probably lots of other ways to abolish the corporate tax, should it be determined that such collections of people don't have a reasonable expectation to attempt to sway the outcome of an election in the favor of their candidate, a right we (well, probably most of us) all believe the the DNC has, as does the RNC, as does...well, gee...Alternet. As well they should. :)

But (I think) dressing up the issue of corporate right to "personhood" in the form of free speech by adorning it in the trappings of the founding principles of this country--and then ignoring the issue of taxation without representation, is slightly...well...off the mark. There might be some way to make such a proposal tenable (it really doesn't even have to be modest), but until someone gives me a good enough* justification for abandoning the concept of no taxation without representation, I can't hop onboard.

*I'll let you know when. In the meantime, suggesting that TJ (worldly maverick though he was) would have rolled over in his grave at the concept of a "corporate person" and could still sleep soundly through the proposal of retaining a tax and removing an influence doesn't cutteth ye olde mustard. :)

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CounterCorp Anti-Corporate Film Festival
October 20-22, 2006
Roxie Theater
San Francisco
www.countercorp.org

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All covered extensively and brilliantly in 'Unequal Protection - The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human rights ' by Thom Hartmann. Pub Rodale 2002

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OK, I've been bored out of my skull this four-day weekend, spent a lot of time reading the various progressive blogs (AlterNet and Huffington Post) and got riled up. My biggest bone of contention is the involvement of corporate interests and big money in the American electoral process. I was chatting with a friend at lunch yesterday and it occured to me that we might even need a constitutional amendment to fix this issue. I have a rough idea of what it should say; perhaps you can help me finish it.

"Only registered voters may make financial contribututions to candidates for local, state or national office. Registered voters may only contribute to candidates for office in races they are eligible to vote in."

So that's my proposed amendment. Only voters can give money and only to candidates they can vote for. No corporate involvement and no giving money to somebody in an election on the other side on the country. I've left out political parties and PACs and non-profits and all the others who muddy the waters 'cause I don't know how to address them. Any ideas, you legal eagle types?

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YES,YES,YES,YES,YES!!!!!
PLEASE, LET US DO THIS.
It is just what we need.

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The proposal to abolish personhood by Alternet fails to succeed because it cannot recognize that corporate personhood, as David Million points out, "is itself a changing notion that derives its varied shapes from the philosophical or ideological basis of its proponents; the argumentative strategy of these positions beget the character of the disputed corporate character."

In other words it's not just enough to be mad at current construction of corporate power as most of the commentors in support of this idea would have you believe. What we should really be doing is asking better questions about how we want corporations to behave "the more apt question ... is not the nature of the corporate person but the proper relation of the corporate person to those natural persons around it. "

The finest scholarly treatment of the issue is David Million's THE AMBIGUOUS SIGNIFICANCE OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD.

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The problem is that with corporations in control of both parties, social issues are either ignored or settled in ways advantageous to the corporate establishment.

To have our issues addressed and settled in favor of the people we must control the platforms of both parties. We must force them to address the social issues that are important to us and to be on our side.

The parties want campaign contributions for only one reason. That is to win our votes. If each voter would tell the leaders of both parties, "This is my important issue and here is my position. Put this issue in your platform or I won't vote for your candidate." it would make campaign contributions less important. The parties would compete more for our votes and less for contributions.

Join The Lincoln Initiative, Make "governmrnt of the people, by the people, and for the people" a reality. Click on A new idea

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My ideas on this (last comment).

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One of the primary reasons (but not the only) we have such bad policy in the country is the ability of corporations to freely speak. One of the primary reasons (but not the only) we have any civil rights and any semblance of progressive policy in the country is also the ability of corporations to freely speak.

If the First Amendment did not apply to corporations, the government could regulate the messages of the following organizations, if not shut them down altogether based on the content of their speech:

Independent Media Institute (the parent corporation of AlterNet)
Planned Parenthood
NARAL
ACLU
NAACP
Brookings Institute
Southern Poverty Law Center
Greenpeace
Earth Justice
Urban Institute
And every single local, state or national nonprofit corporation- either 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) that advocated, lobbied, or provided education, programming and funding for any progressive cause.

They can do what they do because they are corporations and are entitled to First Amendment protections. If you take away the First Amendment rights to all corporations, the fact that all of the above are nonprofits is of no consequence.

However, because all of the above are nonprofit corporations, the government may regulate their ability to speak as a trade off for the "subsidy" of tax-relief. See Taxation With Representation of Washington v. Regan, 461 U.S. 540 (1983). Thus, nonprofit corporations, though bestowed with the right to speech, do not have the same rights as other corporations. See e.g. Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1990). Couple that with the Buckley doctrine of speech = money, and it is very clear why, at the end of the day, the deep pocket for profit corporations carry the day.

The solution is to level the playing field, not dismantle it. I suppose there are several ways of doing that- relaxing restrictions on nonprofits, finding constitutional ways of restricting the speech of for profits, or finding new and creative models of organizing money and speech withing the nonprofit sector- e.g. 527 organizations.

But, if you want to take away the speech of corporations, many many progressives, myself included, will fight you tooth and nail. These organizations are precious to us and our rights. I exercise my First Amendment right when I give them money, and I expect that the should be able to exercise their First Amendment right to protect me and the causes I believe in.

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Corporations are the best. The give us jobs, help our economy grow and provide most of the things we take for granted in our lives.

If you took away corporations even you libs. would be regretting it.

Just think about it. Did a corporation make the computer you are reading this on? Did a corporation make the lines the Internet travels into your house on? What about the clothes you are wearing?

Think of your friends. Who do they work for? Are they all self employed or do any of them work for evil corporations. Corporations are part of what makes America great and they help keep us free.

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Congratulations on your article. If you told everyone that we were controlled and dominated by robots they would say you were crazy--but such is the case. Humans come and go but corporations seem to be immortal. They have their lobbyists sitting in Congress and writing legislation that is signed without having been read. Unlike human persons their only ethic is the bottom line, and decision making is limited to cost benefit analysis. This means that if cars blow up and kill people is it cheaper to recall them or pay the lawsuits?

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I think that the use of left-wing strategiy by the corporate establishment to defeat the will of the people was peripheral.

The strategy of the corporate elite was to play on the diversity of the poor and middle classes and split off chunks of voters on issues that don't affect corporations. Issues such as gay marriage, flag burning, pro-life and pro-choice have no effect on the bottom line.

This strategy can't be used against the right wing. We need an issue to unite the voters. The one issue that separates the people from the corporations is "government of the people, by the people, and for the people". Most people are for it; corporations are against it.

Today both parties are financed by the same establishment. We the people can only choose which party carries out the corporate agenda. For that reason elections are trivial. We must use the power of our votes now before the election. Now is the only time our votes have power.

We need a strong grassroots movement to take control of the platforms of both parties. We must force them to take our side on issues important to us. It can be done using the succesful tactics of the labor unions.

Join the Lincoln Initiative a unique grassroots movement; not an organization. Make "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" a reality. Click on UNIQUE IDEA

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