Trickling Away
Which flaw of the Constitution could become the fatal flaw? That honor has been claimed ironically by the Supreme Court, unless Congress can overturn the 2010 United Citizens 5-4 ruling, whose instantaneous impact has tilted the political landscape heavily in favor of wealth. The Nation has called it “The 1 Percent Court” (July 16/23, 2012), averring that “the Court’s right-wing majority has . . .guaranteed that insurance companies and other corporations will continue to have more say in American politics than citizens.”
That impact is in no way lessened by the climactic 5-4 vote on which the Court ended its 2012 term by allowing the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, to stand. If Chief Justice Roberts thinks this vote, juxtapositioned with Citizens United, will blur his image as an ideologue, he is mistaken. As long as the CU ruling stands, its shadow will forever darken the political landscape and the Bill of Rights. His leadership has reinforced it in two more rulings, one by striking down the century-old Montana law barring corporate contributions to candidates or parties, again a 5-4 vote, while separately weakening political action in public-employee unions. Their members now must “opt in” on political initiatives, and not simply “opt out.”
The Nation points out, “No matter how the Court rules on healthcare, corporations now have even more power to shape responses to it. . . . The same goes for every other public policy debate.” Nation echoes Sen. Bernie Sanders’ call to repulse “a nation of the superrich, by the superrich, and for the superrich.” The question of whether basic medical care is a right or a privilege is left to the next White House and the next Congress, when the One Percent and the corporate drones will again be flying under the radar.
The Founding Fathers surely meant the Court to give “We the People” a missle shield against the whims and misfires of the two lawmaking branches. The people’s ownership of their capital was a given, never a question. But with lawyers at work, there are no certainties.
In Citizens United, the Supreme Court hae made fact of the fear the people have felt since President Reagan and his entourage of neocons tuned the national weal to “trickle down”: Washington is now owned by the Special Interests, whose players are the drones of corporate power and the One Percent.
The separation between the people and their capital has grown further since the Bush-Cheney inauguration, which produced the most destructive presidency that history has seen, memorialized in two undeclared wars that have saddled the people with unconscionable and unmanageable debt that may become the debacle of democracy. Where does the world turn for hope when Europe faces the same fiscal problems?
The Supreme Court has fed the debacle by confusing corporations with people. Only very learned jurists could bury themselves so deep in the law that they are blind to the distinction between corporate interest and individual liberty. People come from the womb, individuals whose purpose if any will be found in living. Corporations come by state charter and, with the exception of non-profits, start and end with only one purpose: making money. There’s the essential distinction: a corporation is not an individual. Individuals typically find various purposes in life, and the pursuit of money may or may not be one.
The Founding Fathers convened the second convention on the Constitution with a sole purpose in mind: to write a Bill of Rights for the benefit and protection of individuals. The Supreme Court has failed its highest duty: to keep the Bill of Rights owned strictly by and for “We the People,” free of subversion by power.
The failure goes beyond the Court itself. It is rooted in the profession and practice of law, which is entirely unregulated except by the profession itself, with rules of its own making, applied at the pleasure of the Bar Association of each State. The rule of law is less than advertised: it works as rule by the profession of the law, in which self interest to often outweighs the Constitution. To “establish Justice” is the promise of the Preamble. We’ve never come close!
It’s hardly a coincidence that the profession and the highest court are dishing up the same thing: more “trickle down.” More and more of the One Percent are lawyers drawing seven-figure compensation. They are becoming legion in Washington, even as the capital region now leads the nation in affluence. Surprised, anyone?
Corporation power, the Special Interests and their drones, and the law profession are now all of one piece. Every day that corporate money has the same claim on freedom of speech that a citizen has, the Bill of Rights means less and less.
The one right sure to endure is the Second Amendment. No other Special Interest is as closely knit and narrowly focused as the National Rifle Association. Who better exemplifies Citizens United than this gun-waving corporation, an unspoken but self-anointed proxy for “a well-regulated militia,” a stretch of imagination that neither the courts nor Congress are wont to challenge, no matter how much it mocks the words themselves. With lawyers delivering the words, better mind the way the wind is blowing.
You yearn for gun control? It’s spelled NRA. How long must we settle for tens of thousands of intended and unintended deaths by guns every year? Are they not on our minds when we celebrate Independence Day with fireworks and military fanfare?
Frank Mensel — July 4, 2012
Corporations will gradually begin to take over America (as if they don’t enough). These special interests groups will soon become the “citizens” of the country… Well put Frank and I understand the position you are taking. When I become a lawyer I will establish the justice our country and its citizens deserve.
We need to strike while the iron is hot! With this ltaset corporate personhood Supreme Court decision in the public arena, and with many in Congress speaking out against the decision , we should immediately campaign for a federal law to declare that corporations are not persons and have no claim to obtain human rights under the U. S. Constitution. Now is the time. The President and many members of both parties in congress have spoken against it. Lets ask all our members to send a letter to the President NOW before the state of union address if possible and ask him to support a bill merely to state the obvious, that a corporation is not a person entitled to Human Rights under the U. S. Constitution. At least that will be a start. If a Constitutional amendment is needed it can be done in time, but lets try this [a bill or executive order] for a start! I have been fighting corporate personhood for over 4 years and got it in the Maine Democratic platform, where there was absolutely no opposition to it. The people when they find out about it tend to be outraged that you need to define the English language in law to get your rights. It passed unanimously in the Maine Democratic Convention in 2004 and some Maine towns have passed ordinances as well. Everyone understands the issue fairly easily. Here is what I sent to the President via whitehouse.org, and my 2 senators and my congress woman, all 3 of whom have made public statements against this ltaset court decision. I request that you send a letter or petition on overturning this to your membership. Also lets partner with other groups and get them to start letter writing to their members to contact their congress reps and the president. We need to strike while the iron is hot!Unlike the way it was reported, the [Citizen United]] Supreme Court decision, which allows unlimited corporate political donations, is not just one free speech case, but one of a long train of decisions that allow corporations to escape nearly any government regulation under the century old false court doctrine that corporations are entitled to human constitutional rights because corporations are people [the so-called “corporate personhood” doctrine]. This case is being reported [by news corporations] as though it is an isolated incident, but it has been happening for a century. The personhood doctrine is far more damaging than just freedom of speech. If corporations are human, they are not only entitled to freedom of speech, but freedom from search and seizure, freedom of assembly, equal protection under the law and other human rights. The 22nd amendment, allowing equal protection under the law, was created for southern blacks to free them from Jim Crow justice in the south. After the corporate personhood doctrine it has been used over 200 times by corporations under this false corporate personhood doctrine and less than 10 times by real living human beings according to the book Unequal Protection by Thom Hartman. The original case, which hundreds of succeeding decisions used as a precedent, was never actually decided by the court, according to Hartman, but only in a footnote. Some have stated that the footnote itself was added by a clerk and was never actually part of the 1886 decision Santa Clara railroad decision. [Court records being poorly kept at that time.]Legislation supposedly trumps court precedent. Courts are supposed to consider the intent of the Congress when deciding a case. This is one of a series of cases where the court is legislating from the bench.A law passed by Congress stating that corporations are not persons entitled to human rights under the Constitution would extinguish the use of this false precedent again in the future. According to their statements the President and all 4 members of the Maine congressional delegation oppose this decision. I suggest one of them sponsor a bill that would state that no corporation is a person or can be considered to be a person for purposes of obtaining human rights under the United States constitution. This could be used in court to refute future the corporation argument that human rights are being violated by whatever law is being challenged.A Presidential executive order stating that corporations are not people may even be enough to prevent another use of this false doctrine by the Supreme Court.If the government acts on this matter alone it would have made the greatest contribution to human justice since women were given the right to vote.As a friend once said, If a corporation is a person, then a monkey is a hippopotamus.