As we speak, America is at war. The fight is between the enslaved household sector struggling to get free from under the overbearing corporate yoke that has decended upon it in an unrelenting set of lightning strikes aimed at individual freedom that stands against corporate power.
The people of the United states elected , with their small contributions adding up to a staggerring 700 million dollars, someone they thought would stand up to the corporations that led them to the brink of disaster in the mortgage crisis.
The coporations stuck back , first by corrupting a healthcare reform bill into the monstrosity that it is, and then by getting their shills on the supreme court (Im looking at you Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas ) to make a broad (as opposed to a specific ruling on the merits of that organization bringing suit) constitutional ruling that allowed corporations “bizzarely, to have the same free speech rights as individuals.
Now think about this one, If youre a corporation, youre owned by shareholders. shareholders already get to excersice their free speech rights as individuals(noone is suggesting that the corporation excersices free speech rights in lieu of individuals.) and then there is a second level. a corporate management excersices “free speech” rights on behalf of the shareholders. thus if I were a shareholder director of a corporation, I have three times the power of free speech if I were an individual in the US. In other words, a corporation can shout down a lot of individuals, if it so chooses to do. It is not that this was not happenning in the US already, it is just that post Mc cain finegold 2002, a corporation had to find front men and stooges to do the shouting (and thus the “swiftboat veterans” that lied about john kerry , and Moveon.org which was a thinly funded front for George soros.
This brings up another thorny issue. WHICH corporations have the power to free speech? If I were..oh I don’t know…say an australian billionaire who dislikes a negro as head of the united states(and Aussie businessmen are very racist) I could start a US corporation and fund anyone I wanted, or defeat anyone I wanted. It is not as if foreign money is not in US politics, to the contrary, but where will the court draw a line ? will American companies be defined by its shareholders? its management? its local or overseas registered offices? Where will a court lift the veil?
The next issue has to do with the power of individuals to speak versus the power of groups of individuals to speak. Are these the same? While elections have been about political organizations and people organizing into coherent groups representing their interests, upto now, no democracy has tried to make a “the people” out of a corporation. Im sure that when the founders of the United states wrote a document that started with “we the people…” they never envisaged thatExxon mobil could cry foul about how its vital “right to happiness” was subverted by it not being able to drill in the Arctic national wildlife reserve. So it is interesting to see how the ruling about “free speech” of this “person” is extended to the other rights a person might have in the US. I suggest the Obama Administration absurdize the ruling by opening up things like torts(libel against people), Free speech in organizations(including privacy of individuals working in corporations) and other financial and fiduciary aspects of “personhood” be applied to corporations. This could include justice department actions against “people” “enslaving ” other people with restrictive employment clauses, race relations and gender issues inside corporations would now be federal crimes (because , say, discrimination, is a race crime now , between people, and thus attracts federal investigations), and many many more people related rights and obligations now attaching to corporations.
But what is the consequence of this supreme court ruling in the short run? corporations can bully and frighten senators and the house not to vote anti corporate, specially in industries that are under threat of reorganization by the government. No radical cancer surgeries are possible when the halliburtons declare War for profit. We are getting back, with this ruling to a time of mercantile capitalism. corporations will now try to rule the world using the US army and US laws. Domestically, the US will ahve more docile households which will get into debt and go bankrupt with less of a fight. The supreme court will now be more reviled by the liberals, but they will be able to do fuck all about ti because they’ll probably never get back a fillibuster proof majoriuty in the senate , now that they have alerted the corporations of their willingness to use political power.
Make no mistake, this ruling is not a Anti democratic party one. it is an anti people power one., corporations are trying to see that popular power is excersiced only filtered through their money power.
What does a theoretical, anti corporate lawmaker/executive have as his choices in light of this bad ruling?
1. oppose it: a. reducio ad absurdum. pass laws that takes the ruling to its absurd end that makes corporations drink their own poison (eg: fedaral hate crime prosecution, removal of damages limits on corporation, to bring them in line with individuals, jury duties on corporations….) b. change the complexion of the court by fair means or foul and reversal of the supreme court ruling (although this gets more and more difficult as each election cycle passes, as the senate and the house get more and more corporate friendly and anti people. c. pass executive orders that are entirely constitutional in times of war suspensding the supreme court decision. (this will almost certainly kill Obama’s reelection chances) d. make weak noises about how we don’t like this “at all”…
Support it: embrace corporate fundrising and have at least five dollars for ecery corporate dollar the other side has…get your union and corporate buddies to work WITH your people power and defeat them at their own game, develop a 60 plus majority in the senate and change the complexion of the court.
Change the complexion of the court . challenge the encroachment of judicial power on the executive. fight the Obama version of a civil war.
Whatever happens it seems the chinese win, we are living in interesting times.
The Popular Front (Alo Marsha!) 
I understand your qualm about corporations and the money they can infuse into campaigns, but none of that is important. The Supreme Court made their decision based upon one thing and one thing alone — free speech. Why should it matter how much money a person or business owns? Why should corporations be limited how much they can contribute? BTW, unions are not limited like corporations are yet unions make mega bucks and help finance many elections. So unions are OK but corporations aren’t?
What’s getting the Obama administration and other liberal’s shorts in a knot is that for the past year they’ve been going after corporations, making demands upon bonuses and payrolls. Now Obama and company knows that these same corporations won’t be filling any Democratic campaign coffer any time soon. Obama’s burned his bridges with the corporations and he could very well suffer the consequences.
Liberals are already looking at changing the law on this to make McCain-Feingold the law of the land. Hard to say if the Democrats will get the votes needed for it. Time will tell.
Why is none of that important? because you want it to be so? I think it is of paramount importance that a coproration is considered the equal to a voting person. the implications of that frame are staggerring, not only because of the power corporations whield.
If the person who owns a corporation wants to do so, he should respond through his political persona. a corporation is NOONE’s political persona. andthis is where I think the supreme court erred.
and this is transparent corporate shilling . even the defenses are only personal attacks on obama. could you clearly enounciate why a corporation is entitled to act in the political sphere like a person would?
Corporations are not people, nor are they citizens. This is a court decision founded on Fiction
(I’ll be back)