The original US corporations---there were
six at the time of the Revolution---were chartered by the states, and
restricted as to what kinds of business they might do and where. After
the Civil War, those restrictions were erased. As Richard Grossman and
the Project on Corporate Law & Democracy have shown, the elastic
nature of the corporate charter has birthed a mutant institution whose
unrestrained money and power has transformed the planet.
Simply put, globalized corporations, operating solely for profit, have become the most dominant institutions in human history, transcending ancient emperors, feudal lords, monarchs, dictators and even the church in their wealth, reach and ability to dominate all avenues of economic and cultural life.
The Roberts Court now seems intent on disposing of the feeble, flimsy McCain-Feingold campaign finance law as well as the 1990 AUSTIN decision that upheld a state law barring corporations from spending to defeat a specific candidate.
Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas all voted to overturn McCain-Feingold in 2003, and nobody doubts Roberts and Alito will join them now. The only question seems centered on how broad the erasure will be. This, after all, is a "conservative" wing whose intellectual leader, Antonin Scalia, recently argued that wrongly convicted citizens can be put to death even if new evidence confirms their innocence.
Should our worst fears be realized, the torrent of cash into the electoral process could sweep all else before it. With five corporations controlling the major media and all members of the courts, Congress and the Executive at the mercy of corporate largess, who will heed the people?
"We don't put our First Amendment rights in the hands of Federal Election Commission bureaucrats," said Roberts said in the oral arguments.
Instead he may put ALL our rights in the hands of a board room barony whose global reach and financial dominance are without precedent.
At this point, only an irreversible ban on ALL private campaign money---corporate or otherwise---might save the ability of our common citizenry to be heard. Those small pockets where public financing and enforceable restrictions have been tried DO work.
A rewrite of all corporate charters must ban political activity and demand strict accountability for what they do to their workers, the natural environment and the common good.
It was the property of the world's first global corporation---the East India Tea Company---that our revolutionary ancestors pitched into Boston Harbor. Without a revolution to now obliterate corporate personhood and the "right" to buy elections, we might just as well throw in the illusion of a free government.
This imminent, much-feared Court decision on campaign finance is likely to make the issue of corporate money versus real democracy as clear as it's ever been.
Likewise the consequences.
--
HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES is at www.harveywasserman.com, along with SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH. This article first appeared at www.freepress.org, where he and Bob Fitrakis will soon write on the monopolization of voting machines.
Simply put, globalized corporations, operating solely for profit, have become the most dominant institutions in human history, transcending ancient emperors, feudal lords, monarchs, dictators and even the church in their wealth, reach and ability to dominate all avenues of economic and cultural life.
The Roberts Court now seems intent on disposing of the feeble, flimsy McCain-Feingold campaign finance law as well as the 1990 AUSTIN decision that upheld a state law barring corporations from spending to defeat a specific candidate.
Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas all voted to overturn McCain-Feingold in 2003, and nobody doubts Roberts and Alito will join them now. The only question seems centered on how broad the erasure will be. This, after all, is a "conservative" wing whose intellectual leader, Antonin Scalia, recently argued that wrongly convicted citizens can be put to death even if new evidence confirms their innocence.
Should our worst fears be realized, the torrent of cash into the electoral process could sweep all else before it. With five corporations controlling the major media and all members of the courts, Congress and the Executive at the mercy of corporate largess, who will heed the people?
"We don't put our First Amendment rights in the hands of Federal Election Commission bureaucrats," said Roberts said in the oral arguments.
Instead he may put ALL our rights in the hands of a board room barony whose global reach and financial dominance are without precedent.
At this point, only an irreversible ban on ALL private campaign money---corporate or otherwise---might save the ability of our common citizenry to be heard. Those small pockets where public financing and enforceable restrictions have been tried DO work.
A rewrite of all corporate charters must ban political activity and demand strict accountability for what they do to their workers, the natural environment and the common good.
It was the property of the world's first global corporation---the East India Tea Company---that our revolutionary ancestors pitched into Boston Harbor. Without a revolution to now obliterate corporate personhood and the "right" to buy elections, we might just as well throw in the illusion of a free government.
This imminent, much-feared Court decision on campaign finance is likely to make the issue of corporate money versus real democracy as clear as it's ever been.
Likewise the consequences.
--
HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES is at www.harveywasserman.com, along with SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH. This article first appeared at www.freepress.org, where he and Bob Fitrakis will soon write on the monopolization of voting machines.
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