"To quote from “Jefferson Was Right” by Dr. Mike Byron (who teaches Political Science at CalState San Marcos, and ran for Congress in California's 49th District a few years back), “(t)he amendment would have made it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, or to give money to politicians, or to otherwise try to influence elections. Corporations would be chartered by the states for the primary purpose of 'serving the public good.' Corporations would possess the legal status not of natural persons but rather of 'artificial persons.' I would like to see that amendment passed today.”
“I think that the legal fiction of corporate personhood, as it is currently used, is unconstitutional. Like our hodgepodge of requirements to vote in different states, it violates the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, by ultimately providing—through the corporate shield—corporate officers and management an additional level of legal protection, both criminal and civil, that other citizens do not enjoy."
"Thom Hartmann's excellent book Unequal Protection, points out that the initial Supreme Court decision which supposedly gave corporations the legal protections of a human being (Southern Pacific R.R. vs. Santa Clara County), did not actually give corporations protection within its text, but only in the headnote of the decision. The headnote was not written by the Court itself (as part of the decision), but by the Clerk of the Supreme Court, and as such, technically had no legal standing. This man was a former railroad attorney who added this headnote without consulting the Chief Justice or the Court at large.”
“I would prefer to concentrate solely on the subject of changing the status of corporate personhood, but I think a two pronged attack is required if we are to have any hope for success.” I continued, “As I said, we have to start with the mandatory public finance of elections to remove corporate influence from elections, while at the same time, we must take steps to reduce a corporation's legal status from being equal to those of natural persons, and limit the corporations' rights to those of an artificial person,” I said.
“James Madison wrote that if men were angels, any form of government would work. Madison continued that since men are not angels, it was necessary to place checks on their power in government. I believe that President Madison's wise observation should be extended to all enterprises involving questions of human power: political, economic, social and personal.”
I continued, “Ronald Reagan was right about one thing: you have to trust, but verify, the actions of human beings, especially human beings in positions of power. But I would go further: You must always praise people when they do right, and reprove them when they do wrong, especially when they are in positions of power or trust. The positive reinforcement of acceptable behavior is one of the oldest cornerstones of applied psychology.”
"Possibly the greatest tragedy in interhuman relations is that we yell and scream at one another when we do wrong; we do not applaud and cheer each other when we do right. Good behavior is taken for granted, bad behavior receives all of the attention," I concluded.
"So is removal of corporate personhood all you are going to do to the corporations?" Marge asked.
"Hardly," I replied, "I wish to see the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, the renewed enforcement of the Sherman Antitrust and related legislation, and a requirement that all corporations' paramount duty is to act in the public interest, not that of the shareholders. I want to see the tax laws changed to benefit small business, and to dismantle and otherwise penalize businesses that have become too large for the public good. I know of no reason—other than economies of scale—for an automobile manufacturer to produce locomotives or refrigerators; companies should concentrate on those things they do well, not scatter their attention like straw in a hurricane. I also want to see businesses that ship jobs out of the United States punished by fines, tax penalties, and value added taxes to their goods."
"I also want to see the institution of a fair trade policy that benefits the majority of the population of ourselves and our trading partners, not just the wealthy elite. This means including in trade agreements provisions concerning workers' safety, control of pollution, plus the betterment of our trade partner's nation as a whole, similar to what we did in Japan after the Second World War. There also needs to be provisions for tariffs so that the people of one nation are not undercut by the low labor costs of one nation, or the government subsidies of another."
"The big money boys are not going to like having their bottom line cut into," Marge pointed out.
"As my dear mother used to say 'Joke'em if they can't take a f*ck.' I do not have anything against someone making a profit, only against their profiteering. I define profiteering as the practice of taking undue advantage of someones need—whether for a product, a service, or a job—to acquire additional wealth for themselves."
"I think it was Edward Abbey who said that uninhibited growth, without regard to its cost, was the philosophy of a cancer. I believe that we must learn to live in a sustainable fashion, that benefits the greatest percentage of our nation's and the world's population, both now and in the future. Gandhi said that there is enough for everybody's need, but not for anybody's greed. It is a system I call social capitalism, as opposed to the antisocial capitalism of the so called 'free market.' I strongly believe that the high levels of alienation, hopelessness, and sociopathy in the United States can be attributed to the inherent ruthlessness and amorality of the free market, with its emphasis on things, not people."
"Is that all lad?" Marge asked.
"No, but I think we need to take a break and order in some pizza, before we discuss the Supreme Court, Congressional earmarks, and defacto slavery. Let me get the phone."
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