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SHOULD CORPORATIONS
HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHTS OF PEOPLE? A few weeks ago, the Republican-weighted Supreme Court of
the United States in According to Wikipedia information, Floyd Brown is the founder of Citizens United, a conservative, non-profit organization. Brown is an author and president of a consulting company that specializes in non-profit organizational marketing and "oppositional research". Brown is also the creator of the nasty "Willie Horton" television ad that played such havoc with Democrat Michael Dukakis's presidential campaign in 1988. In 1992, according to Wikipedia, David Bossie worked with Brown as
Citizens United's director of political affairs. Bossie is a conservative political
consultant also specializing in During the 1992 presidential election, Brown and Bossie worked for the Republican Presidential Victory Committee; a political action committee. In an investigative report by CBS, Bossie and a retired policeman were accused of employing "police state" tactics to harass the family of a young Arkansas woman to prove that an affair with Bill Clinton had caused the woman to commit suicide. Bossie was also chief investigator for the Whitewater hearings held during Bill Clinton's presidency and was an investigator into alleged Clinton campaign finance abuses. David Bossie is the man who produced the anti-Clinton film,
Bossie and Citizens United eventually brought suit in federal court arguing that the film (released January 16, 2009 - long after Hillary Clinton had withdrawn her candidacy for president) was exempt from McCain-Feingold restrictions on advertising since it was not released to influence the outcome of a particular candidate or election. The Republican Supreme Court agreed. “Our argument in the case wasn’t complicated,” says Bossie. “It was about freedom." Ted Olson, the former solicitor general who represented Citizens United before the Court said, "President Obama and his party are worried that this decision means that big corporations will dominate politics. They’re wrong, the Court’s decision was about opening up the political process to individual corporations and small corporations, to create a more favorable balance and open up free speech to everyone." Hogwash! The case was never about "freedom," there is no balance in the
American electoral system—and there never has been. Not between individuals and
corporations; especially giant corporations with millions of expendable dollars to
guarantee their political puppets win elections. The plain truth is that big
corporations always have had excess money to buy politicians, but individuals, especially working
people—don't. The plain truth is that wealthy Americans don't care what the people who
win elections for them do, as long as But, sending out advertising that allows harmful propaganda to influence
elections isn't the worst "legal" crime that working Americans should be concerned about.
Current American generations should be giving lots of thought to other disturbing
First: every American who must work for a living should understand that at one time, not too long ago, a corporation in the U.S. was of interest only to people with money. Rich people. The corporation was—and is—a legal device to help one or more people make money, protect money, and save its owners from paying some, if not all, government taxes. As working Americans have rarely had excess money to invest, they normally have had no need, or interest, in corporations. A corporation was originally issued a charter to exist for a specific, but very limited number of years. Then, depending upon whether or not the corporation had fulfilled its obligations to the authorizing body (in our case, a government agency) the corporate charter was extended or ended. It was never allowed to continue functioning merely because its stockholders wished it to. Second: No matter how lawyers twist their words, a corporation is only a "legal" entity. It exists only because of its charter—a piece of paper. Without the charter it doesn't exist. It isn't real. It certainly isn't a flesh and blood living person and should never have been given the "legal" rights of a person. But rich people have great lawyers and great lawyers can convince mediocre, or biased judges, that they know what they're talking about. And beside, the average working person doesn't pay attention—or even know—what goes on in the courts. So lawyers can help pass all the laws penalizing workers that their rich patrons want—or that they can get away with. The current American working generations should concentrate on having both
of the above laws rescinded, because they are illogical and harmful to both working communities
and the republic. A corporation should not possess the legal rights of an American citizen,
and shouldn't exist longer than ten years without going through a renewal process. Furthermore,
Mr. Bossie and Mr. Olson's statements above are deliberate lies—these men play with words to fool
people unfamiliar with the harmful use of words. Americans should never, The most obvious, and the most dangerous, influence on the American electoral system is the tandem action of huge corporations to financially support their candidates. A few of these giant conglomerates have more money to spare than hundreds of thousands of individual working voters. And as the needs of employers are usually at odds with the needs of American workers, the election process in the republic will now be tilted even more toward the needs of employers than it has been for the past 222 years. The situtation is no different than a band of armed horsemen riding into a farm
village, killing the unarmed, helpless, farmers and brutally raping and enslaving the women. They
do it because they are ruthless, better armed, and possess the power to get away with the atrocity.
In a "money economy," money is the weaponry and corporations have the money, not working people. As
history has already proven, rich Americans and their corporations have won most battles between the two
forces. The court's decision simply means the odds of wealthy Americans to elect As part of an American working family, if you want to eliminate money in the democratic
process, if you want a better future for yourself and your family members, you will have to Are you ready to take this next step in the evolution of humanity? copyright © 2008-2010 American Institute of Direct Democracy. |