To large extent, American history IS the history of the ebb and flow of political power between "We, the People" and "them, the Corporations."
"We, the People" overthrew the Monarchy, and the biggest multinational corporation of its day - the British East India Company, in 1776.
"The Corporatists" rose to power, with the growth of the Rail Roads in the middle to late 1800s, and stayed in power until they crashed the economy with the Great Depression in 1929.
"We the People" fought back, and restored the founders vision of self-determination with FDR's New Deal. That "golden age" for the American middle class - when, on a single middle class income, a man could raise a large family, take them on a vacation every year, put his kids through college, pay off a 30 year mortgage, and save enough money so that he and his wife could comfortably retire - lasted approximately from the end of WWII through the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
"The Corporatists" have been in control since the Reagan "revolution,"and they have recently consolidated their power with the Supreme Court's decision in CITIZENS UNITED.
The ONLY way to undue the damage done by that "anti-(small 'd')-democratic" decision is to Amend the Constitution so that it states, clearly, that the Rights recognized, and potected, by the Constitution belong to HUMAN persons, only, and NOT to artificial persons such as Corporations and Labor Unions.
Hopefully, 2011 will be the year that America wakes up to the very real threat posed by this "Second Rise of the Corporations." It is time for us to begin the hard, but patriotic, work of pushing back against the Corporatocracy, before the idea of "We, the People" is lost to history.