With the confirmation hearings of Sam Alito coming up, we have to focus all our attention on the issue of corporate personhood. The 1886 supreme court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company brought about the advent of corporate personhood. Corporations now have rights protected under the constitution even though they aren't actual human beings. Corporate money dominates politics and drowns out the voices of the less powerful.
What we should be asking Alito is what his position on corporate personhood is. This is the single most important issue that has to do with the Supreme Court. All the democratic values such as helping the poor, health care reform, worker's rights, fair trade, anti war, hinge upon this very important issue.
Do you think we would even be in Iraq had it not been for corporate influence? Iraq is a big pork project for corporations that have influence over Bush. Where there has been war, there have been war profiteers. Look at the role corporations had in WWII. The nazis would never have been able to become as powerful as they did if it had not been for the support of corporations.
What would the Founding Fathers want? We often think the American Revolution was fought against a tyrannical, mad King George III. What seems to be omitted is the role british corporations had in the causes of the American Revolution. These corporations got special favors from the crown so they could make as much profit as possible. The corporate corruption from that time is very reminiscent of what we have now in this country. One example being the Tea Act that allowed the East India company to have an unfair advantage because they were exempt from the tax. This led to the Boston Tea Party.
After independence from Britain and a new nation was formed, americans limited the role of corporations. They feared the emergence of corporate power and the corruption and suffering it brings. States required chartered corporations for a limited time. The charter would define what the corporation did and it could not do anything that was not defined by it's charter. You couldn't create a wheel making corporation and then start making guns. When the charters time was up, if the state legislature did not renew the charter, the corporation would be dissolved. Corporations were not allowed to buy other corporations. If it was decided that a corporation was not acting for the public good, the charter would be revoked.
Some of our founding fathers wished to pass a constitutional amendment limiting coporate power. It was decided that such an amendment was not necessary because states already had laws limiting the power of corporations. Thomas Jefferson together with James Madison, proposed an amendment to the constitution that would have banned "monopolies in commerce". This amendment would have prohibited corporations from owning other corporations, giving money to politicians, or attempting to influence elections in any way.
We have allowed ourselves to get sidetracked by issues that affect a very small proportion of the population. Corporate influence in politics and policy affects everyone in a very negative way. People are and have suffered because of this. Now is the time to bring this issue to the forefront. We MUST demand it. We must be inspired by our founding fathers and understand early americans stuggle against corporate tyranny. We need to define corporations as the artifical entities they are and not afford them rights reserved for flesh and blood human beings. We can't allow ourselves to be distracted by wedge issues. Let's make a big stink about this.