Monday, October 18, 2010
Authors reflect on corporate personhood (UPDATE)
Posted by Matthew Frank on Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 12:15 PM
UPDATE: District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock of Helena today tossed out the 1912 Corrupt Practices Act that prohibits corporations from making independent political expenditures. The judge deemed it unconstitutional. Let the appeals process begin.
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This week, a Helena judge is expected to decide on a challenge to Montana’s nearly century-old ban on corporate spending in support or opposition to political parties and candidates. The plaintiffs brought the challenge in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which overturned a federal ban on corporate spending in political campaigns, essentially granting corporations personhood.
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's January decision, many states concluded that their own restrictions on electioneering were doomed as well. But not Montana.
And that resistance makes many a Montanan proud. Count local authors Bill Kittredge and David James Duncan among them.
On Sunday, during a panel discussion at the Society of Environmental Journalists' conference in Missoula, Kittredge and Duncan, along with Oregon-based author Kathleen Dean Moore, discussed the "insanity" of the Citizens United decision.
The end of the hour-and-a-half-long talk went like this:
David James Duncan: "Everybody’s common sense is being offended everyday by the idea of corporate personhood. A corporation does not have a pulse. It doesn’t have a navel. It is not alive. Its standards are extremely deadly and extremely limited…Paul Hawken’s book Blessed Unrest says there’s something like three million NGOs and nonprofits in the world. I think every single one of them [should] put on their front page, ‘We need to remove corporate personhood.’ The playing field is so not level. Really, until that happens, we live in a totally absurd world. Everybody knows a corporation is not alive, and they can buy whatever the fuck they want in terms of the American mind. I just think it’s a really serious issue that everyone needs to put in the forefront.”
Bill Kittredge: “I want to echo that and say that a corporation, any of them, is the only person in America who’s legally required to be as selfish as possible. That’s true. It’s against the law for them not to be as selfish as possible.”
Kathleen Dean More: “And if the definition of insanity is the absence of the ability to distinguish right from wrong, then corporations are psychopathic.”
"And on that blithe note...," said panel moderator and UM writing professor Bryan Di Salvatore, wrapping up the session.
Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock's stance on the issue—he told the Wall Street Journal that in Montana "we have a record that shows those expenditures did corrupt and do corrupt"—sets the stage for appeals that could reach the Supreme Court.
Comments (1)
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This is simply a terrible mistake: corporations have longed for free access to government influence, and since Citizens United, they now have it. Corporations argue about the "right to free speech," and that they have always had: they can advertise and propagandize to We the People all they want (keep it factual please). Free Speech is guaranteed by the First Amendment, for religion, the press, and persons (not corporations). The Fourteenth Amendment defines what a person and citizen are, and explains 'due process'.
Corporations are not persons, though the legal definition differs. Why, as a person, do Corporations have a say in our (We the People's) government? Why do the board members / executives have representation as individual citizens and again as a Corporations? Why can lobbyists (Corporate Representatives) influence anyone in the Congress, whereas a mere citizen can only influence their one Representative and two Senators? Is this fair? As an employee of someone who pays you, who are you to follow: your employer who gives you access to a paycheck (lobbyist), or some customer with little money (citizens)?
Sounds like we are losing our government. This problem is not new, either:
""I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." Thomas Jefferson, 1812
Welcome to the United Corporations of America, formerly the United States of America (1776 - c.1990).
Get rid of the lobbyists and all of the incumbents-- time to start anew! I guess it's time for new judges as well.
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