Huston Smith, on faith: "We may do things we think are wrong,
but we cannot believe things we think are false."
--------------------------------------------
but we cannot believe things we think are false."
--------------------------------------------
The recent Supreme Court decision that corporations, being "persons", have the same rights to make campaign contributions as human people scares me. Future governments will pretty much be hand-selected by corporations, and eventually we peons will be governed by corporations. They'll get anything they want.
It's not only on the national stage. A large company that wants local concessions - taxes, prime residential real estate condemned for building a new headquarters, restrictive laws against smaller competitors - can just ensure that city or town candidates friendly to their goals will have huge war-chests with which to bulldoze the opposition.
I don't understand SCOTUS' thinking on this at all. They're supposed to address only constitutional issues, and I gather they think they're applying the first amendment to corporate personhood, but how can they possibly think that was the intent of the founders?
Congress has GOT to fix this, by changing the law that endowed corporations with "personhood". I think it had something to do with income tax on corporations. But given that they are more concerned with reelection than future effects, I doubt it. Term limits! It's the only way to make them honest!
Anyway, one corporation with a conscience (or maybe they're just worried about larger competitors legislating them out of existence, whatever) has taken the issue on, with humor.
"The progressive PR firm Murray Hill Inc. has announced that it plans to satirically run for Congress in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th congressional district to protest the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision. A press release on its website says that the company wants to “eliminate the middle man” [this is a link to Murray Hill's website, and it also is funny/not funny] and run for Congress directly, rather than influencing it with corporate dollars..."The article is at http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/28/corporation-election/. It's amusing, and the short video at the end lays it all out. "It's our democracy. We bought it, we paid for it, and we're going to keep it." The longer video scared me a little.
Hey, Maryland - elect Murray Hill Inc.! At least they have a conscience, so they can't be any worse than what we've got. Send the message!
-----------------------
http://murrayhillincforcongress.com/
.
1 comment:
Amazing what constitutes a person and what doesn't.
And honestly, the Supreme Court of the US and various states have been legislating from the bench for decades now.
Post a Comment