[Think] FWD: Humans V Corporations--now is the time to act

[Fen Labalme]

Dave is a long-time activist/friend.  The first act, of course, is education.
Read on...


From: "dave ''who can do? ratmandu!'' ratcliffe" <dave at ratical.org>
Subject: Humans V Corporations--now is the time to act


Greetings on the year's turn,

I've been cooking up new materials on ratical and have found
2 very exciting developments that I want to share with all of
you.  (I'll send the second one in the coming days.)  Please
read the following article.  It describes an extraordinarily
auspicious opportunity to directly further the work of
reclaiming our democracy and to begin the process of
dismantling the flawed and unconstitutional doctrine of
corporate personhood.

The war party's fixation on leveling Iraq--and the mainstream
media's willingness to repeat virtually whatever the corporate
US regime claims are facts--casts its hypnotic spell to the
detriment of our species' further development.  Addressing
the lethality of corporate governance is at the heart of
challenging the murderous amorality that claims legitmate
authority to act in our name.

The following offers a number of sources and means to proceed
with what David Korten urged, speaking to a group of us in the
Gethsemane Lutheran Churchon on 3 December 1999 at the end of
the WTO meeting in Seattle:

  I suggest we be clear that our goal is not to reform global corporate
  and financial rule--it is to end it. The publicly traded, limited
  liability corporation is a pathological institutional form and
  financial speculation is inherently predatory. As a first step both
  must be regulated. The appropriate longer term goal is to rid our
  economic affairs of these institutional pathologies--much as our
  ancestors eliminated the institution of monarchy.
          --David Korten, Corporate Accountability: Who Rules?, 12/3/99
             http://www.ratical.org/ratitorsCorner/12.21.99.html#120399

Best warmest wishes to all of you,
Dave


http://www.ratical.org/corporations/humanVcorp.html
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                 Now Corporations Claim The "Right To Lie"
                              by Thom Hartmann
                               1 January 2003
                              CommonDreams.org


     While Nike was conducting a huge and expensive PR blitz to tell
     people that it had cleaned up its subcontractors' sweatshop labor
     practices, an alert consumer advocate and activist in California
     named Marc Kasky caught them in what he alleges are a number of
     specific deceptions. Citing a California law that forbids
     corporations from intentionally deceiving people in their
     commercial statements, Kasky sued the multi-billion-dollar
     corporation.

     Instead of refuting Kasky's charge by proving in court that they
     didn't lie, however, Nike instead chose to argue that corporations
     should enjoy the same "free speech" right to deceive that
     individual human citizens have in their personal lives. If people
     have the constitutionally protected right to say, "The check is in
     the mail," or, "That looks great on you," then, Nike's reasoning
     goes, a corporation should have the same right to say whatever
     they want in their corporate PR campaigns.

     They took this argument all the way to the California Supreme
     Court, where they lost. The next stop may be the U.S. Supreme
     Court in early January, and the battle lines are already forming.

     For example, in a column in the New York Times supporting Nike's
     position, Bob Herbert wrote, "In a real democracy, even the people
     you disagree with get to have their say."

     True enough.

     But Nike isn't a person -- it's a corporation. And it's not their
     "say" they're asking for: it's the right to deceive people.

     Corporations are created by humans to further the goal of making
     money. As Buckminster Fuller said in his brilliant essay The
     Grunch of Giants, "Corporations are neither physical nor
     metaphysical phenomena. They are socioeconomic ploys -- legally
     enacted game-playing . . ."

     Corporations are non-living, non-breathing, legal fictions. They
     feel no pain. They don't need clean water to drink, fresh air to
     breathe, or healthy food to consume. They can live forever. They
     can't be put in prison. They can change their identity or
     appearance in a day, change their citizenship in an hour, rip off
     parts of themselves and create entirely new entities. Some have
     compared corporations with robots, in that they are human
     creations that can outlive individual humans, performing their
     assigned tasks forever.

     Isaac Asimov, when considering a world where robots had become as
     functional, intelligent, and more powerful than their human
     creators, posited three fundamental laws that would determine the
     behavior of such potentially dangerous human-made creations. His
     Three Laws of Robotics stipulated that non-living human creations
     must obey humans yet never behave in a way that would harm humans.

     Asimov's thinking wasn't altogether original: Thomas Jefferson and
     James Madison beat him to it by about 200 years.

     Jefferson and Madison proposed an 11th Amendment to the
     Constitution that would "ban monopolies in commerce," making it
     illegal for corporations to own other corporations, banning them
     from giving money to politicians or trying to influence elections
     in any way, restricting corporations to a single business purpose,
     limiting the lifetime of a corporation to something roughly
     similar to that of productive humans (20 to 40 years back then),
     and requiring that the first purpose for which all corporations
     were created be "to serve the public good."

     The amendment didn't pass because many argued it was unnecessary:
     Virtually all states already had such laws on the books from the
     founding of this nation until the Age of the Robber Barons.

     Wisconsin, for example, had a law that stated: "No corporation
     doing business in this state shall pay or contribute, or offer
     consent or agree to pay or contribute, directly or indirectly, any
     money, property, free service of its officers or employees or
     thing of value to any political party, organization, committee or
     individual for any political purpose whatsoever, or for the
     purpose of influencing legislation of any kind, or to promote or
     defeat the candidacy of any person for nomination, appointment or
     election to any political office." The penalty for any corporate
     official violating that law and getting cozy with politicians on
     behalf of a corporation was five years in prison and a substantial
     fine.

     Like Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, these laws prevented
     corporations from harming humans, while still allowing people to
     create their robots (corporations) and use them to make money.
     Everybody won. Prior to 1886, corporations were referred to in US
     law as "artificial persons," similar to the way Star Trek portrays
     the human-looking robot named Data.

     But after the Civil War, things began to change. In the last year
     of the war, on November 21, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln looked
     back on the growing power of the war-enriched corporations, and
     wrote the following thoughtful letter to his friend Colonel
     William F. Elkins:

          "We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is
          nearing its end. It has cost a vast amount of treasure
          and blood. The best blood of the flower of American
          youth has been freely offered upon our country's altar
          that the nation might live. It has indeed been a trying
          hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a
          crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to
          tremble for the safety of my country.

          "As a result of the war, corporations have been
          enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will
          follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor
          to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of
          the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands
          and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment
          more anxiety than ever before, even in the midst of war.
          God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."

     Lincoln's suspicions were prescient. In the 1886 Santa Clara
     County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad case, the U.S. Supreme Court
     ruled that the state tax assessor, not the county assessor, had
     the right to determine the taxable value of fenceposts along the
     railroad's right-of-way.

     However, in writing up the case's headnote -- a commentary that
     has no precedential status -- the Court's reporter, a former
     railroad president named J.C. Bancroft Davis, opened the headnote
     with the sentence: "The defendant Corporations are persons within
     the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteen Amendment to
     the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to
     deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of
     the laws."

     Oddly, the court had ruled no such thing. As a handwritten note
     from Chief Justice Waite to reporter Davis that now is held in the
     National Archives said: "we avoided meeting the Constitutional
     question in the decision." And nowhere in the decision itself does
     the Court say corporations are persons.

     Nonetheless, corporate attorneys picked up the language of Davis's
     headnote and began to quote it like a mantra. Soon the Supreme
     Court itself, in a stunning display of either laziness (not
     reading the actual case) or deception (rewriting the Constitution
     without issuing an opinion or having open debate on the issue),
     was quoting Davis's headnote in subsequent cases. While Davis's
     Santa Clara headnote didn't have the force of law, once the Court
     quoted it as the basis for later decisions its new doctrine of
     corporate personhood became the law.

     Prior to 1886, the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment defined
     human rights, and individuals -- representing themselves and their
     own opinions -- were free to say and do what they wanted.
     Corporations, being artificial creations of the states, didn't
     have rights, but instead had privileges. The state in which a
     corporation was incorporated determined those privileges and how
     they could be used. And the same, of course, was true for other
     forms of "legally enacted game playing" such as unions, churches,
     unincorporated businesses, partnerships, and even governments, all
     of which have only privileges.

     But with the stroke of his pen, Court Reporter Davis moved
     corporations out of that "privileges" category -- leaving behind
     all the others (unions, governments, and small unincorporated
     businesses still don't have "rights") -- and moved them into the
     "rights" category with humans, citing the 14th Amendment which was
     passed at the end of the Civil War to grant the human right of
     equal protection under the law to newly-freed slaves.

     On December 3, 1888, President Grover Cleveland delivered his
     annual address to Congress. Apparently the President had taken
     notice of the Santa Clara County Supreme Court headnote, its
     politics, and its consequences, for he said in his speech to the
     nation, delivered before a joint session of Congress:

          "As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we
          discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and
          monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the
          rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel.
          Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained
          creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are
          fast becoming the people's masters."

     Which brings us to today.

     In the next few weeks the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether
     or not to hear Nike's appeal of the California Supreme Court's
     decision that Nike was engaging in commercial speech which the
     state can regulate under truth in advertising and other laws. And
     lawyers for Nike are preparing to claim before the Supreme Court
     that, as a "person," this multinational corporation has a
     constitutional free-speech right to deceive.

     The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Exxon/Mobil, Monsanto, Microsoft,
     Pfizer, and Bank of America have already filed amicus briefs
     supporting Nike. Additionally, virtually all of the nation's
     largest corporate-owned newspapers have recently editorialized in
     favor of Nike and given virtually no coverage or even printed
     letters to the editor asserting the humans' side of the case.

     On the side of "only humans have human rights" is the lone human
     activist in California -- Marc Kasky -- who brought the original
     complaint against Nike.

     People of all political persuasions who are concerned about
     democracy and human rights are encouraging other humans to contact
     the ACLU (125 Broad Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004) and
     ask them to join Kasky in asserting that only living, breathing
     humans have human rights. Organizations like ReclaimDemocracy.org
     are documenting the case in detail on the web with a sign-on
     letter, in an effort to bring the ACLU and other groups in on
     behalf of Kasky.

     Corporate America is rising up, and, unlike you and me, when large
     corporations "speak" they can use a billion-dollar bullhorn. At
     this moment, the only thing standing between their complete
     takeover of public opinion or their being brought back under the
     rule of law is the U.S. Supreme Court.

     And, interestingly, the Chief Justice of the current Court may
     side with humans, proving this is an issue that is neither
     conservative or progressive, but rather one that has to do with
     democracy versus corporate plutocracy.

     In the 1978 Boston v. Bellotti decision, the Court agreed, by a
     one vote majority, that corporations were "persons" and thus
     entitled to the free speech right to give huge quantities of money
     to political causes. Chief Justice Rehnquist, believing this to be
     an error, argued that corporations should be restrained from
     political activity and wrote the dissent.

     He started out his dissent by pointing to the 1886 Santa Clara
     headnote and implicitly criticizing its interpretation over the
     years, saying,

          "This Court decided at an early date, with neither
          argument nor discussion, that a business corporation is
          a 'person' entitled to the protection of the Equal
          Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Santa
          Clara County v. Southern Pacific R. Co., 118 U.S. 394,
          396 (1886). . . ."

     Then he went all the way back to the time of James Monroe's
     presidency to re-describe how the Founders and the Supreme Court's
     then-Chief Justice John Marshall, a strong Federalist appointed by
     outgoing President John Adams in 1800, viewed corporations.
     Rehnquist wrote:

          "Early in our history, Mr. Chief Justice Marshall
          described the status of a corporation in the eyes of
          federal law:

          "`A corporation is an artificial being, invisible,
          intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.
          Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those
          properties which the charter of creation confers upon
          it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very
          existence. These are such as are supposed best
          calculated to effect the object for which it was
          created.' . . ."

     Rehnquist concluded his dissent by asserting that it was entirely
     correct that states have the power to limit a corporation's
     ability to spend money to influence elections (after all, they
     can't vote -- what are they doing in politics?), saying:

          "The free flow of information is in no way diminished by
          the [Massachusetts] Commonwealth's decision to permit
          the operation of business corporations with limited
          rights of political expression. All natural persons, who
          owe their existence to a higher sovereign than the
          Commonwealth, remain as free as before to engage in
          political activity."

     Justices true to the Constitution and the Founders' intent may
     wake up to the havoc wrought on the American political landscape
     by the Bellotti case and its reliance on the flawed Santa Clara
     headnote. If the Court chooses in the next few weeks to hear the
     Kasky v. Nike case, it will open an opportunity for them to rule
     that corporations don't have the free speech right to knowingly
     deceive the public. It's even possible that this case could cause
     the Court to revisit the error of Davis's 1886 headnote, and begin
     the process of dismantling the flawed and unconstitutional
     doctrine of corporate personhood.

     As humans concerned with the future of human rights in a
     democratic republic, it's vital that we now speak up, spread the
     word, and encourage the ACLU and other pro-democracy groups to
     help Marc Kasky in his battle on our species' collective behalf.



     Thom Hartmann is the author of Unequal Protection: The Rise of
     Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights.
     (www.unequalprotection.com) This article is copyright by Thom
     Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email,
     or web media so long as this credit is attached.





     See Also: 
         * Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the
           Theft of Human Rights, 12/4/02 
         * First Local Government in the United States Refuses to
           Recognize Corporate Claims to Civil Rights: Bans Corporate
           Involvement in Governing, 12/02 
         * The Railroad Barons Are Back - And This Time They'll Finish
           the Job, 12/11/02 
         * Americans Revolt in Pennsylvania - New Battle Lines Are
           Drawn, 12/19/02 




     http://www.ratical.org/corporations/humanVcorp.html  (hypertext)
     http://www.ratical.org/corporations/humanVcorp.txt   (text only)
     http://www.ratical.org/corporations/humanVcorp.pdf  (print-ready)