Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Wanna Seperate The Corporation From The State?

Support Dr. Rikki Ott's Amendment 28.(Listen)
As everyone knows who has the cognitive discrimination of a mollusk, there are, at present, 27 Amendments to the US Constitution. There are also, unfortunately, a raft of 'concerned citizens' and interest groups who are proposing Amendment 28, including folks who want to install public finance of elections, a measure that institutionalizes the "War Powers Act," and of cou7rse, the Xian/Fundie/Wackloon promise to limit the use and application of the institution of marriage only to hetero folks, and mandating 'special elections' to replace any Senator unable to complete her/his elected term.

My favorite, and my pick for the honor of the the Amendment proposal to get behind is the one proposed by Dr. Rikki Ott, which would forever bar CorpoRations from claiming or incurring treatment under law thata is identical with that accorded to individual people. It would, in short, terminate the totally spurious, but unfortunately commonplace policy of regarding CorpoRations as "people" under the Law.

Dr. Ott began her campaign in the aftermath of the "Exxon Valdez" disaster in Prince William Sound, Alaska. She witnessed then the contemporary--and the continuing--successful efforts of the Exxon Corporation to escape accountability --and avoid reparations (funny thing)-- for the damages caused by the criminal act of drunkenly crashing the Exxon Valdez onto a reef in the Sound, spilling millions of gallons of toxic sludge into the environment, and unleashing an environmental catastrophe, the consequences of which still--after 20 years--have not been ameliorated. The fish stocks in the Sound collapsed, the ecology has forever been compromised, and the people's lives in the region have been devastated.

Meanwhile, Exxon/Mobil still records quarter after quarter of record profits, and strives relentlessly, and expensivley, still to escape or diminish their responsibilities. Because, whatever the costs of litigation, etc, it's stiull cheaper than actually 'manning-up' to the expense of cleaning up the 1200 miles of virgin Alaskan coastline they fucked up when the their mate drove the boat onto that shoal, split her (single) hull, and poured MILLIONS of gallons of toxic, heavy oil into the surrounding waters.

They are abetted in this by the (specious, but time-honored) presumption written into law by some feculent clerk as a 'headnote' to a late-19th Century SCOTUS decision, according to Wiki,
the result of a misinterpretation of an 1886 Supreme Court Case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. Opponents claim that certain rights of natural persons, such as the right to political and other non-commercial free speech, are now exercised by corporations to the detriment of the American democratic process as provided under the Constitution. Some opponents point to the recent discovery of correspondence [1] between then Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, and court reporter J.C. Bancroft Davis as proof of a conspiracy among the railroad corporations to intentionally create a misrepresentation of that decision for the benefit of the railroads.

Proponents of corporate personhood believe that corporations, as representatives of their shareholders, were intended by the founders and framers to enjoy many, if not all, of the same rights as natural persons, for example, the right against self-incrimination, right to privacy and the right to lobby the government.
Dr. Ott and many others believe that until and unless the protections (wrongly) applied to corporations, which were only intended for the exercise by people, are rescinded, democracy in the USofA is, for all practical purposes, a sham, a joke, and a delusion. Join her (and me, if it matters) in ending this travesty of justice once and for all...

2 comments:

Life As I Know It Now said...

AND Exxon refuses to use double hulled ships because single hulled ships are cheaper.

The court system, just like the congress critters, are paid for by the rich--so they can use the court system forever to get out of doing something they don't want to do, or to do something to you against your will, for they have it rigged up to suit themselves as they need it. Look at the election in MN with Franken and cry baby loser republican whats-his-face. The republicans are going to use the courts all the way up to the Supreme Court, even if it takes years, and declare WWIII on us if they don't get their sore loser way.

GDAEman said...

Good post. A great authority on this corporate power topic is The Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD).

Getting corporations back under our thumb is a multi-generational struggle on par with ending slavery.