Dear Friend and Reader:
Last week’s solar eclipse in Capricorn conjunct Venus is showing some ramifications in the corporate/government realm covered by that sign. Thursday the Supreme Court issued a decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The 180-page decision, we’re being told, grants the rights of individuals to corporations, originating in the matter of whether companies can pour money, unfettered, into propaganda designed to sway an election. Previously, this was subject to campaign laws that kept such electioneering a few feet back from the election itself.
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Personally, I cannot think of a more significant issue for the Supreme Court to rule on, in our era of unmitigated corporate power. Here, we have one of the first landmarks in the Pluto in Capricorn era, a time when we know that the structure of society will change in many ways.
The court held yesterday that corporations have the free speech rights of people. Yet if anything, corporations are superhumans, subject to no responsibilities of citizenship that would balance freedom on the scale that they typically exercise it.
They do not have a natural lifespan, and can in effect live forever. They cannot be incarcerated, and holding them civilly liable for crimes or abuses of their rights verges on impossible (case in point, Bhopal). Any punishment is meaningless, as most in the position to commit atrocities have so much money that even a heavy a fine comes out of the petty cash fund. They can be as big as the state of Israel (or bigger), have an army and exist on five continents at a time. They have no lawful interest except for profit. They can employ a thousand attorneys. Their shareholders can come from many different countries. Their own power and structure shields the individuals involved from most forms of prosecution; it is rare that corporate officers are held accountable for the crimes committed by their companies. The corporate veil is that effective.
This is an easy distinction, to see the difference between human rights and corporate rights. While many think there is a precedent for this, the original decision supposedly giving corporations the rights of people was so flawed that the issue is right in Wikipedia where school kids can read about it on their iPhones. That famous case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, never took up the constitutional issue. Many in the legal community are fully aware of this, even to the extent that there is a law center devoted to dealing with it.
Most people do not understand that ‘corporatism’ is the true definition of fascism; that is, the merging corporate interests and entities with the state itself. This is the thing to beware of. What we have just witnessed is an example of the state granting greater rights to the corporations who are its creatures than to the natural sovereign citizens of the land — in this case, the power to influence elections to high office. In effect, the government has privatized elections and has sold out its own power: a typical move, consistent with the central bank existing as a private entity as well.
I would say that Thursday’s decision in Citizens United is an example of unequal protection under the law. Paraphrasing Carl Sagan, those who enjoy extraordinary rights must be held to extraordinary responsibilities. The problem in our moment of civilization is precisely that this alien race of entities thinks it has no responsibilities at all, in any meaningful sense of the concept.
I’ll be back with a more detailed analysis of the chart and the issues in a coming edition.
Yours & truly,
Updates daily at Planet Waves and Cosmic Confidential Diary.
So…… I just ran across this on two locations this evening:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/25/dont-look-back-major-play_n_435965.html
Basically, what is okay for corporate persons is not okay for human persons, in the matter of walking away from bad mortgages. If “you” are a corporate person, it is just good business. If you are a human person, of course, this is not only not okay, it can get dangerous, walking away when you have an outstanding mortgage…..
So, okay, this kind of thing really should be no surprise at this stage of the game, and it isn’t, but I am delighted the details are getting revealed so clearly.
Mystes the article is very interesting. Most small businesses have to go to limited liability corporation status to protect themselves from the lawsuits. My husband and I each carry one million dollars in insurance in addition to the LLC status. THAT is a crime in my book, because 50 years ago no one would have dreamed of a lawsuit for a rash or some dirt on a leaf of lettuce or some other frivolous thing. Actually corporations do pay taxes, but mostly via the shareholders through S corporations. If the corporations don’t make money, the government doesn’t make money. Payroll taxes for the likes of us do not amount to a hill of beans in the scheme of things.
Patty, KittyJ, I have to skitter off to work now (campaigning for a progressive candidate for County office – there’s something cooking at that level, otherwise both E and I would not be pointed that way) but I’ve read your thoughtful remarks and will –as Jlo likes to say– ‘bake on them’ them while in the field today.
PxN is an old friend (he really shoulda been on my ‘this is not a guru’ list), but I am rediscovering some of his esoteric writings, as I tell my bitchery to settle down on the Thelemic issue. This isn’t the time to factionalize.
There is another one I want to mix into the discussion later tonight. Link is Here.
Read you soon!
Xxx!Ooo
M
Kitty that sounds good, but the ruin of the corporation comes from the first bullet point: “On the mental plane the religion can be harmed and even destroyed by the mixing of reasoning and argumentation into its theology. This is involution in the idealistic realm of religion”
You said you were a corporate lawyer, so you know better than most what that means to the shareholders. How many of us would reasonably be able to be present at a shareholders meeting, and outsmart the lawyers? They will always look for a work-around to any obstacle. They do it in corporations and they do it in government. The bottom line is that most people buy stock to make money, not to change the world. Not saying it wouldn’t work, it is something a group of people might think about. Unions do this sort of thing a lot.
As a small business owner I am incorporated, as are most small businesses, farms, and vendors. I just think the better way is for people to spend their money wisely, and purchase from known sources. Don’t buy anything made in china or india if you want to support American workers, that sort of thing. The corporations tend to bend more when the consumer drives the profits. I wouldn’t have a prayer of a chance in a meeting with you and Mystes! LOL. But I would certainly take my money somewhere else if I didn’t like the game you played. There are gas stations in the midwest that only sell product produced in the midwest – so no foreign oil. We still pay the high price – or even higher, but the product is produced and refined here, and sold at independent stations. Buying local is what I strive to do, to keep the taxes in my community and keep the local businesses thriving.
Mystes, this is excellent. I’ve been cogitating about this all day, and just now reading the Egregors piece brought some things together in my mind. The question I’ve been asking myself all day is, just what *is* a corporation?
The lawyer in me understands the legalities of corporate existence, while the mystic in me is feeling ‘corporations’ as a kind of amorphous blob that covers the planet and sucks the life out of it. At one level, it’s the egregor, a non-physical energetic entity of some sort, perhaps akin to a thought-form (run amuck). At another level, it’s a quite tangible thing, subject to tangible legal rules, and, yes, having a mortal existence.
I went back and read about that old Southern Pacific case from the early 1900s, the one in which the SCOTUS justices all assumed corporations should have the status of natural persons so they decided ahead of time not to address that issue in their decision. One of the rationales for the “corporate personhood” argument then was that, after all, corporations are made up of individuals, so it’s logical to extend the personhood of those individuals to the corporate entity.
So who is the corporation, on a tangible level? I’m remembering my corporate days, back in the 1980s; what a shock it was to my fellow employees to discover that they were not the corporation, nor was their welfare the primary concern of the corporation. On the other hand, however omnipotent corporate CEOs may appear, the fact is, they are not the corporation either. Legally, the corporation is not there for them. Ultimately, under the law, the employees, officers and directors of a corporation work for and are legally accountable to the owners of the corporation.
And who might those owners be? If it’s a publicly-traded corporation, it’s the shareholders. And that would be us. If you play the stock market, or have an IRA or pension, or if you have a market account through your bank or your broker, you are a corporate shareholder. That makes you an owner of that corporation.
So I’m reading the Egregors article Mystes linked to, and I come to this:
“Note that Sadhu also interjects 22 cautionary words about how an egregor might wither or die:
• Any existing or newly formed religion or spiritual current can be undermined on all of the three planes:
• On the mental plane the religion can be harmed and even destroyed by the mixing of reasoning and argumentation into its theology. This is involution in the idealistic realm of religion.
• On the astral plane the religion can be harmed by the introduction of aesthetic principles into its formal ritual. A search after the “beauty of symbols” destroys their purity. This is involution into the forms of ritual order.
• On the physical plane the religion is undermined by the addition of emotional principles into its code and commandments. Consider the (relatively short-lived) history of cults that were spoiled by emotional manifestations in religious celebrations.
Stepping back into the corporate example, those faux pas might correspond to troubles at a shareholder’s meeting, at a marketing conference, or in the process of quarterly reporting, respectively. Guerrilla media enthusiasts, plaintiff attorneys, and grassroots political activists might do well to take careful notes about this Achilles’ heel of corporate endeavor.”
[end quote]
I’m remembering from my corporate days what a pain in the ass those stockholders could be. Every year a corporation has to have an annual meeting, and shareholders have the right to show up, vote, and even present their own issues to be voted on. Seems like groups of shareholders were always banding together and demanding things, like benefits for LGBT employees and the cessation of certain environmentally-hazardous activities. Sometimes enough shareholders would get together that they could actually vote one of themselves onto the board of directors. (I’m speaking of major corporations here. I worked in the oil industry back in the Reagan days when the mergers and re-monopolizing of the oil & gas majors was going on.)
We’ve been discussing at PW the reframing of the current political scenario away from left-right and toward insider-outsider, and I think that’s an important development. There’s a lot of things that can be done from the outside. On the other hand, what I’m sensing today is despair from those on the outside, that nothing can be done, that the power is in the insiders’ hands. But what if we took it a step further, and reframed “insider-outsider”? Why not take action from the inside?
How would it be if the shareholders, ordinary citizens, enough of them, got together and started leaning on the directors of the corporations, over and over again? Forcing votes at annual meetings on resolutions to suspend using corporate revenues to pay for political advertising, for example. Or investigating the possibility stockholders’ derivative lawsuits against corporate officers. It wouldn’t always have immediate results, but it would undermine the illusion under which the corporations are operating, that they are our all-powerful masters and we their slaves. Drop by drop, water wears the rock away.
Money is energy. So if you own stock in a corporation, you are supporting that corporation with your energy. At some level, we are all creating these corporation critters with our consciousness. And if we are shareholders, we literally own them. So if we own them … why not let’s “own” them? (Or as they say in the gaming world, PWN them.)
This seems like a stretch Mystes. With most business corporations, the goal is to create wealth through the selling of goods that may or may not be harmful. Even a farmer’s market meeting stinks of selfishishness when the vendors want rules that help them make the most profits. Figuring out how to make money is fun, in my opinion. When I make money, my church and friends get the tithe – so maybe my part in the food chain is not overly selfish – but I enjoy making money. The guy sitting next to me complained about everything from his booth location to price-fixing. Another guy didn’t want to take food vouchers because it would let the IRS know he was making money and he doesn’t want to pay taxes. Some other vendors wanted to be able to purchase food for resale anywhere in the state. Price-fixing – no way; paying taxes – optional! There is selfishness in nearly every aspect of living in the physical world.
The first rule for creation of the egregor according to Paco is: 1. Point over the Yod: A reason for the creation of the Egregor, which must be unselfish, invariably in the broadest sense of that word. To resuscitate the idea of the dou ble Current (involutionary and evolutionary), like the Great Ladder of Jacob, on which from the left descend the Angels (Binah) and from the right ascend the Souls (Chokmah), while at the top the Radiant Macropozopos (Kether) sits on his throne.
The egregor may apply to congress or the supreme court, but where among those two groups would you find a man or woman who is unselfish? They are scrambling to figure out what will get them re-elected, not what is best for the country. Now the congress has to satisfy both business, and the electorate. Then yesterday there was a blurb from businesses warning congress not to expect handouts from them to run for office. Add to that the sheer boredom we will suffer watching TV and listening to radio and reading newspapers up to the next election – as if the last election wasn’t bad enough.
So how exactly do we change the modus? The ballot box is the only one available right now, but the bullet box may be what’s coming. People are pissed off big time and the congress better start figuring it out.
Coincidentally (yeah, right…) I came across this bit tonight. Written by my friend Paco on the nature of egregors. (You know I’m not especially fond of Thelemites, but its a case of love the sinner, hate the Beast):
~~~
Corporations, as defined by the US Supreme Court, are legal or fictional individuals that can operate on behalf of human individuals in perpetuo. They operate as the autopoietic constructs of several elemental, symbolic domains, with law being the most obvious example.
Given the representation of the corporate form as an egregor, i.e., as a kind of god-form or daimonic essence, what aspects of magical theory need to be applied to manifest and perpetuate a corporation? Here is one analysis:
• The yod represents the “metaphysical essence” of the operation, i.e. what the alchemist is attempting to accomplish. In this case, the benefit of the shareholders would plug in here just fine.
• The first hé represents a “preparation of the surroundings”. The collective intellectual property which mediates the corporation, i.e., the sigil composed of a logo and trademark, is probably an excellent thing to employ for this. A corporate charter fits well, too.
• The vau represents a “good body of disciples grouped around the master”. If that does not sound like a Board of Directors, then I am ready to turn in my black robe. This quality may also extend down into the executives, employees, interns, and consultants – envision a basic organizational chart.
• The second hé represents a “sound society of followers”. This is an optimal place to link customers, the public, and mass media in general into the chain of belief.
Hermeticism tends to appreciate intentional obscurity. Stated in this context, the term “corporate veil” provides an interesting double-entendre. The means for launching an egregor into action, i.e. the way to give this tourbillon some spin, requires two additional components. First, there is a “point over the yod” which represents the “unselfish reason for creation” of the egregor. What goes here best? Perhaps the purpose of the servitor itself? Perhaps the concept of the immortal sovereignty of the Crown who empowered corporations originally, or whatever usurps that Crown’s power?
~~~
What this snippet suggests are the syntactical operations that permit the “corporation” to hold a particular existential frequency. Figure out the modus, and it can be altered. Keep treating it as a ‘legal’ development and we’ll be stuck with it.
Here’s the link, my pretties: http://www.scarletwoman.org/scarletletter/v6n1/v6n1_egregors.html
Go get ’em…
M
Savas:
My sense it was this was not an innocuous case, but the case they were waiting for. The speed by which it was prosecuted up the court food chain was remarkable. Particularly in light of the Wall Street bailout and probably the coverup.
Our Chief Justice Roberts, far from his claims to the contrary, is an activist judge for the corporations, just like the Senate Judiciary suspected while vetting him, but approved him anyway. Did they figure he was going to re-write the Constitution to turn the country into a corporatocracy? They probably imagined it, but couldn’t fathom how it could be done. They were wrong.
These guys saw how successful internet organizing was and pulled out all the stops including a Macy’s Cargo show roll-out of future President Sarah to try to outshine Obama. They were given first hand experience in what happens when people organize. So they did what they do.
Its pretty transparent what’s going on. Its how to turn this around that we need to apply energy to. If they can chip away at Roe v. Wade with legislation and stupid Stupak amendments, we can do the same thing with our own, putting limits on how much a ‘person’ a corporate can be. But we need to be as persistent about the rights of living human individuals versus the corporations as extreme right wingers are about unborn fetuses versus a woman’s control over her own body.
@Fe: What still blows my mind is what precipitated all of this–it seemed like an innocuous case on some levels–what forces are at large that they managed to pull this off?!
Communityworks:
You’ve started by doing the right thing. Naming it for what it is. And it is fascism.
This, I believe is part of the awakening that Eric keeps talking about, with Chiron and Neptune, I believe, rousing us from a long-term social, political, and cultural sleepwalk.
People who are truly conscious are awake and alarmed. We all should be.
So, I’m 45 years old and had Clinton take my party, Bush-Cheney-Rove taken my system and the supreme court grease the wheels that allow the multi-nationals to be the true ‘man behind the curtain’. I have two kids in their 20’s. Having children was the most selfish thing I’ve ever done. I raised them, deliberately and consciously, in the ghettos of Baltimore – where a micro-cosom of this macro-dynamic plays out every day in the lives of young and old, poor and not so poor. But, still, with their compassionate hearts and intelligent minds, there is no lesson to help guide them through what is unraveling. This corporate agenda is no more significant than the destruction of species and environments on a level not seen since the days of the dinosaurs – one never discussed at the level of significance it deserves.
What is the response? Most days I feel that even my most radical acts are predicted by the Rove machine and have several counter-acts in motion before that peace sign comes down off my front porch with the rest of the holiday decorations. I’m breathing. I’m checking my projections. I’m taking responsibility for my own life and choices…but what of this darkness? Yes, fascism is the right word to be using now, but I think what is going on is like nothing ever (ever!) seen before.
Sorry to be dramatic, but what else is an appropriate response?
This is an extract of what was sent to me by Nancy at Starlight News to share here:
“…The most dramatic manifestation of the Saturn/Pluto square came on January 21 when the conservative majority on the Supreme Court overturned nearly a century of settled law and announced its decision to allow corporations to lavish unregulated money on the political campaigns of their lackeys. Historically, Republicans have always taken the side of big business against the rights and needs of everyday people. Ironically, they claim to do this in the name of “freedom”, usually either free-market capitalism, which they worship like a deity, or the right of free speech, which Chief Justice Roberts called upon as the basis for his egregious majority opinion.
Unfortunately, the Republicans’ obsession with “freedom” often blinds them to the larger truth of their enslavement to an unjust and rapacious economic system ruled by immoral financial behemoths. The Roberts Court blithely opened the floodgates of corporate money into the political arena in the name of free speech. But it missed the fact that it will be denying political free speech to millions of citizens whose hard-earned dollars are no longer of much value. It also treacherously weakened the voter’s tie to his legislators who will now be more dependent than ever on their corporate sponsors. In short, with their self-deluded fixation on a fantasy freedom in the face of legitimate attempts to rein in the many-headed hydra of corporate power, the Republicans and their Supreme Court stooges have become like the pampered house slaves of antebellum times, rushing to defend their masters against those who would rise up and advocate for real freedom from the oppressors.
Following this year’s Saturn/Pluto square, the next great chapter in the battle against the controlling and manipulative forces (Pluto) of our time will come with the protracted Uranus/Pluto square, which will occur eight times between June 2012 and March 2015. While Pluto represents those who would maneuver and obsessively wield their hidden and vast wealth or their overwhelming power, Uranus represents the spirit of sudden and wild rebellion or revolution in the face of restrictions that have become unbearable. The clashing of these two forces is likely to shake up the power structure of the world in a myriad of ways: political, economic, and military. How this will unfold is yet to be determined. But no matter how the saga continues, the world-wide cries for freedom against the oppressive elements of the status quo will be hard to ignore. ”
Pendulums swing as far one way as their momentum (or the physical limits of the mechanism) will take them. Then they swing the other way.
I don’t think corporation heads are as vile as the elected officials and the kings and queens of Europe and Asia. What about the earthquake – was it manmade?
I’ve read stories on the rumor websites that the Chinese put a lien on the US for 46 trillion on January 11, and on January 13 there is an earthquake with plans for Clinton/Bush to filter money through the bank of Haiti, with electronic transfer to another place. Who would look for money at the Bank of Haiti? These websites are saying that the devastation was supposed to be much worse. Could it be true? No wonder Obama has aged 10 years, having to back those two Nazis.
So does this mean that the judges that voted for this decision are being paid off by corporations? I mean, why else would they do this?
Eric–
What blows me away is what started the ball rolling in this case in the first place, which was “Hillary: The Movie” a badly made 90 minute documentary that came out during the campaign, I still am perplexed at how they managed to use this case to make the jump to unlimited corporate financing OK. There’s definitely more to this than meets the eye.
Savas
I hope you all understand that yesterday’s Supreme Court decision was made with full and complete awareness of its real world implications. The text of the decision itself may have been composed in abstract legal reasoning, but the justices siding with the majority knew exactly what they were doing. In fact, Justice Thomas wanted to go even further. No, this was an activist political decision INTENDED to put corporations and wealthy elites in total control of our political system. Watch Keith Olbermann’s special comment from last night if you want to get a glimpse of the full ramifications of the decision. As Howard Fineman said earlier in last night’s broadcast, Olbermann is actually understating the case.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/34985508#34985508
The only way I can see to fix this right now is with a constitutional amendment. The legislative remedies I have seen proposed so far from the likes of Alan Grayson, Russ Feingold, and others are simply not sufficient to address the scale of the problem.
I address you all as fellow citizens. If we do not find some way to restrict corporate money in our campaign finance system soon, EVERYTHING we believe in as Americans will be swept away like dead leaves in a hurricane.
But I keep falling for this one. Abortion is a red herring. Most conservative ‘leaders’ don’t care about fetuses; they would send THEIR daughter for an abortion if they wanted to. They know it’s an issue that inflames people, and therefore it’s useful. With the corporate issue, this is a deep philosophical commitment to fascism. It is the notion that any concept of The Commons is “communist” – any mutually created public benefit. There are actually people who feel they are actually better than others not only think that they deserve more but that others deserve less.
And, so far as I can tell, this is a big pile of Atlantis shit. The myth is recycling.
eric:
Ideals and ideology versus reality. That just about sums it up.
Well it’s all very 12th house and surreal, isn’t it. It’s everything abstract, except the here and now life and contentment of actual human beings. They live in a world of abstractions. Yes, to some extent we all do — but for most of us, a baby is more important than an 8-week-old fetus.
eric:
I have been chewing on this all morning:
Its not surprising that the same folks protecting the personhood of unborn fetuses are protecting the personhood of mega-corporations.
If the Citizens United decision is allowed to stand, it heralds the end of representative democracy in America as we know it.
Let them pony up their millions to “buy” our government. We the people still vote and back when they were a bit constrained, even then all their money and influence peddling and PAC monies didn’t save those folks WE the People voted OUT of office in 2006 and 2008. We must spread that message to EVERYONE; don’t listen to their paid-for-media information on candidates…vote OUT the bad apples and incumbents. Corporations don’t vote and while we still can, we should vote and “clean house” in congress. And keep doing so until they take over completely and remove any democracy we have left. Congress won’t make term limits but we CAN by atrition, VOTE often VOTE early, VOTE them OUT.
The other way to undermine them is to stop spending and stop using credit. They will never get the connection that the voter = the worker = the consumer until we stop spending.
Yes, they are unstoppable (as it seems with the new supreme court ruling). As the veil occasionally flaps open in the wind to expose the atrocities, and we feel impotent as a result, we can all chant “Come meet the new boss, same as the old boss” for a few more administrations and generations.
If you really want to get incited, rent the movie “1900”. Allow me a reiteration from my response earlier to Fe:
I would hope each of us has woken up, and I am proud of President Obama for not breaking and running; for stating things as they are. He is holding firm, I believe, to continue to reveal the mechanations of the bankers.
The reality is that most people have not roused from their drunkardness yet, and the bankers are strategically banking on that. It is obvious that most of our troubles are because of the ruthlessness of these $$$ guys. They have created money out of thin air for decades and arrogantly charged ludicrous interest, are fat and pouting because they are not welcome in the sandbox these days. They are not happy with the reasonable resolution with the break they were given recently.
They have bullied ANYONE: Bankers don’t care what color you are, what religion you are, what party you are, what sex you are, what nationality you are….they don’t care that you are struggling to eat and live, that you have faced trauma and disaster, that your children are medicated, slaughtered and exploited, that you are intelligent….we are all simply entities to demean and exploit and abuse in their orientation.
It is rumored that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated because he introduced U.S. gold as the standard for his proclaimed issued currency to give us weight as a nation and people vs the exploitation of the banking system. Apparently, it would have left room for capitalism banking and corporations to still operate, lest people want to borrow if they chose to. He took action without exposing them (world banks/corps) first.
The supreme court ruling is a muscle flex to insure someone else into office next term, and to continue to promote the world bank and corporate pillaging.
Personally, I am going to stand firm, also, right behind the Prez. I am being exploited and I am small potatoes to ‘them’. I am not able to pay up on my debt that is tripling and quadrupling because the entity has been buying and selling my loan, allowing me to “rehabilitate” with minimal payments until I have to default continuously because my revenues have dropped; I am 58 years old this year, and do not see a way to generate anymore cash than I already am.
The psychic Sylvia Brown once stated: “What are they going to do next; eat us?” The parties and their favored politicians are ready to lick their lips and continue with the status quo, because who wants to give up their lifestyle and not partake of the scraps the corps will supply to them with their ‘created out of thin air’ donation checks? The thrill of the hunt and torture have really been the motive for politicians in general, not representing and serving the citizens.
Right now, the only way to stand up is: don’t borrow anymore money unless you can pay it back.
I love Judith Gayle…her assertion that a Jubilee Year should be put in place is pretty much the only tried solution that allows ‘the system’ to continue to fornicate and still allows the rest of us to live.
Continue to expose and educate. Should this group of immortals (ha!) eventually run themselves into the ground, we can use that crumbled energy to create the new we long for. There must be a vision of that new to hold onto and develop, though. I am tired of complaining. I want to hear and see everyone’s vision minus the corporate powers.
Too bad we can’t make them pay out the ass for the privilege… or can we? :-}
Dr. King said, “the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I’m hanging onto that, while keeping my eyes peeled for opportunities to contribute my own efforts toward that balance.
We do live in interesting times, don’t we.
I swear, sometimes reading your stuff is like listening to myself talk!
I’ve said many of the exact same things about corporations — their immortality, their incomparable institutional memory and power — that you so eloquently included in this week’s e-mail. Yep, that was the worst SCOTUS decision since Bush v. Gore. My first reaction upon hearing it was, “I hope this isn’t the first step toward Bladerunner.”
For years I’ve had a set of campaign finance and political reform ideas in mind that I’d love to be able to impose by fiat upon our government. It’s basically this:
First, on campaign finance, there would be two limitations: 1) You can only make a political donation (to a candidate or ballot measure campaign) if you are a qualified elector (i.e., eligible to register to vote). 2) You can only make such donations to candidates and campaigns for which you can legally cast a vote. I’d apply this to every office above the municipal/county level, so that would mean all state legislatures, circuit judgeships, state offices, Congress, and the president/vice president. I personally believe this would pass constitutional muster (well, maybe not before THIS court) because no one should have a realistic expectation to influence political races that don’t affect them directly, or to receive support for a political race from beyond the voting area.
Then on the political reform front, I’d impose what is known here in Arkansas as “the Walmart Rule.” Whatever its failings as a megacorporation, there is this: Nobody who works for Walmart can accept ANYTHING from people and companies who do business or want to do business with Walmart. Nothing. Nada. Not a stick of gum, not a cup of coffee. Apply that rule to EVERY elected and appointed official, and every public employee, in the country, with criminal punishments for both those who offer gifts or money and those who receive it. Talk about removing even the appearance of impropriety — plus, all that money that gets spent on legislators and officials can be put to better use, like paying employees better or lowering their health insurance costs.
There it is: The Francis Plan, if I may be so bold! I’m sure I’ll have ’em lining up to assassinate me the moment I file it as a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I’d best buy some body armor….
Eric Francis
Independent Journalist & Grant Writer
North Little Rock, Ark.
501-626-4980
http://www.DogtownWriter.com <http://www.DogtownWriter.com>
Thanks Eric for a meaningful post, I look forward to your detailed analysis.
Chrysanne