Evolution of Consciousness

Good historical perspective from Bill Moyers on class warfare in America: “Welcome to the Plutocracy.”

Maybe they overreached a little too far this time. Perhaps the five black-robed neo-fascists just handed us a gift. The gift of clarity.

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling, giving corporations unlimited influence in politics, represents a giant goose step toward the Corporate State, where Big Money makes all the important decisions in government, and the citizen/rabble get to vote on things like how well Tom DeLay shook his booty on Dancing with the Stars.

The power grab here is obvious, and it has served to wake many people up. There is a growing movement, now, towards drafting an Amendment to the Constitution, to simply clarify the fact that corporations are not people. The stupidity of the notion illustrates just how far we have fallen, but it is sorely needed, for this legal fiction of “corporate personhood” is at the root of how Concentrated Wealth has managed to wrest all political power away from We the People.

Democracy is on the ropes in America. Norquist has got the baby in the bathtub, a cruel smile on his face as he plunges it underwater, watching it cough and sputter. It’s time for us to wake up and fight, or it’s going to slip away.

Here’s a couple places to get started:

1. Free Speech for People
2. Public Citizen

The Supreme Court — the same cabal that swept in the Bush/Cheney Abomination — just ruled (5-4) that corporations can now completely dominate government with unlimited dollars. This pretty much seals the corporate takeover of this country. Say hello to fascism.

Unless the people revolt, I think the American experiment in democracy is pretty much over. Capital won. Serfs up!

Here are the robed retrogrades responsible for driving the latest nail in the coffin…

These are troubled times. Few would argue with that. So the big question is, What’s wrong?

The answer is that we are living under the tyranny of the dollar. Power is solidly in the hands of corporations, or big money. Everywhere you look, you see the effects: money controls everything, and perverts everything. The concerns of real people are marginalized, so that big money can have its way. So the question then becomes: How can we, the people, fix this?

And the answer to that is actually quite simple: corporations are not persons. This goes right to the legal/political heart of the matter. We need to get the Supreme Court to acknowledge the obvious fact that corporations are not persons.

Once that is established, corporate lawyers will not be able to abuse the Bill of Rights, as they do now, on their clients’ behalf. The Amendments were obviously drafted with real people in mind, but corporations have found a way to bend our rights to their favor, by making the ridiculous claim that corporations are persons.

For instance, corporations are able to pump unlimited sums of money into lobbying by claiming their right to the First Amendment. It’s an obvious perversion of a citizen’s right to free speech, but that’s how special interests now justify their ability to essentially own our government.

So we need to get very clear on this distinction: corporations are not people (and people are not corporations). They are two distinctly different entities, and each needs its own set of rights and regulations. We have to stop the muddling, and once we do, we’ll have gone a long way toward clearing up the problem.

Fortunately, there is an excellent book on the subject: Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights (2002). The author goes into good detail about how this folly of “corporate personhood” came about, how it is currently being abused, and — most importantly — how we can go about fixing it. I recommend reading this book and acting upon the advice within.