Justices Reject Campaign Finance Limits

[Vast LWC]

Absolutely.

Any more silly questions?

And Del implies that I'm a conspiracy theorist. Sheesh.


Well Dude, you have finally proved to us all that you're not a conservative...

You're a tool of the corporations.

Good work!

 

[Yurt]

no, really....an article about obama's campaign war chest is from some time ago....i'm shocked....

the date of the article is irrelevant to the point. but i am not surprised you missed the point.

You're using Obama's campaign war chest as an argument for this court ruling???

He amassed that with just individual donations. Now those war chests will be many times larger. And individual donors will have no say at all.

not true, the court held in place the rule against corps and unions from donating to candidates....

the issue you seem to have it the amount of money spent on ads...obama, due to his massive campaign funds, could afford a half hour of prime time television, you don't appear to have a problem with that, despite the fact that mccain could not afford that

 

[Avatar4321]

And individual members of government have the ability to have the government print money to fund their campaigns and get people elected?

All that money that government gave the banks, can be used to get whoever the banks want elected, thanks to this court ruling. Don't you see that?

No, that would be thanks to those stupid bailouts that shouldnt have been passed. Not because of this ruling. But then since they never should have gotten government money to begin with, this shouldnt be an issue. This is only an issue because idiots like you ignored the Constitution in the first place. So the easy solution to the problem is to actually obey the law. Wow what a concept!

Is John McCain some sort of socialist tool to you? He WROTE McCain/Feingold.

I cant believe you are seriously asking this. The answer is very clear: Yes. He is a freakin socialist tool. The socialists use him all the time to pass their agenda.

 

[Oddball]

Absolutely.

Any more silly questions?

And Del implies that I'm a conspiracy theorist. Sheesh.


Well Dude, you have finally proved to us all that you're not a conservative...

You're a tool of the corporations.

Good work!

I didn't say it's a conspiracy...It's business as usual.

This whole mess has been on the march since 1871, with the incorporation of District of Columbia, and the ruling in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company.

Your knowledge of American history is tremendously arrested.

 

[Bfgrn]

American Rebellions

Declaring an end to government-backed global trade that was destroying local economies, this small, masked minority started a revolution with an act of rebellion later called the Boston Tea Party


On a cold November day, activists gathered in a coastal town. The corporation had gone too far, and the two thousand people who'd jammed into the meeting hall were torn as to what to do about it. Unemployment was exploding and the economic crisis was deepening; corporate crime, governmental corruption spawned by corporate cash, and an ethos of greed were blamed. “Why do we wait?” demanded one at the meeting, a fisherman named George Hewes. “The more we delay, the more strength is acquired” by the company and its puppets in the government. “Now is the time to prove our courage,” he said. Soon, the moment came when the crowd decided for direct action and rushed into the streets.

That is how I tell the story of the Boston Tea Party, now that I have read a first-person account of it. While striving to understand my nation's struggles against corporations, I came upon a first edition of Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party with a Memoir of George R.T. Hewes, a Survivor of the Little Band of Patriots Who Drowned the Tea in Boston Harbor in 1773, and I jumped at the chance to buy it. Because the identities of the Boston Tea Party participants were hidden (other than Samuel Adams) and all were sworn to secrecy for the next 50 years, this account (published 61 years later) is the only first-person account of the event by a participant that exists, so far as I can find. As I read, I began to understand the true causes of the American Revolution.

I learned that the Boston Tea Party resembled in many ways the growing modern-day protests against transnational corporations and small-town efforts to protect themselves from chain-store retailers or factory farms. The Tea Party's participants thought of themselves as protesters against the actions of the multinational East India Company.

Although schoolchildren are usually taught that the American Revolution was a rebellion against “taxation without representation,” akin to modern day conservative taxpayer revolts, in fact what led to the revolution was rage against a transnational corporation that, by the 1760s, dominated trade from China to India to the Caribbean, and controlled nearly all commerce to and from North America, with subsidies and special dispensation from the British crown.

Hewes notes: “The [East India] Company received permission to transport tea, free of all duty, from Great Britain to America…” allowing it to wipe out New England–based tea wholesalers and mom-and-pop stores and take over the tea business in all of America. “Hence,” he told his biographer, “it was no longer the small vessels of private merchants, who went to vend tea for their own account in the ports of the colonies, but, on the contrary, ships of an enormous burthen, that transported immense quantities of this commodity ... The colonies were now arrived at the decisive moment when they must cast the dye, and determine their course ... ”

A pamphlet was circulated through the colonies called The Alarm and signed by an enigmatic “Rusticus.” One issue made clear the feelings of colonial Americans about England's largest transnational corporation and its behavior around the world:“Their Conduct in Asia, for some Years past, has given simple Proof, how little they regard the Laws of Nations, the Rights, Liberties, or Lives of Men. They have levied War, excited Rebellions, dethroned lawful Princes, and sacrificed Millions for the Sake of Gain. The Revenues of Mighty Kingdoms have entered their Coffers. And these not being sufficient to glut their Avarice, they have, by the most unparalleled Barbarities, Extortions, and Monopolies, stripped the miserable Inhabitants of their Property, and reduced whole Provinces to Indigence and Ruin. Fifteen hundred Thousands, it is said, perished by Famine in one Year, not because the Earth denied its Fruits; but [because] this Company and their Servants engulfed all the Necessaries of Life, and set them at so high a Rate that the poor could not purchase them.”

After protesters had turned back the Company's ships in Philadelphia and New York, Hewes writes, “In Boston the general voice declared the time was come to face the storm.”

The citizens of the colonies were preparing to throw off one of the corporations that for almost 200 years had determined nearly every aspect of their lives through its economic and political power. They were planning to destroy the goods of the world's largest multinational corporation, intimidate its employees, and face down the guns of the government that supported it.

The queen's corporation
More...

 

[Vast LWC]

Wow, just wow.

You people are apparently so insane with your socialist conspiracy theories, that you're perfectly willing to sit back and let corporations literally take over our government.

And then you say things like "Unions will have more freedom to contribute too", AS IF THAT MAKES IT ANY BETTER?

 

[Liability]

Wow, just wow.

You people are apparently so insane with your socialist conspiracy theories, that you're perfectly willing to sit back and let corporations literally take over our government.

And then you say things like "Unions will have more freedom to contribute too", AS IF THAT MAKES IT ANY BETTER?

LOL!

Yes, yes. Allowing corporations their free speech rights is indeed all part of the master conspiracy to take over America.

The modern American liberal litany of new mantras includes the FIRM belief in, "Free speech is a dangerous thing! Stamp it OUT!"

Libs are so strange.

 

[Avatar4321]

Im not afraid of corporations. You seem to be for whatever reason.

I am also a lover of freedom. Particularly the rights articulated in the First amendment. You obviously dont agree with me.

 

[bush lover]

Our Great President George W. Bush is back, even without being in office. With Massachushits and the Supreme Court decision, we can bury the Communist foreigner in the White House. We will now finish our great President Bush's agenda that the Communists stopped in his last two years in office. We will destroy the unions, support our great corporations with getting rid of those Communist regulations and taxes, and we will increase our solidarity contributions to them so they will prosper. Then we will finish off Iran, which our Great Vice President Dick Cheney wanted to do but the terrorist-lovers stopped. Finally, we will abolish the Communist Medicare and Socialist Security. Our corporations will help us privatize the highways, water systems and all of that, because free enterprise will always do what's right. God bless America. We will take back American from Barney Franke.

 

[Liability]

Our Great President George W. Bush is back, even without being in office. With Massachushits and the Supreme Court decision, we can bury the Communist foreigner in the White House. We will now finish our great President Bush's agenda that the Communists stopped in his last two years in office. We will destroy the unions, support our great corporations with getting rid of those Communist regulations and taxes, and we will increase our solidarity contributions to them so they will prosper. Then we will finish off Iran, which our Great Vice President Dick Cheney wanted to do but the terrorist-lovers stopped. Finally, we will abolish the Communist Medicare and Socialist Security. Our corporations will help us privatize the highways, water systems and all of that, because free enterprise will always do what's right. God bless America. We will take back American from Barney Franke.

Lithium?

 

[del]

The cons still have faith in their party.
Misplaced though it may be.
They had faith in bush too for about his first term and a half.
A bit slow to catch on I suppose.

Got strawman?

i'd be kinder, i'd be gentler.
i'd be even sentimentaler...

 

[Liability]

The cons still have faith in their party.
Misplaced though it may be.
They had faith in bush too for about his first term and a half.
A bit slow to catch on I suppose.

Got strawman?

i'd be kinder, i'd be gentler.
i'd be even sentimentaler...

if uschitizen only had a brain?

 

[Bfgrn]

Wow, just wow.

You people are apparently so insane with your socialist conspiracy theories, that you're perfectly willing to sit back and let corporations literally take over our government.

And then you say things like "Unions will have more freedom to contribute too", AS IF THAT MAKES IT ANY BETTER?

LOL!

Yes, yes. Allowing corporations their free speech rights is indeed all part of the master conspiracy to take over America.

The modern American liberal litany of new mantras includes the FIRM belief in, "Free speech is a dangerous thing! Stamp it OUT!"

Libs are so strange.

It's not about free speech you moron, it's about power, personal responsibility and unequal protection...any American citizen that owns or works for a corporation has 1st amendment protection...

A corporation is not a person...it can crush human beings...

What do you think would happen to me if I filled my swimming pool and added PCBs instead of chlorine and then invited kids in the neighborhood over for a swim?

I would be sent to prison...yet corporations pollute our air, water and soil with no one being held liable.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Imagine. In today's America and most other democracies, when a new human is born, she's given a social security number (or its equivalent) and instantly, from the moment of birth, protected by the full weight and power of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights (or their equivalent). Those rights, which have been fought for and paid for with the blood of our young men and women in uniform, fall fully upon her at the moment of birth.

This is the way we designed it; it's how we all agreed it should be. Humans get human rights. They're protected. We are, after all, fragile living things that can be suppressed and abused by the powerful, if not protected. And in American democracy, like most modern democracies, our system is set up so that it takes a lot of work to change the Constitution, making it very difficult to deny its protections to the humans it first protected against King George II and against numerous threats - internal and external - since then.

Similarly, when papers called articles of incorporation are submitted to governments in America (and most other nations of the world), another type of new person is brought forth into the nation (and most countries of the world). Just like a human, that new person gets a government assigned number (instead of a social security number, in the US it's called a Federal Employer ID Number or EIN).

Under our current agreements, the new corporate person is instantly endowed with many of the rights and protections of personhood. It's neither male nor female, doesn't breathe or eat, can't be enslaved, can't give birth, can live forever, doesn't fear prison, and can't be executed if found guilty of misdoings. It can cut off parts of itself and turn them into new persons, and can change its identity in a day, and can have simultaneous residence in many different nations. It is not a human but a creation of humans. Nonetheless, the new corporation gets many of the Constitutional protections America's founders gave humans in the Bill of Rights to protect them against governments or other potential oppressors:

* Free speech, including freedom to influence legislation
* Protection from searches, as if their belongings were intensely personal
* Fifth Amendment protections against double jeopardy and self-incrimination, even when a clear crime has been committed;
* The shield of the nation's due process and anti-discrimination laws
* The benefit of the Constitutional Amendments that freed the slaves and gave them equal protection under the law.

Even more, although they now have many of the same rights as you and I - and a few more - they don't have the same fragilities or responsibilities, either under the law or under the realities of biology.

What most people don't realize is that this is a fairly recent agreement, a new cultural story, and it hasn't always been this way:

* Traditional English, Dutch, French, and Spanish law didn't say companies are people
* The U.S. Constitution wasn't written with that idea; corporations aren't even mentioned.
* For America's first century, courts all the way up to the Supreme Court repeatedly said No, corporations do not have the same rights as humans.

It's only since 1886 that the Bill of Rights and the Equal Protection Amendment have been explicitly applied to corporations.

Even more, corporate personhood was never formally enacted by any branch of the US government:

* It was never voted by the public
* It was never enacted by law
* It was never even stated by a decision of the Supreme Court

Introduction to Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann

 

[Oddball]

Our Great President George W. Bush is back, even without being in office. With Massachushits and the Supreme Court decision, we can bury the Communist foreigner in the White House. We will now finish our great President Bush's agenda that the Communists stopped in his last two years in office. We will destroy the unions, support our great corporations with getting rid of those Communist regulations and taxes, and we will increase our solidarity contributions to them so they will prosper. Then we will finish off Iran, which our Great Vice President Dick Cheney wanted to do but the terrorist-lovers stopped. Finally, we will abolish the Communist Medicare and Socialist Security. Our corporations will help us privatize the highways, water systems and all of that, because free enterprise will always do what's right. God bless America. We will take back American from Barney Franke.

Thank you for sharing, Mr. Cheswick.

 

[Liability]

Wow, just wow.

You people are apparently so insane with your socialist conspiracy theories, that you're perfectly willing to sit back and let corporations literally take over our government.

And then you say things like "Unions will have more freedom to contribute too", AS IF THAT MAKES IT ANY BETTER?

LOL!

Yes, yes. Allowing corporations their free speech rights is indeed all part of the master conspiracy to take over America.

The modern American liberal litany of new mantras includes the FIRM belief in, "Free speech is a dangerous thing! Stamp it OUT!"

Libs are so strange.

It's not about free speech * * * , it's about power, personal responsibility and unequal protection * * * *

Wrong.

It is about free speech. Plain and simple. And that's why a Statist like you is whining about it.

Libs all over our fair land are crying out, "Free Speech! It's intolerable!"

 

[Vast LWC]

We'll see what you folks have to say when the conglomerates start writing the laws for the internet.

Oh, that's right, you won't be saying anything, because this forum won't exist.

 

[Oddball]

Even more, corporate personhood was never formally enacted by any branch of the US government:

* It was never voted by the public
* It was never enacted by law
* It was never even stated by a decision of the Supreme Court

Total misinformation, bordering on blatant lies.

Corporate personhood's roots trace back to the 14th Amendment (voted on by representatives of the several states) and the SCOTUS decision in Santa Clara County vs. Union Pacific Railroad.

 

[Liability]

We'll see what you folks have to say when the conglomerates start writing the laws for the internet.

Oh, that's right, you won't be saying anything, because this forum won't exist.

 

[Annie]

We'll see what you folks have to say when the conglomerates start writing the laws for the internet.

Oh, that's right, you won't be saying anything, because this forum won't exist.

Hmm, I don't care for Google much, but trust them a hell of a lot more than the FCC's attempts to take over the internet. One can successfully fight corporations, not so much an agency of US Government.

 

[Vast LWC]

Meaning that shareholders could have the corporation hire someone for a hell of a lot of money, have that person kill whomever they wanted, and only the mass murderer and possibly the CEO would be liable, allowing the shareholders to get off scott free to start up another corporation.

This has got to be the dumbest scenario I've ever heard. Could you please cite an instance of this ever occuring?

It happens ALL THE TIME.

Corporations are constantly killing people through pollution of land, pollution of water supplies, harmful products being sold without testing.

And if a corporation is found to be criminally liable, meaning they did it on purpose to cut costs, none of the stockholders are held accountable.

At most the corporation faces a fine, or a civil settlement, and then MAYBE, once in a blue moon, some CEO goes to jail.