Proposed 29th Amendment
Rocks are not people.
Frogs are not people.
Cars are not people.
Asteroids are not people.
It should hardly be necessary to state something so patently obvious, but here goes one more:
Corporations are not people.
Cititzens United Aftermath
Ahh, but according to the U.S. Supreme Court, corporations are people — or very nearly people.
Legal people.
They have the right to free speech, with limitations (for now).
They enjoy limited liability and perpetual life.
And now they may freely spend their money on politicians and political causes, thanks to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the Citizens United case.
Which is certainly convenient timing, given that corporations have never been so flush, while modern-day politicians have never been so cash-hungry.
29th Amendment
All of which portends that, when it comes to corporate-influenced politics, we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Such a quickly deteriorating state of affairs suggests a desperately needed prophylactic: passing a 29th Amendment to the Constitution —- stating simply and unequivocally — that “corporations are not people.”
Doing so will take matters out of the Supreme Court’s confused (cynical?) hands — and arrest the snowballing rights now accruing to corporations.
It will help reclaim a seriously dysfunctional political system and process.
And it just might re-ignite a sense of popular engagement that candidate Barack Obama stirred, but President Obama has never harnessed.
Opposition
None of which is to say that such an Amendment won’t be branded “controversial” or even heretical, or illicit a storm of protest (guess from whom — or should I say “what?”).
Good.
Let anyone who opposes an Amendment plainly stating that “corporations are not people” make their case against it with a straight face.
And then try to persuade you why frogs, asteroids, cars, etc. are people, too.
P.S.: Invite any corporations to your last birthday party? Ever go out to drinks with a corporation? Visit one in the hospital?
You get the idea . . . .
