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Know your enemy. If we are going to have a revolution it is always good to know who the bad guys are especially if you expect to win. The decision by the Supreme court to give ghosts/spirits all the rights of a real living human being was a good thing. Now I know who the enemy is. Giving ghosts rights and allowing them to manifest themselves with money, tells me what it is the United States Supreme Court holds to be the most important upholding and critical factor in our democracy. Money. Not rights, not real people, not the Constitution, not the Bill of Rights. Plain and simple. Money.
Money is not the enemy here. A Justice system that seeks to promote, defend and protect money accumulated and instituted by spirits is the enemy. I am not a ghost. I am a real person. Clearly this ruling by the Supreme Court was a direct, frontal attack on me and every other living breathing person that is guaranteed the inalienable right to be recognized as a person in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Know your enemy. Knowing the enemy is half the battle. The Supreme Court knows exactly what they are doing and what they have done. It is their job to know. They have declared war on real people. This is good. It is good because we now have no doubt as to where they stand. I know who I am and what I stand for. The line in the sand has been drawn.
Nothing is all-powerful. If it were there would be no wars. Every power has some weakness even the Supreme Court and ghosts. Knowing the enemies weakness is our greatest strength. The Supreme Court's greatest strength is, it insures laws are upheld. Congress makes laws.
A Ghost's greatest strength is also their greatest weakness,invisibility. The Supreme Court did us a favor when they ruled that in order for the ghosts to be recognized they had to manifest themselves in the form of money. Now the enemy must by law show itself to us. Still money is not the bad guy here. The spirit using the money to manifest itself is now very visible, vulnerable and at it's weakest point.
This is when we are at our strongest. The ghostly corporate American spirit waves and weaves itself in shinning 100 dollar bills before our Congress teasing and taunting it to embrace and embody it.
Congress is tempted by the seductive and alluring appeal of the spirit of money. If Congress gives in to their temptation the spirit now possesses them body and soul.
Our greatest strength at this point is to clearly and distinctly forbid Congress to, no I am not going to say forbid them to take the money. That would be silly. As long as their is money to be had the temptation is going to be there and someone is going to give into it. That is fine. Let Congress take all the money they can or want. It is going to happen anyway and taking money is not the issue here. The issue here is the spirits need to be able to influence and control the laws Congress makes. What is critically and vitally important to corporate American spirits is Congress' ability to make and pass laws. So our greatest strength and power as real persons is to simply forbid Congress from voting on any Bill that has any ties to, connections, suggestions, or appearances, of ties to money from a fictitious Supreme Court approved and recognized 'person'.
We have all the power people. The Supreme Court did their thing and made this ruling. We couldn't do a darn thing about it. Congress is doing it's thing making laws we don't want or care about and we can't seem to do anything about that either. What we can do is use all that stuff against them in a way they can not refuse or otherwise do. We are independent of the Supreme Court and the Congress. As independent voters, people, persons, we rule. And nobody died.
Terry,
Maybe most people who do or COULD have a liberal "mindset" don't know enough to understand what that means in today's society.
DDay,
OMG. How tragic. We need an email blitz RIGHT NOW to all DFLers about what this decision really means. Any ideas?
So there are more liberals in the US then conservatives. Yet Fox news has more conservative viewers then the other liberal stations. So liberals don't watch the liberal shows? Or do they just know it all and don't need to watch?
mstaggerlee - certainly corporations are legally distinction from shareholders (and the Board); that's the whole point of a corporation: it limits shareholder liability to the value of their shares.
What the rights/responsibilities of a corporation, as distinct from the shareholders is defined in part by the contract between shareholders that create the corporation, the contract between the corporation and the State which gives the corporation State sanction. The precise terms vary from state to state but never before has it been to create an individual with the same rights as actual human beings: the shareholders lack the power to do so, and no state (nor federal constitution) has ever expressed the intent of doing so.
That's part of why the SCROTUS (...Stephanie Miller's term!!!) decision is obviously corrupt. Just as in Bush v. Gore they revised the law of the stay to take into account only the interests of the plaintiff and not that of the defendant (in the initial stay), and (in the ultimate decision) rewrote the law of Equal Protection to invent a category of protected persons never seen before (people whose votes were counted, as distinct from people whose votes were not counted) ... so too, they rewrote the law of what "We The People of the United States" may be.
As the saying goes, they are not Supreme because they are right; they are right because they are Supreme.
How about an example of how feckless and impotent the Dems are? I received a series of emails from several officers in the MN. Democratic Party here about the SCROTUS DAY. They relayed that they had spied some lawn signs in front of some businesses last cycle which they knew was illegal....they were wondering how this decision will effect future lawn sign rules? LAWN SIGNS! being a foot soldier in the Tea Bagger Brigade would be more prestigious than being an officer in the MN. D.F.L. (Dems)
@Rick in Canadia
1. Do you mean to be "Rick in Canada" rather than Canadia?
2. Is your avatar a moose humping a mail box?
I've got a weird scenario, but possible as I see it.
Someone mentioned that share-holders could stand up and vote against a company paying for politically based ads..
Want to bet the company would try to invalidate that as a restriction of their precious rights to free speech??
Hmm?
Rick
Another proposed memorial name for yesterday -
SuperCorp Day.
Another question for any legal eagles out there - Can a case be made that the SCROTUS decision violates the 14th amendment of equal protection?
My arguement in favor of it being in violation is that the corporate power holders are now able to exercise their Free Speech rights with TWO voices - their own voice and the corporation's voice. The rest of us have only one voice each, and are thus "less equal".
Rebuttal, anyone?
Glenn, Re; Victoria..
Sorry, you couldn't afford her.. the banks are lining up for a gang merger..
If they are people, they all need colonoscopies..
If they murder, that should bring new meaning to 'capital' punishment..
Cheers,
Rick
Time for Unions to throw off their political hats and get back to basics. Those basics are fighting for what Workers and Americans need and have a right to expect.
So borrowing from our European Partners do what Unions have always done well.
"STRIKE" as in "GENERAL STRIKE"
EVERYBODY WALKS
Pick a Thursday and every worker walks of their job and takes to the streets. and stays off their job until the following Tuesday morning.
For workers who will struggle with financial burden the can apply to unions and charitable Organization for financial help. UNIONS can use their political action and strike funds to help these workers.
Has anyone mentioned the possibility of impeaching John Roberts due to his obvious lies during his hearings? Would it do any good?
A part of the "corporate personhood" issue, that I have neither considered previously nor seen mentioned here, was pointed out to me by my brother last night. In order that a corporation may be sued, indepednently of the corporation's stockholders, it MUST be defined, in the legal sense, as a seperate entity from its individual and collective stockholders. Thus, legally the corporation and its stockholders are distinct, giving the stockholders some level of separation/protection from liability due to wrongdoing by the corporation.
I'm no lawyer (and neither is my brother) but it seems to me that it must follow from the above that there must exist some legal declaration of the rights and responsibilities of a corporation, seperate and distinct from the rights & responsibilities of the stockholders, the board of directors, etc. This is likely defined by the several states, which individually define the laws of incorporation.
I haven't had the time to fully think through all the implications of the above vis a vis yesterdays SCROTUS decision (thanx, rewinn!). Are there any lawyers among this group of misfits that can help clarify these issues for me?
if corporations are persons, then they must declare if they are male or female. then male coporations cannot merge with other male corporations, and female corporations cannot merge with female corporations, or the institution of marraige would be threatened.
if corporations are people, can they run for office? AIG for president in 2012!!!
if corporations are people, can I sleep with victoria secret, inc tonight please?
Yesterday's Supreme Court disaster was the cherry on top of the cake that dooms our democracy. The big corporations already had the media, the military and the government on the backs of We the People.
We can no longer allow big corporations to do this, now that their human rights have been upheld by the Bozo Court of, by and for Corporations.
Time to Unite to Strike. All organizations of We the People, the right and left and center, religious and progressive groups all over the country must become involved int he process and to help form the New Order.
We have the means still (the Internet), the number (the 99% against the top 1%) and the money, all together. There is no other way.
Conan Obrien needs to surprise everyone tonight with a huge donation to a charitable causes ie Haiti perhaps. Write. blog today - for Conan to do this rather than waste money on horses watching football coverage wrapped in mink.
As far as the Supreme Court decision, I say to corporations this. "No representation with out equal taxation!"
'Shock and Awe..Sh*t
Feh!,
Rick
if corporations are persons, then the must declare if they are male or female. then, a male corporation cannot merge with another male corporation, and a female corporation cannot merge with a female corporation, or it will hurt the institution of marraige.
if corporations are people, then they can run for president???
AIG for president 2012!!!! woo hoo!!!
We should memorialize today... the day after.....we can call it Stunned Duck Day.... it describes nicely the reaction of the victims of yesterday's crime.
Jay Leno was right when he said that we get the government we deserve.
President George Washington’s first act was to put a protective trade barrier around the United States. He did this by imposing economic tariffs writes Charles Walters (2003) in Unforgiven. This practice bore elements consistent with current sustainable local economic development. The direction parallels a fair trade strategy. This is localization vs globalization.
Read more at Suite101: Haiti Failed by Free Trade Could Benefit From: Sustainable Local Economic Development http://globalization.suite101.com/article.cfm/haiti_failed_by_free_trade...
Re unlimited corporate political spending:
I"m on a public radio email list & I just got the following message (name of poster & station deleted):
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One of the many emails I get from trade organizations [...] mentioned today that the Supreme Court's decision to basically gut campaign finance restrictions should mean an additional $500 million in new advertising for media outlets.
My personal feelings about the issue aside, I'm not above taking in a fat new stream of possible revenue considering the overall fiscal state of things.
But are non-commercial stations essentially left out in the cold on this one? Just how much political advertising (a.k.a. "underwriting") can we legally run? I was under the vague impression that we couldn't run any, but I'm no expert on this.
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This is just so wrong that I can't even begin to express my disgust at what this person is saying: Not only is the sellout of our political system to corporations not a problem, but it's positively a great opportunity for public radio stations. Just think of all the money that stations can make by running the latest advocacy spot from Walmart, ExxonMobil, or United Health.
The founders of the public radio system (not to mention the founders of the country) must be rolling in their graves.
I think the reason Air America failed is the shows were as boring as right-wing talk radio. Thom's show is the only talk radio show I've ever heard that I consider interesting and entertaining. Randi Rhode's voice to me is like chewing on tin-foil. I get tired of Alex Jone's ranting. I even got bored with Al Franken's show. I guess the difference is that Thom is so much more knowledgeable than the others that he can respond to any challenge with facts instead of bluster and bravado.
Thom - my first comment. :)
Here's a thought for getting the attention of all sides of the political (including low info voter) spectrum:
Since now corporations can buy our government via money/votes AND those same corporations are often controlled by foreign interests, pass a law that all corporations now must reside in the USA, pay taxes in the USA, and pass the same kind of 'immigration' rules as 'persons'.
This isn't a final solution - more a way of getting people to pay attention.
Thanks for all you do,
Katie in Seattle