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Author Topic: Multinational Corporations are now 'The People'
Tangento
VoivodFan
Member # 117

posted January 23, 2010 15:47     Profile for Tangento   Email Tangento     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
::IMAGE REMOVED DUE TO BOGUS QUOTATION::

From the BuzzFlash editor's blog:

quote:
Two Supreme Court GOP Coups Bracket a Decade
Sat, 01/23/2010 - 1:03pm

By Mark Karlin

From the presidential election stolen in December of 2000 by a 5-4 vote to the 5-4 vote in January of 2010, the decade is bracketed with a partisan Republican High Court that twice shoved the basic underpinnings of democracy -- government of the people, by the people and for the people -- into a garbage compactor and crushed our electoral rights.

BuzzFlash was one of the few progressive sites on the Internet -- and perhaps the loudest and most in your face -- when Antonin "the Fixer" Scalia stopped the 2000 recount in Florida because Al Gore would have overtaken Bush and become president. Then SCOTUS, despite virtually all legal prognostication that it would never take the case and a contrary lower Appellate court ruling, annointed George W. Bush president by a 5-4 vote.

Fast forward just a few weeks more than a decade later, replace Rehnquist with Roberts and O'Connor with Alito, and you have the same 5-4 dynamic of right wing extremist judges trampling on the seeds of democracy by declaring that corporations can finance elections in the same way as people, building upon a pernicious concept -- that BuzzFlash has discussed for some time -- known as "corporate personhood."

Just yesterday, I discussed that the best and most accessible history of how we ended up here is in Thom Hartmann's book, "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights."

I was talking on the phone this morning with Thom, and he brought up the irony that may be prophetic that the infamous Dredd Scott decision that declared slaves to be property led to the Civil War. Now, we have a Supreme Court decision that affirmed that corporations have, according to the GOP 5-4 vote, the same election rights as people.

Global corporations and Wall Street financial firms have become stifling, obstructive institutions that impede innovation and democracy, but they do not breathe; in fact, they suffocate. They don't encourage or stimulate entrepeneurship and small businesses with new ideas; they crush them.

For America, it's been a decade of two Supreme Court coups that have stolen democracy and replaced it with something akin to activist right wing judicial rulings on behalf of the oligarchy that pulls the strings in D.C.

The Dredd Scott decision, as Hartmann points out, resulted in the Civil War.

Will we sit back and passively accept that corporations have the same rights to elect our government as people do?

Are corporations now to be championed by the "pro-life" zealots to boot?

It might not be time for a Civil War, but it is time for a non-violent populist revolt to restore our Constitutional rights as people and to protect ourselves from the predatory corporations that now will transparently buy their politicians in D.C.



I want any of you, righties or otherwise, to step on up here and attempt to defend this ruling. We should ALL be completely outraged by this treasonous, uncontitutional judicial fiasco, and I hope you fuckers will join me in taking action against it:



Action Page: Corporations Are NOT The People



Action Page: Impeach The Supreme Court 5

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

"You have the option to drill additional holes in the label,
causing the record to rotate off the side of the turntable"

-Tom Ellard - Severed Heads


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Mezcalhead
VoivodFan
Member # 26

posted January 25, 2010 22:20     Profile for Mezcalhead   Email Mezcalhead     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Tango, I have to admit to being really envious of your populist fervor. I wish I could get that excited. But let's check our quotes from dead presidents before assuming said quotes are correct:
http://hnn.us/articles/760.html


Here's a Scalia quote that I enjoyed from the debate...(that actually was said)...in response to Justice John Paul Stevens's argument that corporations lack free speech rights because the Founding Fathers didn't care for them. "If so, how came there to be so many of them?"

I'll quote from editors of WSJ:

"Liberalism's bullying tendencies are never more on display than when its denizens are at war with the speech rights of its opponents."


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Tangento
VoivodFan
Member # 117

posted January 26, 2010 01:12     Profile for Tangento   Email Tangento     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
It seems that any old Presidential quote can be debunked. Do you disagree with what ol' Mr. FictionalLincoln says? The real question is, can you type out your OWN defense of this act of pure judicial activism in this little white box and press 'ADD REPLY'?

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

"You have the option to drill additional holes in the label,
causing the record to rotate off the side of the turntable"

-Tom Ellard - Severed Heads


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Mezcalhead
VoivodFan
Member # 26

posted January 26, 2010 07:56     Profile for Mezcalhead   Email Mezcalhead     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
No. There's plenty of presidential quotes...that were uhhh... presidential. When I saw it on the poster it literally screamed bogus. But that doesn't matter to you eh? You know, like evidence.

How was this decision treasonous & unconstitutional? Really how? How can you silence any group or individual's right to free speech just because you don't agree with them? And really why does any of this even matter because I thought that the corporations had already taken over and were running things now???


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Tangento
VoivodFan
Member # 117

posted January 26, 2010 18:34     Profile for Tangento   Email Tangento     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Mezcalhead:
No. There's plenty of presidential quotes...that were uhhh... presidential. When I saw it on the poster it literally screamed bogus. But that doesn't matter to you eh? You know, like evidence.

How was this decision treasonous & unconstitutional? Really how? How can you silence any group or individual's right to free speech just because you don't agree with them?


Mez. I conceded the bogus quote. I asked if you can defend this decision of the High Court. All I got from you were more questions.

This ruling has essentially granted First Amendment rights -- and thus 'personhood' -- not only to the corporations of our country, but to gigantic multi-national corporations with no allegiance to our Nation whatsoever. This is a dark day in our history, where these corporations are now allowed to influence our elections and legislative bodies at levels radically disproportionate to those of the individual citizen.

quote:
Originally posted by Mezcalhead:
And really why does any of this even matter because I thought that the corporations had already taken over and were running things now???

a. Do you disagree that this is the case? Personally, I think it's a 'work in progress'.

b. Whether you believe it or you don't, do you really think we need to be allowing our High Court to help the process along in this manner? Do you like Silver Platters?

The actual ruling, if anyone cares to endure it:

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf

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

"You have the option to drill additional holes in the label,
causing the record to rotate off the side of the turntable"

-Tom Ellard - Severed Heads


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Mezcalhead
VoivodFan
Member # 26

posted January 27, 2010 14:51     Profile for Mezcalhead   Email Mezcalhead     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
All this changes are political ads that can be bought by corporate sponsors 30 to 60 days prior to the vote. Ads must still disclose who is paying for it. Corporations still cannot give money directly to candidates. What this ruling does is eliminate the PAC. That middleman is now gone. Everything that you are so frightened about was happening with the PAC’s before this….millions upon millions of dollars were being spent by corporations and unions in ad campaigns. This is no ‘work in progress’. This activity has been going on for a long time.

Let’s look at the recent election in Massachusetts as an example of the power of advertising. Do you think that if Soros had started a massive ad campaign for Coakley a month before the vote in Massachusetts it would have changed the results of that race? Absolutely not. Given the disasterous state of affairs, it was obvious to voters that any semblance of Dem-like representation was NOT the way to go. They were pissed, wanted a change and got it. No amount of advertising would have changed that.


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Tangento
VoivodFan
Member # 117

posted January 27, 2010 17:19     Profile for Tangento   Email Tangento     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
All of what you say IS true, and IS the full extent of the ramifications, IF Fox News is your source of facts. Unfortunately, this is the real world, and this decision has far-reaching implications which you have conveniently (or out of ignorance) failed to address.

Here is the most concise argument I've found against the ruling.

quote:

PART I
By any fair legal definition, the decision yesterday by The Supreme
Court 5 constitutes nothing less than an act of TREASON against the
people of the United States. Having read and analyzed the entire 183
page decision and all of its concurring and dissenting opinions
ourselves, we are fully prepared to support this accusatory
conclusion.

Having so grossly abused its jurisdiction by presuming to decide a
question expressly WAIVED by the petitioner in the Court below (p
12), this rogue Supreme Court ruled for the FIRST time that NO
corporation can be constrained from unlimited influence over our
elections. And even assuming that the Court intended the decision to
only apply to American corporations, the Court expressly DECLINED (pp
46-47) to reach the question of whether foreign ownership stakes in
American corporations should likewise be given carte blanche to put
their thumbs on the scales of our democracy.

Thus, until Congress FURTHER acts (and it must, though it could not
have escaped the attention of The Supreme Court 5 that the current
Republican minority has vowed to obstruct ANYTHING of consequence
that Congress might try to pass), there is now nothing to constrain
foreign nationals, even our most sworn enemies, from usurping what
even the most die hard Tea Bagger takes as an article of faith, that
the rights of citizenship of this country are ONLY for Americans.
This must be construed, within the four corners of our Constitution,
as deliberately and knowingly exposing the United States of America
to harm in the interim, by giving "aid and comfort" to our enemies
(Constitution Article 3, section 3), should our enemies now wish to
take advantage of this unprecedented and rash decision. In simple
constitutional terms . . . treason!!

The fact is that we now live in a world of giant transnational
corporations, with allegiance to NO sovereign government, let alone
our own, sworn only to exploit the most vulnerable and desperate
workers they can find in any country of the world. How does The
Supreme Court 5 propose parsing which of these extra-national legal
artificialities should be allowed to corrupt our democratic election
process? Apparently in their minds, all of them.


PART II
The most bedrock principle of appellate review is that first an
appellant must have PRESERVED the issue for appeal, by arguing and
getting a ruling on the point of law from the court below,
necessitating fact finding by the lower court to create a "record".
Innumerable appellants since the beginning of time have had the door
to review slammed in their face with the admonition that if they HAD
preserved the issue then and only then could a higher court review
it.

And in particular, appellate courts have traditionally been loathe to
making their own findings of fact (and only in a corrective way)
absent very clear error by the Court below, which is as it should be.
The role of a higher court is to apply the law to the facts, and make
rulings of what the LAW is, not make their own findings of fact. And
this is supremely true of the Supreme Court.

So even beyond the outrageousness of the result, it is at least
outrageous the way it was reached, and how that reach was justified.
As justification, The Supreme Court 5 asserted that some legal
emergency existed requiring a broader inquiry in this case,
resurrecting a claim already ABANDONED by the appellant in the court
below (opinion p. 12). Why directly overturning precedents at least
20 years old would suddenly be such an emergency they do not explain.

And when you actually read the opinion, the only pressure really on
the Supreme Court was because so-called Citizens United was bound to
LOSE on the case they did preserve *
(opinion pp. 10-11). The Supreme
Court 5 wanted that party to win. This was in itself an over the top
act of judicial activism. But even beyond that they were hell bent on
undoing as much as 100 years of campaign finance regulation (Stevens'
dissent p. 3). Even the most conservative commentators agree this is
what they have in fact done.

Appellate courts have been known on occasion to comment (in no
binding way) that if an appellant HAD made a particular argument they
might have been receptive to it, a kind of higher court invitation
for someone to bring an actual case, an actual "controversy". And
then there would be a factual record in some subsequent case. But
here there was no controversy on the issue on which the ruling was
based, for it had already been WAIVED a priori, thereby denying the
Supreme Court any jurisdiction to rule on it (Consitution Article
III, Section 2, Clause 1).

But even further assuming that the Supreme Court was justified in
reopening a can of worms already discarded, the appropriate procedure
would have been to return the case to the lower court with
instructions, what is called a "remand", and which is done all the
time after a ruling of LAW, for the court below to make findings of
fact and conduct further proceedings, so that there would be a
factual record for them to review, should the appellant wish to
appeal to the higher court again in the case of an unfavorable ruling
by the lower court.

All these prudent judicial things are exactly what the Supreme Court
5 did NOT do. Instead, they called for hurry up further briefing on
the new question of law THEY wanted to rule on (Stevens' dissent p.
4), in a vacuum of insufficient facts to make those arguments of law.
Instead, they set a scary new purported standard of review that says
they basically can make rulings on any point of law THEY want to
raise, whether developed in a lower court by an appellant or not.

This is truly frightening! It means that these five absolute
dictators in black robes have now asserted the unheard of prerogative
to make their own law pretty much any time they like, if only
tangentially related to appellant's actual arguments on appeal
(opinion pp. 13-14), a profoundly dangerous NEW standard, to become a
new stare decisis if not immediately challenged and reversed by their
removal from office. It means they now assert unchecked prerogative
to make their own findings of fact whenever necessary to reach the
result THEY want to reach.


* sounds eerily like the rationale used when appointing Bush in the coup of 2000

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

"You have the option to drill additional holes in the label,
causing the record to rotate off the side of the turntable"

-Tom Ellard - Severed Heads


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Tangento
VoivodFan
Member # 117

posted January 27, 2010 17:43     Profile for Tangento   Email Tangento     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Mezcalhead:
This is no ‘work in progress’. This activity has been going on for a long time.


The 'work in progress' I was referring to is the merging of Government and Corporate interests.

quote:
Originally posted by Mezcalhead:
Let’s look at the recent election in Massachusetts as an example of the power of advertising. Do you think that if Soros had started a massive ad campaign for Coakley a month before the vote in Massachusetts it would have changed the results of that race? Absolutely not. Given the disasterous state of affairs, it was obvious to voters that any semblance of Dem-like representation was NOT the way to go. They were pissed, wanted a change and got it. No amount of advertising would have changed that.

The best you have is a completely hypothetical scenario, self-answered with absolute certainty? No response necessary, especially since none of this is pertinent to the arguments made against this act of legislation from the Bench.

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

"You have the option to drill additional holes in the label,
causing the record to rotate off the side of the turntable"

-Tom Ellard - Severed Heads


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Mezcalhead
VoivodFan
Member # 26

posted January 27, 2010 19:32     Profile for Mezcalhead   Email Mezcalhead     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Hahaha....Fox news, dude you're something else. Actually I got that from Atlantic Monthly & NPR.org.

Big corporate dollars influencing a senatorial campaign??? You're telling me this is not pertinent to the argument??? Its central to what you're claiming is the whole problem!

We've got two races coming up in Delaware and Illinois. Let's watch and see what the impact of this new ruling is. Believe me, Biden Jr. did not get out of the race because he was afraid of the corporations's money helping the other side.


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Tangento
VoivodFan
Member # 117

posted January 28, 2010 02:15     Profile for Tangento   Email Tangento     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Mezcalhead:
Hahaha....Fox news, dude you're something else. Actually I got that from Atlantic Monthly & NPR.org.

I did not accuse you directly, but those DO happen to be the very same talking points that the 'easily manipulated' are running around repeating of late.

quote:
Originally posted by Mezcalhead:
Big corporate dollars influencing a senatorial campaign??? You're telling me this is not pertinent to the argument??? Its central to what you're claiming is the whole problem!

Bro, the "whole problem" is the MANNER in which this ruling came down, and that MULTINATIONALS were INCLUDED in it. Everything else is secondary. Try first reading the ^^^thread title, and then try perusing my last post.

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

"You have the option to drill additional holes in the label,
causing the record to rotate off the side of the turntable"

-Tom Ellard - Severed Heads


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Mezcalhead
VoivodFan
Member # 26

posted February 02, 2010 07:34     Profile for Mezcalhead   Email Mezcalhead     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
I went back and read that rant you posted again. Wow, talk about headache inducing. The 'SC5'.....hahaha....who is this author??? Again, spell out to me how this is treason????

"This must be construed, within the four corners of our Constitution,
as deliberately and knowingly exposing the United States of America
to harm in the interim, by giving "aid and comfort" to our enemies
(Constitution Article 3, section 3), should our enemies now wish to
take advantage of this unprecedented and rash decision. In simple
constitutional terms . . . treason!!"

'This must be construed'???? MUST BE??? Huh??? Says who?? Hahahah...'aid and comfort to the enemies' Hahaha... if this guy wants to worry about something he needs to worry about China who practically owns us now. That is a foreign national that is a problem.

I love people like this who constantly talk in extremes(most of whom are on your side)....

"this rogue Supreme Court ruled for the FIRST time that NO corporation can be constrained from unlimited influence over our
elections."

Love the inflammatory language..'rogue' supreme court..haha....again, this ruling ONLY APPLIES TO ADVERTISING!!! How many ways can I fucking say it. They ARE constrained as a corporation still cannot give money directly to the candidates!!! This is NOT unlimited influence over elections.....


Oh man, I so wish I had time to go through this entire rant line by line.....got to run but this one I absolutely love:

"and it must, though it could not
have escaped the attention of The Supreme Court 5 that the current
Republican minority has vowed to obstruct ANYTHING of consequence
that Congress might try to pass"

What a load of shit!! Until the Massachusetts Upset...the Dems had complete and total control of Congress...filibustering was NOT an option!! They had the votes!!! Like even if the SC5 was concerned about that!! Hahahaha....biggest crock I've ever read!!


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Tangento
VoivodFan
Member # 117

posted February 03, 2010 22:27     Profile for Tangento   Email Tangento     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Typical Fox News-style rebuttal: LAUGH really loud and skirt the real issues. In other words -- amid all those question marks, exclamation points, laughing and partisan bullshit -- you STILL have not addressed the two key points here.

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

"You have the option to drill additional holes in the label,
causing the record to rotate off the side of the turntable"

-Tom Ellard - Severed Heads


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Tangento
VoivodFan
Member # 117

posted February 20, 2010 02:54     Profile for Tangento   Email Tangento     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Looks like you're caught in the forlorn vortex of a dwindling minority on this one Mez:

quote:
a major poll released just yesterday by the Washington
Post reports 80 percent of all Americans, crossing all party lines,
are opposed to this indefensible ruling (65% STRONGLY opposed).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/17/AR2010021701151.html

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

"You have the option to drill additional holes in the label,
causing the record to rotate off the side of the turntable"

-Tom Ellard - Severed Heads


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nothingface
VoivodFan
Member # 58

posted February 21, 2010 00:52     Profile for nothingface   Email nothingface     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Corporations are made up of individuals. Those individuals are entitled to free speech and entitled to spend their money as they wish.

What goes unmentioned is that labor unions who've been notoriously in bed with the left have had no such restrictions on campaign spending, so in effect, the campaign playing field has only been leveled.

Lastly, and most coincidentally, corporations are the zenith of capitalist success, the bane of the liberal's existence. Why wouldn't they want that voice silenced.

In the end, the public can and will think for itself, despite the "we'll do the thinking for you" of the left. All the advertising in the world can't help a rotten candidate (read: everyone Obama has backed in the last six months).

I'm from the right. I thought of this on my own, and I approve of this message.


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Tangento
VoivodFan
Member # 117

posted February 21, 2010 07:14     Profile for Tangento   Email Tangento     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
I'm gonna just respond to that last nugget with a new thread. Join if you dare.

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

"You have the option to drill additional holes in the label,
causing the record to rotate off the side of the turntable"

-Tom Ellard - Severed Heads


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