Corporate Personhood

With the January 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United vs. FEC invalidating many campaign finance laws restricting how corporations may participate in elections, there is a lot of new energy to revoke corporate personhood:

* http://freespeechforpeople.org/ (only revokes it for 1st amendment) * http://movetoamend.org/ - no actual amendment text proposed as yet. * LawrenceLessig? has taken it on as part of (a basic issue in) his CHange? Congress effort, but it's not clear yet exactly what sort of amendment he would propose either. http://action.change-congress.org/page/s/amendpetition

The ACLU has so far supported corporations' right to free speech, but are apparently now reconsidering there position.

"Slavery is the legal fiction that a Person is Property. Corporate Personhood is the legal fiction that Property is a Person." - from this excellent timeline - http://www.ratical.org/corporations/ToPRaP.html (originally from http://www.wilpf.org/ but they don't seem to have it now)

In the late 1800s, corporations were granted personhood in the UnitedStates (by a legally dubious Supreme Court procedure, and ironically based on the 14th Amendment intended to free the slaves!). Ever since, corporations have been winning court cases granting them due process, equal protection, freedom of speech, etc. Here's a good book on it: http://www.gangsofamerica.com/gangsofamerica.pdf

Model legal brief to eliminate corporate personhood rights - http://www.poclad.org/ModelLegalBrief.cfm

Porter Township, Pennsylvania ordinance denying coporate personhood rights - http://www.celdf.org/scm/ord/ord12.asp

Point Arena/Gualala area, (California) resolution - http://www.iiipublishing.com/alliance.htm

Petition letter urging the ACLU to stop defending corporate free speech rights - http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/aclu_sign_on_letter.html

ProjectCensored had the growing resistance to corporate personhood as an undercovered story of 2003 - http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/13.html

The presidential quotes:

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to to George Logan, 1816

[This quote is probably not for real, see http://www.footnote.tv/fncwildcatsindex.html#lincolnquote "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety than ever before, even in the midst of war."

--Abraham Lincoln, supposedly in a letter to friend Colonel William F. Elkins, November 21, 1864]

(Corporate personhood granted between Lincoln and Cleveland)

"Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters." --Grover Cleveland, 1888

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." --Theodore Roosevelt, 1906

"The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man's making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.

"There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.

"We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the people may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs." --Theodore Roosevelt; Ossowatomie, Kansas, August 31, 1910

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

--Dwight D. Eisenhower; Farewell address to the nation, January 17, 1961

Also see PostCorporateWorld, other ResistanceActivities

Move to another page:

How to Overthrow Corporate Rule in 5 Not-so-easy Steps (Ending Corporate Personhood is part of step 5) - http://www.corporations.org/solutions/ the whole site looks pretty good too - http://www.corporations.org/solutions/

What kind of person is the typical giant corporation? http://thecorporation.tv/synopsis.php

http://www.corpwatch.org/ (news; great links page)

Who Owns What:

http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/ (media)
http://www.theyrule.net/ (tracks board of directors members across big companies)