Corporate Self-Sacrifice For The Common Good?

New interpretations of old policies have come to the forefront. The United States Supreme Court has historically bestowed the rights of natural persons on corporate legal persons...the same rights of a person with blood in their veins...resulting in "unlimited exercise of the First Amendment and Free Speech" rights for corporations.

The stated purpose of any corporate legal person is in its charter, and does not include self-sacrifice for the common good. The corporation, a legal person by virtue of the 14th amendment and the Supreme Court ruling of 1886, can never sacrifice its purpose for the common good as can a natural person. The corporation's individual interests must always come first! The common good can never come first! To do so would violate its charter.

Immediately following the events of December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor, thousands of Americans, "natural persons", flocked to Armed Forces recruitment centers, volunteering to fight for the United States. Knowing that they might be killed in the war, their act of volunteering for military duty was an act of self-sacrifice. Thousands of them were in fact sacrificed on their country's altar. Are corporations so noble?

The First Amendment to the Constitution states "...Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech...". But the Supreme Court has done just that! It has granted "freedom of speech" to legal persons with the financial power to overwhelm the free speech of "natural persons" with corporate free speech. Any fool would conclude that the "free speech" of a multi billion dollar corporation could easily drown out the free speech of a natural person. It is like listening for a kitten in a howling hurricane! The natural person's political power is limited in numerous respects. The political power of the corporate legal person is limited only by the amount of its profits and how much the corporation is willing to invest in the political process to obtain favorable legislation to its self centered purpose. How can the meager political contribution of a natural person compete with the billions in profits? Yet the Supreme Court has ruled that this corporate take-over of the political process is legal and Constitutional.

When natural persons are convicted of felonies, they loose some of their human rights. When a corporate legal person is convicted of a felony, they pay their lawyers and their fines but never loose any of these "rights" which have been bestowed by the Supreme Court. In fact recent decisions by the Court have removed all restraints on how much money corporations can pour into our political process. Corporate legal persons are in the process of creating a blizzard of political influence for policies and legislation favorable to the goals of the corporation and with little regard for the common good.

It is obvious that corporations possess advantages which no natural person could ever possess. Their advantage is a financial one and is massive.

In our form of government called the Republic, representation is of supreme value. Elected officials are required to represent their constituents in the halls of government. Corporations are made up of thousands of stock holders and employees all of whom are represented by their individual elected representatives as "natural persons". Why are those same natural persons allowed a second powerful form of representation as a collective, as a legal person, as a corporation, with only self centered goals? Those particular natural persons are being represented in two ways: first as an individual natural person, and secondly as a collective corporate legal person.

The conclusion of any thinking natural person would be that those same natural persons who are stock holders and employees have a disproportional financial advantage in representation. The corporations of which they are a part make a two-pronged attack: contributions to political campaigns, and full time lobbyists in the Legislative branch of the government...all gifts of unlimited political power by the United States Supreme Court. This power of PACs and corporate money is a large and complex issue of influence peddling and needs careful scrutiny and review in an effort to return political power to the common man and for the common good. The political power of the average citizen has been stolen and buried under a mountain of money.

Corporate legal persons must be denied the same full rights of natural citizens. They do not deserve duplicate, expanded representation because their motives are parochial and their focus is never on the common good but rather is totally self-centered.

There Seems to be a Law

There seems to be a law: Individuals and groups with power usually take advantage of those without power. Most of us never have access to power over others but when we do, the temptation arises to abuse it.

Most of us have been on the wrong end of the power struggle. We've had a boss or someone in authority who took advantage of their power over us. On the other hand, we have also experience the kindness of a person of power who refused to abuse it and graciously granted benevolence to us.

Our choices allow us to grant our support or withhold it to individuals or organizations who wield power. Make those choices carefully in your lifetime. Most of the world's religions urge these choices, be a friend to the helpless, the needy, the powerless. Be compassionate. Put yourself in someone's place. There is a nobler attitude, higher in priority than the luxuries of life.

As a historian, perhaps I have an enhanced awareness of the untold misery which human beings have visited on other humans in the past 500 years. To me the supreme lesson of history would simply be the "golden rule". The more history I have learned, the more disappointed I have become in the actions of my government, from the murderous destruction of the Native Americans to the murderous destruction of the Philippine people who wanted only to govern them selves as do we.

It has been easy to deride the idea of communism for it's ruthless abuse. But we need to analyze what created communism. It was the abusive power of capitalism. Some have called this "savage capitalism". Historically in the confrontation of capital and labor, capital has had the power. From this came the squalor and the unlimited misery which characterized the world of Charles Dickens. In his "Tale of Two Cities", London and Paris were really the same city; one rich, one poor. The book opens, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going the other way."

Today we hear the screams of those who think their money is ripped from them and given to lazy worthless scum..."redistribution of wealth" they call it. Savage capitalism is the "redistribution of wealth" from the poor upward to the rich. This is the shame of the abuse of economic power. This capitalism required 10 year old children to work in mines or locked in factories. This capitalism meant that a worker injured for life on the job got nothing but poverty. This shame created the French Revolution. This shame created the age of colonialism, slavery, and on and on. The same evil lurks in the modern world. On which side of the scales of power will you stand in your lifetime...with and for the powerful or with and for the weak, the powerless? Many of the choices of your life will be related to this question.

Video Released of US Military Helicopter Pilots Slaughtering 12 Iraqi Civilians

collateral murder - wikileaks from Jo Do on Vimeo.

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Yesterday, WikiLeaks released a video showing U.S. military pilots, shooting from an Apache helicopter, slaughtering twelve Iraqi civilians in 2007, including a Reuters photojournalist and his driver. The dead included several Iraqis who showed up at the scene a few minutes later to carry away the dead and wounded (including two of their children).  The video is truly gruesome and difficult to watch even for the most cynical person, but it should be seen by everyone with responsibility for what the U.S. has done in Iraq and Afghanistan (i.e., every American citizen).  Reuters had been trying to obtain obtain this video for two years through a FOIA request, but had been met with stonewalling by the U.S. military.  The video shows that military officials made categorically false statements about what happened  there and were clearly engaged in a cover-up.

Separation of Church and State

The modern era has produced multiple examples of the reasons why separation of church and state is not only good philosophy but good practice. Russia, for example, after the revolution of 1917, insisted that its citizens not engage in religious practice nor acknowledge their faith in god. Consider Germany who reviled everything Jewish, burned synagogues, and murdered people only because they were Jewish. Look at Israel, who for 60 years has driven Muslims out; allowing only Jews to immigrate in. Take the Islamic Republic of Iran, who issues international death warrants for those who may have the audacity to criticize their religious teachings or leaders and denies that the European Jewish holocaust ever happened.

Why would American citizens ever wish to go backward into religious bigotry in attempting to establish a particular faith as the official religion of America? They are attempting to establish something which never existed while claiming that the Nation was founded on religious principles. Not so! The nation was founded on the ideas of liberal democracy which was originally a creation of the Greek city states more than 2,000 years ago and was anything but a religious movement.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were the founding fathers who inducted the idea of separation of church and state into the national conscience...having been born about 50 years after the debacle of the Salem witch trials and the experiment of theocracy in Massachusetts. Over about 2-3 years more than 200 persons were jailed on the mere suspicion of witch craft. A return to this kind of thinking will accompany an official recognition of a national religion.

It is both wise and practical to maintain the principle and practice of the separation of church and state...practical because we are only human and can make gross mistakes while at the same time believing with great sincerity we are doing the right thing...wise because no examples of a successful marriage of church and state, where equality reigns, can be found.

"Right" to build in Jerusalem?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel says that Israel has a "right" to build Jewish settlements in Jerusalem. How so? These settlements automatically exclude non Jews. The land is not a part of Israel and is occupied like Russia occupied eastern Europe. These Jewish settlements end up being armed garrisons. What nation on earth has the right to build an armed racially segregated garrison in someone else's country? Apparently Israel thinks they do.

The Israeli reaction to any resistance is the claim of antisemitism. Some Israelis are saying President Obama is antisemitic. It is not antisemitic to resist any nation's policies which are based on racial and religious prejudice.

What is a "Jewish" state? Is that anything like a Episcopalian state? or a Mormon state? or a Muslim state? Perhaps the state of Israel seeks to protect individuals who's heritage is Jewish and to offer their country as a safe haven from persecution. That is legitimate considering the various persecutions of the past but does Israel have to be a "Jewish state" in order to accomplish that goal?

Certain methods of "protecting" persons of Jewish heritage are deplorable. Taking land by force from it's owners without compensation is wrong. Pushing the inhabitants out so that the demographics of the state of Israel are guaranteed to be a "democratic" majority of Jews is wrong. Allowing immigration of only Jews excluding others is wrong. How is that democracy...officially engineering the dominance of one race? That sounds like the history of 20th century Europe. Only yesterday Secretary Clinton speaking to the AIPAC said, "You cannot have a 'Jewish' state and a democratic state." She therefore called again for a two state solution. President Carter has described this Israeli policy as apartheid. South Africa of decades past failed in this attempt! That is like the United States history of denying Native Americans citizenship and participation in democracy.

Palestinians need the right to participate in the creation of their own well being. They need jobs, land, access to water, and participation in the political process. They need their own country! If Israel continues to dominate them, peace will never come. If Israel does not change these policies, they cannot claim to be a democracy any more than America could as half slave and half free. The United States historically unrestrained support of these immoral policies is wrong and the rest of the world can clearly see it. Why can't we? The position of the United States in the world has been diminished by our support of certain unjust policies.

Israel should like all nations, including the United States, provide an atmosphere of equality for it's inhabitants and equal opportunity. Palestinians cannot be denied the rights which they deserve as human beings.

Poetry by Hemmingway

The Age Demanded
by Earnest Hemmingway

The age demanded that we sing, and cut away our tongues.

The age demanded that we flow, and hammered in the bung.

The age demanded that we dance

And jammed us into iron pants.

And in the end the age was handed

the sort of shit that it demanded.

Fwd: Whereas considering the U-2

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: lorenzo jones <lorenzo@hughes.net>
Date: Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 4:01 PM
Subject: Whereas considering the U-2
To: lorenzo jones <lorenzolemon@gmail.com>

 

 

 

 

 

WHEREAS, considering the U.S. Supreme Court's decision altering many years of restraint of unfettered corporate political contributions, and

 

WHEREAS, President Barack Obama has made a call for the Congress to create new laws which would impede such unlimited contributions, be it

 

RESOLVED, that the Texas Democratic Party join it's voice to the call for "forceful legislation" which would countermand the U. S. Supreme Court decision concerning the "stampede of special interests' money" for political campaigns and Congressional lobbyists, and resist this  long-term trend which minimizes the political power of the citizens of Texas, while maximizing the political power of worldwide special interests.

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    The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner
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