Attention, information, knowledge and awareness can be amazing things (photo from Jon Gruber’s flickr stream)..
Archives
27
Feb 10
Oh What a Feeling! Toyota?
I’ve wanted to do a post on the slow motion car wreck that is the Toyota story, but I just haven’t had the time. This is a subject that satisfies several of my interests, from automobiles to politics to organizational dynamics, and I’ve followed it closely. So instead, here’s a collection of links ¦ Continue reading →
29
Jan 10
Saving our Democracy by being less Democratic?
Every now and then, something Ron Paul says appeals to me. I’ll see your Tenth Amendment argument and raise you the 17th (Tony Blankley at HuffPo divined from a speech at CPAC in 2009):
As an early 1960s vintage member of the then-new conservative movement, I remember us focusing on the 10th amendment during the 1964 Goldwater campaign. It has been a staple of conservative thought, and the continued dormancy of 10th amendment enforcement has been one of the failures of our now half-century-old movement.
But just as the Tea Party movement in so many ways seems to represent the 2.0 version of our movement, so I again thought about the 10th amendment anew. After about 10 seconds’ thought, it struck me that the best way to revive the 10th Amendment is to repeal the 17th Amendment — which changes the first paragraph of Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution to provide that each state’s senators are to be “elected by the people thereof” rather than being “chosen by the Legislature thereof.” (As I Googled the topic, I found out that Ron Paul and others have been talking about this for years. It may be the only subject that could be proposed and ratified at a constitutional convention with three-fourths of the state legislatures.)
That’s a fabulous idea. Let’s let the much cheaper local whores do the bidding of the corporations. These poor companies are going to have to spend a lot more money if they expect to buy 435 House seats and endless local and state offices, so any break they can get would be good for the economy.
That was not one of them. Fifty little corrupt House of Lords would not be better than the US Congress.
22
Jan 10
Corporations are people too!!
Did you know Corporations are people too, and that they have a right to free speech (which of course equals money), even though they can’t speak. Why someday, Corporations may even be given the right to vote!
From a discussion draft [pdf] by the Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC), all emphasis mine:
For most of our Nation’s history, Supreme Court doctrine comported with the Constitution’s text and history. Governments created corporations and conferred on them special privileges to encourage investment and economic growth, but, in the words of Chief Justice Marshall in the famous Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward case, corporations were “artificial being[s], invisible, intangible, and existing only in the contemplation of the law. 1 Corporations were neither “citizens nor part of “We the People. A corporation was a “creature of the law that did not possess inalienable human rights, but rather “only those properties which the charter of creation confer on it. 2 Corporate interests were protected in some ways, of course ”for example, corporations could assert rights under provisions like the Constitution’s Contract Clause, which prohibits states from “impairing private contracts “ but corporations could be extensively regulated to ensure that they did not abuse the special privileges and protections governments conferred on them that were not shared by individuals.
This was the settled understanding both before the Civil War, and after, when the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution, requiring states to respect the fundamental rights of all Americans. This settled understanding was thrown into question in 1886 when the Court’s decision in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co.3 appeared to announce ”because of the court reporter’s note ” that corporations were “persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. The Supreme Court’s actual opinion never reached the constitutional question in the case, but the court reporter “ himself a former railroad man “ took it upon himself to insert into his published notes Chief Justice Waite’s oral argument statement that the Fourteenth Amendment protects corporations. Through this highly irregular move, bereft of any reasoning or explanation, the idea that corporations had the same rights as individuals “ for some purposes at least “ was introduced into constitutional law. In the 1920s and 1930s “ as the nation was roiled by the Great Depression “ many speculated that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment had “smuggled into the Amendment “a capitalist joker, 4 giving corporations special rights and protections under an Amendment ratified to secure equal citizenship for living Americans, but it is now clear that this joker was created by the court reporter and developed by the Lochner era Supreme Court.
Corporate personhood has been reaffirmed over the last Century, but has been somewhat constrained by campaign finance laws passed by Congress, at least until those Conservative activist justices (Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts) ignored precedents with yesterday’s ruling. Corporations (as well as Unions and special interest groups) can essentially shovel unlimited amounts of money into the election process. Given that the candidate with the most money usually wins, the winner is decided by whoever has the deepest pockets, which is never the voter.
This is also nothing new “ Conservatives have been preparing for this moment for 40-years, starting with the Powell Memo authored by then right-wing activist and eventual Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. [wiki] in 1971.
Although its influence is disputed, the framework Powell established was executed smartly by the Conservative movement, undermining academia, conning the poor and middle-class to vote against their own self-interest, created the think tanks that dream up foreign adventures at the expense of other’s blood and the taxpayers treasure, starting the Culture Wars, and allowing corporations to take over the political process.
The cruelest irony? The Constitutional Amendment that granted equal protection to the newly freed slaves subsequently shackles us to a corporate master.
Not sure what all of this means to you? As usual, a comedian will lead us through the darkness:
SCOTUSblog has a summary of reaction and some analysis.
Forget about Ted Kennedy’s seat, tea baggers, Scott Brown, smacking down bankers, and healthcare reform. THIS is the important news of the week. For all the talk of socialism, what you have just seen what amounts to a codification of the corporate welfare state.
The hope is that the internet will allow people to easily see what Corporation gave which politician money, and how it influenced legislation. Based on the track record, I’m not getting my hopes up, and I have no confidence that ‘the people’ would have the interest or ability to find out.
For most of our Nation’s history, Supreme Court doctrine comported with the Constitution’s text
and history. Governments created corporations and conferred on them special privileges to encourage
investment and economic growth, but, in the words of Chief Justice Marshall in the famous Trustees of
Dartmouth College v. Woodward case, corporations were “artificial being[s], invisible, intangible, and
existing only in the contemplation of the law. 1 Corporations were neither “citizens nor part of “We
the People. A corporation was a “creature of the law that did not possess inalienable human rights,
but rather “only those properties which the charter of creation confer on it. 2 Corporate interests were
protected in some ways, of course ”for example, corporations could assert rights under provisions like
the Constitution’s Contract Clause, which prohibits states from “impairing private contracts “ but
corporations could be extensively regulated to ensure that they did not abuse the special privileges and
protections governments conferred on them that were not shared by individuals. This was the settled
understanding both before the Civil War, and after, when the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the
Constitution, requiring states to respect the fundamental rights of all Americans.
This settled understanding was thrown into question in 1886 when the Court’s decision in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co.3 appeared to announce ”because of the court reporter’s note ” that corporations were “persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. The Supreme Court’s actual opinion never reached the constitutional question in the case, but the court reporter “ himself a former railroad man “ took it upon himself to insert into his published notes Chief Justice Waite’s oral argument statement that the Fourteenth Amendment protects corporations. Through this highly irregular move, bereft of any reasoning or explanation, the idea that corporations had the same rights as individuals “ for some purposes at least “ was introduced into constitutional law. In the 1920s and 1930s “ as the nation was roiled by the Great Depression “ many speculated that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment had “smuggled into the Amendment “a capitalist joker, 4 giving corporations special rights and protections under an Amendment ratified to secure equal citizenship for living Americans, but it is now clear that this joker was created by the court reporter and developed by the Lochner era Supreme Court.
03
Feb 10
Daily Links for January 15th through February 3rd
All excerpts are quoted from the respective link(s).
Selected by leading business publications worldwide, below are the Harvard Business Press books that topped 2009’s "Best of" lists. These titles not only wowed the critics, they also helped thousands of managers like you survive and thrive in today’s complex business world.