Jefferson Was Right

by Dr. Michael P. Byron
Liberal Slant
May 24, 2003

http://www.liberalslant.com/mpb052403.htm

Most Americans don’t know it but Thomas Jefferson, along with James Madison worked assiduously to have an 11th Amendment included into our nation’s original Bill of Rights. This proposed Amendment would have prohibited “monopolies in commerce.” The amendment would have made it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, or to give money to politicians, or to otherwise try to influence elections. Corporations would be chartered by the states for the primary purpose of “serving the public good.” Corporations would possess the legal status not of natural persons but rather of “artificial persons.” This means that they would have only those legal attributes which the state saw fit to grant to them. They would NOT; and indeed could NOT possess the same bundle of rights which actual flesh and blood persons enjoy. Under this proposed amendment neither the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, nor any provision of that document would protect the artificial entities known of as corporations.

Jefferson and Madison were so insistent upon this amendment because the American Revolution was in substantial degree a revolt against the domination of colonial economic and political life by the greatest multinational corporation of its age: the British East India Company. After all who do you think owned the tea which Sam Adams and friends dumped overboard in Boston Harbor? Who was responsible for the taxes on commodities and restrictions on trade by the American colonists? It was the British East India Company, of course. In the end the amendment was not adopted because a majority in the first Congress believed that already existing state laws governing corporations were adequate for constraining corporate power. Jefferson worried about the growing influence of corporate power until his dying day in 1826. Even the more conservative founder John Adams came to harbor deep misgivings about unchecked corporate power.

(snip)

Contemporary America is a nation almost wholly under the dominion of plutocratically wealthy, corporate quarterly-profit über alles overlords. A seamless web of corporate power connects our multinational corporations with our mass media—now almost wholly owned by a handful of mega-corporations. This military-industrial-media complex largely determines which politicians will and will not get elected. Thus they control the government. They control access to money as well as determine how a candidate will be presented to the viewers. The very policies that our “elected” officials are “allowed” to espouse are rigorously circumscribed: Remember Clinton’s national healthcare proposals? Our media will never tell us that every other developed nation on Earth has universal health care for their citizens. Arguably, our corporate media has seen to it that the average American is as brainwashed as is say, the average citizen of North Korea. Our primary role in this atrocious system is simply to consume. We are consumers, corporate subjects, not citizens. Under this materialistic system our lives are devoid of deep meaning as we are conditioned to work ever harder and go ever deeper in debt to accumulate ever more useless junk as though if we just piled up enough of this crap we would somehow, magically, become happy.

What is to be done? Let’s open our eyes and admit that the emperor has no clothes. Let’s admit that our democratic, constitutional, system was derailed more than a century ago. Until we return power to the hands of flesh and blood citizens EXCLUSIVELY, until corporations are summarily striped of “personhood”, until this legal obscenity is abolished, we can have no real freedom, democracy cannot flourish. Furthermore, to ensure that the will of the people is respected and reigns supreme, all members of our federal judiciary must face periodic reelection by the citizens—just as is the case for our judiciary here in California. Until and unless these things come to pass we cannot be a free people. Because we are fundamentally NOT a free people, because our ability to act and to build freely upon our inspirations is constrained by corporate forces beyond our present control, we cannot live up to our full potentials as human beings. Once these goals are accomplished there shall be such an explosion of innovation in economic and political and scientific entrepreneurship as to make Periclean Athens seem timid. It’s up to each of us to act NOW. Freedom itself hangs in the balance.

- more . . .

http://www.liberalslant.com/mpb052403.htm

.....“serving the public good.”

most government watchdogs are merely prostitutes serving corporate needs.

In California we have a public utilities commission that is bought and sold and castrated by SBC and Edison.

complete and total whores.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

And entirely too many Americans are completely uninformed about this state of affairs.

End corporate rule...take away corporate personhood!

not just in america but the ''western world'', they will have to enact some version of jefferson's vision.

there's no way to sustain a just society or the vision of one without it -- corporations have become the new nobility -- and have far too much influence on government and receive far too much of governments benefits and protections.

country wanted government to function.

I wish they'd have all been on the same page. Would have made things alot easier today. Even so, their words are still twisted and corporate CEO's pretend that their labor is the labor Jefferson and Lincoln sought to protect.

and that His son is Our Lord Jesus Christ.

I know you were being smart, but I had to point that part out.:)

Democracy will not survive as long as corporations have personhood rights. Because they do not need clean air, clean water, health care, vital communities, all the things that living beings need, I believe our planet is at great risk. A corporation's only goal is profit.

Because corporations have accumulated wealth, because they never die, because they can split themselves into two or more entities, because they can change their nationality in the time it takes to file a legal paper, & mostly because (due to their personhood rights) they are able to get involved in our political process, corporations have unequal influence, unequal rights & unequal protections.

What's really a pisser is the Supreme Court never ruled that corporations have personhood status. Instead, the declaration of personhood rights was made in the header notes of the case by an overzealous court clerk who was devoted to the interests of the railroads. Now it is taken as law.

Below is a link to an excellent book on the topic, although it made my blood boil! WE THE PEOPLE need to be made aware of the travesty to democracy that is corporate personhood. Most people I mention it to have no idea what corporate personhood is & how it has impacted our lives.

"Unequal Protection : The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights" by Thom Hartmann

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1579549551/qid=1129999835/sr=8-8/ref=pd_bbs_8/104-5792740-7358366?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Also, the link in my sig has a great corporate personhood section!

The corporatocracy is so entrenched, so powerful, the tentacles over lap with neoconn and religious right wing groups and are so entwined with shared interests that this seems like an impossible change to achieve.

to run for county commissioner next year. we need to kick the corporatists out of their entrenched positions. see my post below.

Will check your thread.

Corporate personhood was enshrined as a legal doctrine in Santa Clara Cty. V. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. In that decision, the SCOTUS found- in the headnotes, but not the actual case decision- that the personhood of corporations was already established, and stated they were not willing to hear or rule upon arguments to that effect.

In other words, the issue of corporate personhood was never argued before the SCOTUS- they simply accepted as a given truth, without debate. I think it would make a good test case to challenge the political donations and access of the largest corporate political contributors, but I have no idea how such an argument would take form.

Any case challenging corporate personhood before the Court would have to be all-encompassing; i.e., not merely addressing an aspect of the doctrine, but rather, the whole of the doctrine itself.

Note that this is a legal doctrine based entirely upon the precedent established by many cases, and not upon an actual law.

from dog catcher on up. This will build a "farm team" to eventually move to more significant offices. We need to supplant the corporatists, Dems and Repukes alike.

:patriot:

From the Farewell Radio and Television Address to the American People by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961:

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peace time, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations.

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 huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.


Link: http://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu/farewell.htm

"An alert and knowledgebale citizenry" - that's why it was important to the neo-cons to gain control of the media.

There is a lot of wisdom in this address (and some others of his). It is well worth reading.

I see in the near future a crisis approaching. It unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than an autocracy, more selfish than a bureaucracy, denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon crimes.
I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me & the financial institutions at the rear; the latter is my greatest foe. Corporations have been enthroned and 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 the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed.

Abraham Lincoln

I didn't know about this, and I have read a great deal about Jefferson as well as Adams and Madison.

Thanks, I learned something new today. :)

The answer is: be free. Free yourself from the corporate control on your life. Buy second hand and buy local, refuse the national eateries, clothers and other mass marketeers.

Help throw the electronic voting machines into the bay, it's all part of a modern day 'Boston Tea Party'.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203
Being organized in the Election Reform Forum

...have not only monopolized land, money, resources and our public airwaves, they now own the election system as well, which has been completely privatized, with electronic voting and vote tabulation run on "trade secret," proprietary programming code, owned and controlled by major Bush donors and supporters (Diebold and ES&S). This was accomplished in the 2001-2004 period, with the collusion of many Democratic leaders, under the guise of "election reform." The loop of corruption and enslavement of the American people is complete.

Poor Jefferson! He also wanted an anti-slavery plank in the Declaration of Independence, but got overruled by his southern brethren.

Well, time for American Revolution II, I think. Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

Nothing's going to change--or be changeable--until we restore transparent elections.

We need...

Paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level (--Canada does it in one day, although speed should not even be a consideration, just accuracy and verifiability)

or, at the least

Paper ballot (not "paper trail") backup of all electronic voting, a 10% automatic recount, very strict security, and NO SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code! (...jeez!).

nt

n/t

when the US started out a long time ago. But corporatists have been at it ever since to weaken that legislation - and they have been quite successfull.

This is how it used to be:




Somehow we got from there to corporations being protected against lawsuits from citizens, and having the right to sue a government before a Free Trade Tribunal;

Do you have links to an original source for this assertion? Not a blog, but an original source. Thanks.