Jim Hightower: Fighting the Subversion of Our People’s Sovereignty

With one vote, the Supreme Court turns special interests into 'people' and money into 'speech'

By Jim Hightower | Published on 02.24.2010

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As you’ve probably heard, corporations are now “people” — humanoids that are equivalent to you and me. This miraculous metamorphosis happened Jan. 21. Accompanied by a blinding bolt of lightning and a terrifying jolt of thunder, five Dr. Frankensteins on the Supreme Court threw a judicial switch that endowed these pulseless paper entities with the human right to speak politically.

Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower

Never mind that inanimate corporate constructs have no tongue, brain, heart or soul. The five judicial fabricators breathed unprecedented legal life into corporations, decreeing that the vast wealth held in their corporate treasuries is their voice. With a cry of “Shazam!” the court ruled that, henceforth, every corporation — from Wal-Mart to Wall Street — is entitled to “speak” by spending unlimited sums from their treasuries to elect or defeat candidates for any and all public offices in our land, from city council to the presidency.

By a bare 5-4 majority, the justices created an artificial, uber-wealthy, political monster that will overpower everyone else’s voices. For example, just the 100 largest corporations have assets totaling more than $13 trillion. No combination of human people’s political organizations can amass even a tiny fraction of that spending power.

With their ruling, five unelected guys in black robes have subverted our people’s sovereignty with a semantical perversion that twists special-interest things into “people” and money into “speech.” In doing so, the Supreme Five have substituted their personal political views for the clearly expressed wisdom of America’s founders, every Congress since Teddy Roosevelt’s time, 22 states, dozens of cities, the court’s own precedents and the People themselves.

Bizarrely, the five court corporatists seemed to think that their sneak attack on America’s democratic ideals was so cleverly done that it would be meekly accepted by the public and even widely applauded. Hardly. The ink of their signatures on this absurd opinion wasn’t dry before the justices were pelted with ridicule. “Hey,” one blogger demanded, “it’s time to reinstitute the draft.”

Others raised an intriguing constitutional conundrum that the court obviously failed to contemplate. Since the 13th Amendment bans slavery, which is the ownership of a person, the newly born corporate “persons” cannot legally be bought and sold. Thus, Wall Street — now a slave market — must be shut down! Let us all join hands and march for this new civil rights cause, chanting, “Free the corporate slaves!”

Meanwhile, Americans of all political stripes have risen in overwhelming opposition to the court’s contortion of both the Constitution and common sense. In a Washington Post-ABC poll published last week, 85 percent of Democrats, 81 percent of independents and — get this — 76 percent of Republicans reject this act of gross judicial overreach.

So, with eight of 10 Americans decrying the decree and nearly as many demanding that it be reversed, we can expect swift and decisive action from Congress. Right?

Uh, no. First, Republican leaders (who’ve consistently proven to be tail-wagging kowtowers to corporate power) flatly say they will oppose any legislation to restrict the ruling. Second, Democrats have designated Sen. Chuck Schumer to lead their effort to undo the decision. Schumer is a notorious CEO-hugging Democrat who serves as the party’s chief shaker of the corporate money tree, so sending him into this battle is like going lion hunting with a flyswatter.

Sure enough, Schumer has started by declaring that he wants a reform that can get “bipartisan support” in the Senate, and he isn’t even considering anything as bold or effective as a constitutional amendment to force these corporate behemoths out of our elections. Instead, he’s lamely offering a patchwork of regulatory fixes designed to cover up this theft of political power from actual people — fixes that corporate lawyers and lobbyists will riddle with loopholes.

To get remedies that work, We the People will have to take direct grassroots action. Already, three major national coalitions have formed to retrieve our democratic authority from the court and its corporate clients: MoveToAmend.org, FreeSpeechForPeople.org and FixCongressFirst.org.

Let’s get connected and get moving.

— Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow. Click here for more information, or click here to contact him.

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» GeeWillikersWally on 02.25.10 @ 04:06 AM

This hyperidiculous ruling proves the GOP & their annointed 5 to be a wholely owned subsidiary of Wallstreetgreed Inc.  ” Protectors of freedom of speech “, now thats a good one .

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» RKV on 02.25.10 @ 05:38 AM

Well Jim, I guess what you really want is to limit corporate speech only to those corporations which are in thrall to the Democratic Party - like GE which owns NBC.  Note that McCain-Feingold specifically excluded media corporations.  How’s about the New York Times Corporation - why should Carlos Slim be able to buy his own mouthpiece?  Closer to home are we better served by Wendy McCaw’s News-Press or by here competitors?  The whole point of this unconstitutional monstrosity was to protect incumbents and Democrats, but I repeat myself.  I for one and content with disclosure requirements, which remain in law now.  The Supes did great - and Americans will get it when the M$M dies (and it’s well on its way to doing just that).  One more data point for you Jim, Americans own stock (best current data is about 50%).  Ya think it’s bad that corporations can’t speak up for the interests of half of America?  Free speech for me, but not for thee is what you’re after Jim.  No way.

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» AN50 on 02.25.10 @ 09:38 AM

Good point RVK. Here’s another one for you, corporation, the word has its root in the word corpus or “body”. You see Jimmy and Willie, there was a reason these business entities were called corporations in the first place, they were always intended to be viewed as “people” for various legal reasons the least of which was to protect the “body” of owners (stockholders) from the abuse of government power. The British invented this concept and we here in America, being the freedom lovers we are, embraced it to protect our business assets from crown and then our new government.
Jim loves to paint corporations as the bad guys all day long, as though he were a champion of the “little” guy, but as RKV points out his bias is rather selective. The SCOTUS did nothing at all but reaffirm the original intent of corporate status and their rights under the constitution. Those that don’t like it are the same that want the largest corporation on earth, the US government, to have all the power to itself. Better watch what you wish for Jimmy.

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» local on 02.25.10 @ 12:18 PM

All I can say is:

“We the PEOPLE”. Have you heard that Walmart, Dupont and Aetna are all running for Senate? How about the massive advertizing paid for Al Queda Inc. or Venezula Corp Inc.?? The Big 5 Supremes have really made the individual insignificant while opening up our elections to undue overseas influence. Way to go!!! This has the opposite effect of badly needed campaign finance reform. Wellpoint made over $4 billion last year which is more than all of the advertizing($1 billion)that was spent on the last Presidential Election. They can buy any election now.

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» AN50 on 02.26.10 @ 01:04 PM

Ah, local, they can’t do that go read the law. Further your local unions and municipalities are also on that list of “corporations”. And they have been exempt for some time now. Where is the fairness in that, sport? Only left wing organizations have free speech? Government? Labor? Yet the entities that pay the bills get muzzled.

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» GeeWillikersWally on 02.27.10 @ 03:41 AM

AN50 , what color is the sky on your planet ?  ” The entities that pay the bills get muzzled.” Consider 14000 corporate lobbyists spending billions to twist arms on K Street . Yes ,  those poor mistreated entities you champion really had no voice in Washington til your 5 Supreme Heros of the underclass came to their rescue .

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