The Murray Hill gambit is brilliant!  I’ve seen rantings about how this current SCOTUS decision is such an Orwellian nightmare, yeah, yeah, yeah.  And an equal number of breast-beatings from my side of the fence bemoaning people’s ignorance of history being a major problem.  Well?  Corporations ALREADY had status as persons. They have for 100 years.

When I heard about the decision, I realized the S.C.—liberal or conservative—could do little else but follow a line of decision dating back a century. Their job instant was not to re-evaluate the person/corporation situation, but decide whether the question at hand was legal—i.e., under the law AS IT IS, does a corporation have the same right as a person to donate to election campaigns.  And UNDER EXISTING LAW, it must have all the rights of a “person” if it is to have ANY.

Like the problem with things like the Dred Scott decision, the original decision a LONG time ago was a bad one, and from it all sorts of rotten things sprang.  The only way to change this was to find—or create—a situation in which the basic law would be challenged.

If the basic law is shown to be wrong—and, in the case of corporations being “persons,” utterly ludicrous—it will need to be argued and (with luck, and some grassroots pressure, and a sensible court), struck down.  And THAT is a game-changer.

Ahhhh, Corps = People implies Bad Corps go-to Bad People Prison. We need bigger prisons to hold them ... in subcontracted Mexico.

Fathoms,

That is exactly the kind of thinking we the people need right now.  Keep at it!  We the people need to starting thinking, get positive, and try to make some change that’s not got all of the failings of other movements, like the nationalism of the so-called t-baggers, the cynicism of the punk era, or the naivete of the hippies.  Let’s be smart this time around.

Let’s every American realize, after we shut off the infotainment (and trade it in for more objective journalism and our own logic and analyzation skills—I use anywhere from 8-14 sources of news a day, and analyze all of them, especially the biased right or left ones…a task not everyone has time for—) which has kept so many of us feeling hopeless and fragmented, isolated. 

Anyone in my immediate life that has called me crazy or a conspiracy theorist for ranting about plutocracy for the last 8 years has only to look now at the recent supreme court (tm) decision to see just the macabre extent so much of this nation’s democratic aspirations have been outsourced or privatized to more corporate dominance and influence.

We must realize that overall democrats and republicans are equally vacuous, and have failed at leading and representing we the people for quite some time.  We have tried them, and now it is obvious what our votes get.  Time to move on to new and better things.

Collectively we need to stand up in whatever ways we can to try and bring in different kinds of political thinking, and make hybrids if we have to of things like socialist-libertarianism out of the 1800’s anarcho-syndicalist movements.  We are brave people, and so many Americans have worked so hard to acheive social goals and social ideals that benefited all people.  We have that ability.  It’s in our blood.

What we’ve had since the fabricated banking panics of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s created by financiers like JP Morgan which led to Wilson signing the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 is essentially that the people have to pay for the mistakes the banking industry has made due to fundimental flaws of capitalism.  This has led to the military-industrial complex which inherently forces nations into buying into a fiat currency.

We are wage slaves renting our own existences, in a land that runs on consumerism (70% of the GDP) and the want creation of commodity fetishism in the society of the spectacle where necessary illusions are needed to manufacture the consent.  simulation and simulacra.  the collective fairytale that ours is a democracy is beginning to crumble to the average politically disinterested person.

Logical conclusion and all, but more fascinating real world implications include say, criminal liability.  If a corporation-who after all can only act through people-is guilty, then imprison them.  No corps to send to prison? I suppose you’d have shut the corporation down for the duration of the sentence (and apply sentencing guidelines).  And take away all political rights (like those just bestowed).  Imagine Boeing being closed for its defense contractor fraud.

Anyway, on one level the new landscape removes the fiction of believing that, e.g., Joe Lieberman is a senator rather than a placeholder for some other entity.  (I know, bad example, what with Lieberman’s humanity subject to serious question).

Google for president

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a4mv6q80zqVY

AIG for president, Citibank for VP and Goldman-sacks for Treasury in a perfect world.

.....wow…...if this corporation is allowed to run, i pray there will be a complete protest and uprising against our “democracy”......

I don’t think corporations can be elected.  The practicle aspects in either house of Congress would make it impossible.  I believe only the person elected to office is allowed to vote.  No one on the staff, nor a spouse can vote in their place (recent examples are Byrd or the late Ted Kennedy having to be wheeled in to vote).  If you have a corporation, there is no person to vote.  The rules of Congress would have to be changed to let anyone vote.  This would make Senators and Representatives relatively irrelevant.  I don’t think members of Congress will choose to make themselves irrelevant.

If being a living breathing person is no longer an obstacle to be elected, then I have a better suggestion. I choose a person who is hgihly respected by everyone in this country in both parties.  He has a famous name so would easily have name recognition.  He retired when many wished for him to stay on, so term limits will not be an issue.  He had a stellar military career. 

I nominate George Washington.