Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Is there Anything Like the Corporate Personhood Debate?


Know ye anything so interesting as this corporate personhood debate? Listen up to the history and know it is so.

Citizens United produces and schedules airing of a movie critical of Hillary Clinton right before the 2008 Democratic primaries. But before the video-on-demand can reach TVs, the government blocks it.
 

The Citizens United folks are outraged, of course, so they take their case to court.

 And, a great case it is. It goes all the way to the Supreme Court, where (two years too late) the court rules the First Amendment has been trampled on and violated.

Now, it is the opponents of Citizens United who are outraged. So much so, they start a movement to amend the constitution, preventing those such as Citizens United from ever again being able to claim such a thing as First Amendment privilege.


Citizens United is but a corporate personhood, they argue, and should not be parading around as though it were due any First Amendment rights. Rights are for people, not corporations, they argue. Citizens United is not a person. Corporations are not people.

It's simple: People are people and that's where peoplehood ends.

To them, corporate personhood is the great American evil.

Now, here's an entanglement: ReclaimDemocracy.org -- one of the organizations set up to fight corporate personhood, was registered as a private, nonprofit organization -- same as Citizens United. If Citizens United is a corporation, and therefore not entitled to free speech, why should ReclaimDemocracy -- being the same type of an organization -- have free speech?

And, here's another twist: Citizens United suggests its mission is to restore the American government to "citizens control." That's hardly different than what the anti corporate personhood people aim to achieve.

So, know ye anything so interesting as this debate over corporate personhood?

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