[GPSCC-chat] Fw: Corporations are not people.

[Caroline Yacoub]

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Ralph Nader <publiccitizen at mail.democracyinaction.org>
To: carolineyacoub at att.net
Sent: Thu, July 29, 2010 9:44:18 AM
Subject: Corporations are not people.


Friend,

If one central issue drove our campaign, it was subordinating corporate power to 
people power.

The Supreme Court underscored the urgency of this project in January, when it 
ruled that corporations have the free speech rights that belong exclusively to 
living, breathing humans. The First Amendment guarantees corporations the right 
to spend whatever they choose to influence election outcomes, the Court ruled.

But corporations are not humans, to state a truism apparently not evident to the 
Court's five-justice majority. We have to take action to rescue our democracy 
from corpocracy.

Please read the note below from Robert Weissman, the president of Public 
Citizen, an organization I founded almost 40 years ago to confront and curtail 
excessive corporate power.

Ralph Nader

________________________________

Add your name to the tens of thousands demanding a constitutional amendment to 
overturn the Supreme Court ruling that will allow corporations to take over our 
democracy.

Friend,

Pick up a copy of the U.S. Constitution. Can you find the word corporation in 
it? You cannot.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees you and me - living, breathing human beings, 
citizens of the United States - the right to free speech.

In one of the greatest affronts to our democracy ever, however, five justices of 
the U.S. Supreme Court decided in January, in Citizens United v. Federal 
Election Commission, that corporations have free speech rights just like you and 
me.

And, decreed the Court, that includes the right to spend whatever corporations 
like to support or oppose candidates for elected office.

We can't afford to let this decision stand!

Sign Public Citizen's petition calling for a constitutional amendment to 
overturn this corporate coup.

And then forward this message to five friends. We're going to win this fight, 
but it's going to take a mass mobilization.

If you care at all about the value of your vote and the future of American 
democracy, or about reforming health care, reining in Big Oil, halting climate 
change, reregulating Wall Street, stopping consumer ripoffs, or promoting a just 
trade policy, I urge you to act now and sign the petition.
Our petition calls upon Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification 
a constitutional amendment to restore the First Amendment and fair elections to 
the people. It specifies that corporations do not have First Amendment speech 
rights.

Yes, corporations already pour money into politics. But things can get worse.

And, after the Supreme Court's decision, they will.

Consider this: In the most recent election cycle (2007-2008), a little over $5.2 
billion was spent on all 468 congressional races and the presidential contest 
combined.

In the same time frame, ExxonMobil registered profits of $85 billion.

$85 billion.

Seventeen times the total amount spent on federal election contests.

So, in just one election cycle, a tiny fraction of Exxon's profits could be used 
to buy our politicians. Lock, stock and barrel.
There are measures available to mitigate the harm from the decision. We must 
have public financing of elections. We need better donor disclosure rules. The 
federal government should refuse to buy goods and services from any company with 
a federal contract (and states and locales should act similarly). Shareholders 
should be required to approve any corporate political expenditure by an 
affirmative vote. Public Citizen is working on all of these.

But while these measures can offset the damage from Citizens United, the only 
way to get corporate money out of our elections is to overturn the decision 
itself. That requires a constitutional amendment. Corporations are not people, 
and they are not entitled to the First Amendment's protections of the expressive 
and democratic participative rights of real, live human beings.

The only way to get that job done is with a constitutional amendment overturning 
Citizens United and establishing the principle that the First Amendment and our 
democracy belong to We, the People, not Exxon, GE or Walmart.

So, please sign the petition, and then forward this message to five friends.

Onward,

Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen 
To get regular e-alerts about opportunities for activism and other ways to help 
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