[-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 62, Issue 22

[Christiane Robbins]

I response not in the spirit of nationalism but of understanding a  
specific precept of democracy as it has been constituted in the USA.   
Quickly, in response to John - my understanding is basically in  
keeping with the following Wiki statement ( I know, I know! ) :

:The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States  
Constitution, along with the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, was  
adopted after the Civil War as one of the Reconstruction Amendments on  
July 9, 1868. The amendment provides a broad definition of  
citizenship, overruling the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857),  
which had excluded slaves, and their descendants, from possessing  
Constitutional rights; this was used in the mid-20th century to  
dismantle racial segregation in the United States, as in Brown v.  
Board of Education (1954). Its Due Process Clause has been used to  
apply most of the Bill of Rights to the states. This clause has also  
been used to recognize: (1) substantive due process rights, such as  
parental and marriage rights; and (2) procedural due process rights  
requiring that certain steps, such as a hearing, be followed before a  
person's "life, liberty, or property" can be taken away. The  
amendment's Equal Protection Clause requires states to provide equal  
protection under the law to all people within their jurisdictions. The  
amendment also includes a number of clauses dealing with the  
Confederacyand its officials.

______

Corporate Personhood was based on the following:  Santa Clara County  
v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886) was a United  
States Supreme Court case dealing with taxation of railroad  
properties. The case is most notable for the obiter dictum statement  
that corporations are entitled to protection under the Fourteenth  
Amendment.[1][2]
For its opinion, the Court consolidated three separate cases:
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company
California v. Central Pacific Railroad Company
California v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company
_________

If my recollection is accurate, Leland Stanford was the President of  
the private corporation: Southern Pacific Railroad.  I leave it to  
legal scholars to parse this case law.
_____________

This is not so much a partisan issue to my mind.... it lies squarely  
within the realm of governance, legality and politics ( on both sides  
of the aisle ) ... and the manipulations therein.  It is one which  
speaks of the tectonic plates shifting causing tremors in the  
foundation of a democracy. Certainly Bush appointed this court -  
firmly in keeping with the long-standing strategic directives of the  
Heritage Foundation. However, I find that the mantle of Republicanism  
is thinly veiled and highly manipulated by more furtive motivations.   
Perhaps all of the recent past years of the culture wars and  
teabagging were merely sidelines - a distraction - to what happened on  
January 21st... which some, on both the left and right , are tagging  
as a corporate coup.... all boiling down rather simplistically to  
money and power.... but that in itself is not a conclusively binary  
positioning of the good and bad guys of partisan politics.

I will read Stevens dissent ... however ... it leaves the question  
squarely on the table as to how democracy moves forward unfettered by  
capitalistic governance, as I'm unsure where the principle of checks  
and balances comes into play and how anyone can offer an effective  
dissent.

Worse case scenario looks like ... it may just be  philip k. dick land  
from here on out...


Best,

C


On Jan 23, 2010, at 2:24 PM, John Haber wrote:

> I must say I'm a little appalled at the idea that the problem is the
> 14th amendment itself and, in particular, that it must be challenged
> because it's inherently unfair to single out former slaves, whereas a
> better legal framework would guarantee protection for all.  There's a
> lot wrong here.
>
> First, the 14th amendment already does say plain and simply that all
> persons deserve equal rights under the law.  Its only mention of  
> slavery
> is in the last clause, to state that we didn't have to reimburse  
> former
> slave owners.  It's the 13th amendment, freeing the slaves, and the
> 15th, giving them the vote, that mention "race, color, or previous
> condition of servitude," and I trust we don't wish to rescind those.
>
> Second, what if it had specifically addressed the rights of African
> Americans?  It's disgusting to think that there's anything wrong with
> that.  It sounds like the right wingers complaining that whites are
> suffering from civil rights.  In fact, it sounds like the position of
> the faction of the court that reached this awful decision.
>
> Third, one could, I suppose, argue that the amendment could have been
> phrased differently to make clear that persons were, well, people.   
> The
> trouble is that the current interpretation is so ludicrous that no one
> would ever have thought of that before.
>
> Now, it's not easy to explain how the idea of corporations as persons
> under the 14th amendment came to be, along with the second plank, of
> money as speech.  It would not have occurred to a nation after the  
> Civil
> War, when corporations were relatively rare, less powerful, and often
> nonprofit.  It would seem to be denied by the text of the amendment
> itself, which starts with the phrase "born or naturalized," thus, at
> least to me, implying that "persons" are going to be life forms.
>
> It's a long history, and I'm not really qualified to tell it, so I'll
> let you look it up.  It started with a mere aside or note in a  
> decision
> largely unrelated to the point from a conservative court.  Even  
> then, it
> only slowly attained much value as precedent.  It certainly didn't  
> imply
> all this till this week.  I recommend Stevens's dissent, in fact,  
> where
> he starts right in by pointing out that, whatever value we agree to  
> give
> to corporate rights as persons, they're not the same as human rights
> since, for example, corporations can't vote or hold office (his
> examples).  Then he notes the 100 years of precedent that this  
> decision
> broke.
>
> Anyhow, we could blame the American legal system, but I suggest we  
> start
> blaming the Republicans.  I know it's hard for us liberals to organize
> rather than mourn (or backbite).  I sure felt that this week, with the
> reaction to the Massachusetts election and the readiness to blame  
> those
> who actually supported a more liberal health-care bill rather than  
> scum
> like Nelson, Landrieu, Snowe and the fiercer rest of her party, and  
> the
> media network putting out their lies.  But consider it.  Had Bush not
> got a second term, with Alito and Roberts appointed to the court, this
> decision would not have happened, and indeed no one would ever have
> dreamed it would happen.
>
> To put it another way, perhaps more relevant to Empyre, this isn't  
> about
> legal or critical theory.  It's about politics and power, and the bad
> guys won.
>
> John
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre

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