[THS] Cindy Sheehan: Last Rites for the USA

[Peter Webster]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24604.htm

Last Rites for the USA

By Cindy Sheehan

February 06, 2010 "Correo del Orinoco" -- A U.S. Supreme Court case decision from
1886, The County of Santa Clara v. the Southern Pacific Railroad (SPRR), is the
reason today that the U.S. is a corporate empire.

Many people mistakenly believe that corporations were given the same rights (not
just privileges) as persons in this Supreme Court decision, but nothing could be
farther from the truth - the reason my nation is such a dysfunctional system now is
not because of a Supreme Court decision, nor a law passed by Congress, nor by a
referendum of the people: it's because of a single statement, one sentence, spoken
by a Supreme Court Chief Justice before the hearing even began.

The founders of the U.S. did not like corporations and for the first few decades of the
existence of this nation, corporations were only given limited "privileges" and not
"rights," but after the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1868 -
which extended equal protection under the law to all male citizens of the U.S
regardless of race - attorneys for the corporations recognized the opportunity that
had been gifted to them and started to scheme for corporate personhood.

After many assaults against common law, finally a perfect test case came up before
the Supreme Court, the previously referenced case. The case was brought before the
Supremes because the SPRR (the Halliburton of the 19th Century) objected to the
fact the state of California would not allow it to deduct mortgage costs on its vast
holdings from its before tax income as could private citizens.

The Supreme Court did not even try that case to grant corporate personhood - the
reason corporations now have 14th Amendment protections is because of a
statement made by Chief Justice Waite: "The court does not wish to hear argument
on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion
that it does."

This one sentence changed the frame of North American politics in a very corrupt
way. 1886 is when the "noble experiment" of representative republicanism died.
Despite some populist stabs at "anti-trust" laws and labor unionism, today we find
that the U.S. system of government is "by and for" the corporations.

On Thursday, January 21, 2010 - a (little noticed) U.S. Supreme Court decision took
our critically ill republic that has been on life support and effectively murdered it.

Our elections have been compromised and the presidential candidates have been
chosen for us by the tyranny of the oligarchy for many decades, and we the people
of the U.S. are allowed to cast our votes to give us the appearance that we have a
voice in our nation, but now with the decision in the recent United Citizens v. The
Federal Elections Commission even any appearance of representation for the people
has been overturned.

In this decision, the Supreme Court removed limits from corporate campaign
expenditures stating that even limiting these contributions in the first place put
restrictions on a corporations' 1st Amendment rights to free speech.

Corporations have long held sway over our government and the soft fascism of
corporate control has been running things behind the scenes.

However, the decision in United Citizens v. The Federal Elections Commission that
expanded a mouth-less and mindless corporation's freedom of speech has effectively
gagged 300 million more of us that don't have billions of dollars to buy the votes of
our politicians who are just extensions of such crime cartels as Goldman Sachs,
anyway.

I believe that United Citizens v. The FEC will go down in the history books as one of
the most important, and most destructive Supreme Court decisions in U.S. history
and we should just drop all pretense at democracy and call our leaders President
Goldman and VP Sachs.

Cindy Sheehan - Cindy Sheehan is a US peace activist and founder of Peace of the
Action, an anti-war organization that promotes profound structural change in the US.