Re: To Restore Democracy: First Abolish Corporate Personhood
On Dec 1, 2007, at 4:03 PM, Robert Seeberger wrote: Thus, Paine and others of the Revolutionary Era reasoned, any institution made up by and of humans - from governments to churches to corporations - must be subordinate to individual living people in terms of the rights and powers held by the institution. http://www.thomhartmann.com/index.php? option=com_contenttask=viewid=183Itemid=38mosmsg=Thanks%20for% 20your%20vote! http://tinyurl.com/28xduw I'm sure that some here have already seen (and may have strong opinions, pro or con regarding) the movie The Corporation, which addresses the juristic personhood of corporations from a different angle -- it attempts to show that a corporate person, if it was a natural person, could be diagnosed as a psychopath. http://www.thecorporation.com/ It's long -- more than two hours -- and the 2-DVD set comes with another six hours of extras, so taking it all in can be quite a daunting exercise. It is not especially friendly to the concept of corporate personhood, but neither, IIRC, does it demand its abolition: It just diagnoses its unhealthy state and shows -- in sometimes endless detail -- the fallout of its bad effects. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: To Restore Democracy: First Abolish Corporate Personhood
How interesting. I've been thinking something similar lately. On Dec 1, 2007, at 5:03 PM, Robert Seeberger wrote: Thus, Paine and others of the Revolutionary Era reasoned, any institution made up by and of humans - from governments to churches to corporations - must be subordinate to individual living people in terms of the rights and powers held by the institution. http://www.thomhartmann.com/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=183Itemid=38mosmsg=Thanks%20for%20your%20vote ! http://tinyurl.com/28xduw -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: To Restore Democracy: First Abolish Corporate Personhood
At 08:16 PM Saturday 12/1/2007, Robert Seeberger wrote: On 12/1/2007 7:14:53 PM, Ronn! Blankenship ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: At 06:03 PM Saturday 12/1/2007, Robert Seeberger wrote: Thus, Paine and others of the Revolutionary Era reasoned, any institution made up by and of humans - from governments to churches to corporations - must be subordinate to individual living people in terms of the rights and powers held by the institution. http://www.thomhartmann.com/index. php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=183Itemid=38mosmsg=Thanks%20for%20your%20vote! http://tinyurl.com/28xduw Interesting article. I had not previously read that account of how corporations achieved personhood status. Some of the comments brought up some of the issues he didn't, and it would be interesting to read his responses concerning some of those before deciding if abolishing that status would likely make things better or not . . . Well.it was the comments section that was in itself interesting enough to be worth posting. Before reading the article, I would have had pretty much the same sentiment as the articles writer, but now I believe I should hold a few more reservations until some time when I've more data and time to consider more of the implications. As things stand, I still believe corporations should not have all the rights of personhood. They are really just big dumb (albeit powerful) machines designed to make profit. The problem as I see it is that corporations have rights but suffer very little when it comes to responsibility. When has a corporation been sentenced to death (and I mean in exactly the same way a person would) and executed? When a corporation causes a death, it always falls back on scapegoatism or it gets it's hands slapped with insignificant fines. The corporate right to free speech to me is a joke. Corporations can't have free speech because they can't run for office or die in the service of their countries. I suppose some wiseass here will contend that Halliburton is VP at the moment, but I would suggest that at best we have a composite Vice-President. A more serious aspect of this as a problem is that corporations cross national boundaries. How can you trust a multi-national to be loyal within a nation? xponent Serious Questions Maru rob I suspect that the real underlying problem is less the legal status of corporations or how the laws and regulations came about that give them that status as the fact that some people believe we have a need for an elite (to use the word used in one comment) and of course that they should be it. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
