ATDTDA (5): The American Corporation

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Joseph T:
This passage which Dave reminds us about, and the discussion leading  
up to it  and following it give 2 interpretations  of "the  
unfortunate events to the north, the bad dream I still try to awake  
from, the great city brought to sorrow and ruin (The I here is F  
Vibe) ) .
  One interp is that the corporation as a kind of superhuman being. . . .

. . . .and the only reason why I'm forshortening Joseph T's  brilliant response 
is for the sake of brevity, this part of Dave Monroe's original posting 
pertains. . . .

14th. Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution

http://www.nps.gov/archive/malu/documents/amend14.htm

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxiv.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/ 
constitution_amendments_11-27.html

Beginning in the 1880s, the Court interpreted the Fourteenth
Amendment's Due Process Clause as providing substantive protection to
corporate interests. The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment
protected "freedom of contract", or the right of employees and
employers to bargain for wages without great interference from the
state....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/ 
constitution_amendments_11-27.html

Beginning in the 1880s, the Court interpreted the Fourteenth
Amendment's Due Process Clause as providing substantive protection to
corporate interests. The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment
protected "freedom of contract", or the right of employees and
employers to bargain for wages without great interference from the
state....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Civil_and_other 
 _individual_rights

''Persons'' Defined .--Notwithstanding the historical controversy that
has been waged concerning whether the framers of the Fourteenth
Amendment intended the word ''person'' to mean only natural persons,
or whether the word was substituted for the word ''citizen'' with a
view to protecting corporations from oppressive state legislation, the
Supreme Court, as early as the Granger Cases, decided in 1877, upheld
on the merits various state laws without raising any question as to
the status of railway corporation plaintiffs to advance due process
contentions. There is no doubt that a corporation may not be deprived
of its property without due process of law, and although prior
decisions had held that the ''liberty'' guaranteed by the Fourteenth
Amendment is the liberty of natural, not artificial, persons,
nevertheless a newspaper corporation was sustained, in 1936, in its
objection that a state law deprived it of liberty of press. As to the
natural persons protected by the due process clause, these include all
human beings regardless of race, color, or citizenship....

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/03.html#3


Dave Monroe points out how the legally accepted boundries and 
definitions for corporations have subsumed the original intent of the 14th 
amendment (and we all know how frequent the topick good of old fashioned civil 
rights are for our beloved author). Now note further the most notable recent 
corporate incursion into the 14th amendment:

"And as  for the "equal protection" clause of the 14th amendment to the 
constitution, adopted July 28, 1868, an amendment purposefully enacted with the 
African-American in mind, it has been used by the Supreme Court of the United 
States to hand the presidency of the United States to a southern Christian 
conservative who thinks of Jesus as his model political philosopher. This 
president immediately nominated a right wing Christian lawyer to the post of of 
attorney general who said, "We have no king but Jesus" (Pollitt, 2001). An 
article by Vincent Bugliosi explains that the Court had never accepted 
the equal protection arguement in any case brought 
before it by blacks or in cases having to do with discrimination, and that 
accepting the argument in this case clearly violated both the intention and the 
legality of the application of the law. Those who followed the events of the 
presidential election in 2000, and especially the post-election fracas in 
Florida, will understand the motivations confirmed by that Supreme Court ruling 
(December 12, 2000). Bugliosi concludes that " . . . the real equal protection 
violation [in this case] took place when [the court] cut off the counting of the 
undervotes" (2001). Equal protection? Equality? Integration? As Jimmy Carter 
explained the reasons for writing an account of his childhood in Georgia 
"We need to recognize that the racial issue has not been dealt with" (2001). 
That means that something is terribly wrong in America. If "American" means 
living here in this land and taking part in its life and work, the African-American 
is the most American of any other immigrant people, but the least recognized 
as worthy of equal rights and equal protection under the law. Even at the 
height of the civil rights activity when Ralph Bunch, a brilliant black American 
with stellar credentials in international diplomancy for the united Nations, 
asked the Congress of the United States to declare lynching illegal, the 
request was refused."

Burton L. Mack: The Christian Myth, 189/190

I'm sure that Dave can find that M&D quote that starts: "How could it happen 
here. . . .", with such promise of liberty for all. Strange how the 14th 
amendment is used to bolster coporate power, this latest incursion perhaps not 
so visible to the general populace, but hopefully examined in its larger context 
by future historians. As for this being specifically a "Corporate" incursion, 
consider closed door meetings with Enron to determine public policy as regards 
environmental protection or Haliburton's no bid contracts for work in Iraq.