The Colbert Reports goes after corporate person hood, a hot button topic for me. Thank god I don't have to write a long angry message to anyone in congress who might want to constitutionally de-humanize corporations so we can once again, kick them around and take our country back.
Jeffrey Toobin explains how the whole mess happened.
From Thom's (Hartmann) Blog, Friday 18, 2009:
During arguments in the campaign-finance case, Justice Sotomayor said, "Judges created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons. There could be an argument made that that was the court's error to start with...[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics." She's right! Because of this ruling..corporations are asserting that they...should stand side-by-side with humans in having access to the Bill of Rights.
Nike asserted...that these corporations have First Amendment rights of free speech. Dow Chemical...asserted it has Fourth Amendment privacy rights and could refuse to allow the EPA to do surprise inspections of its facilities. J.C. Penney asserted...that it had a Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from discrimination -- the Fourteenth Amendment was passed to free the slaves after the Civil War -- and that communities that were trying to keep out chain stores were practicing illegal discrimination. Tobacco and asbestos companies asserted that they had Fifth Amendment rights to keep secret what they knew about the dangers of their products.
A corporation today can have an infinite lifespan. It doesn't fear death. It doesn't fear pain or incarceration. It doesn't need fresh water to drink or clean air to breathe. It doesn't need health care or retirement. Corporations are not people and should have privileges not rights.
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