Why won't you pledge to abolish corporate personhood?

	Duration: 00:30 minutes Upload Time: 2007-07-28 11:24:14 User: MikePryslak :::: Favorites :::: Top Videos of Day
Description: Click more to read why this is vital. The U.S. Constitution, which defines our nation of popular sovereignty, boldly begins with three simple words, written large, "We the People." These three famous words convey responsibility equally to all people to make our own laws. But "We the People" have never included all the people. Those in power always try to maintain power. Initially, only land-owning white men voted. It took a century, the Civil War and three constitutional amendments to abolish slavery and let black men vote. The 19th Amendment ratified in 1920 let women vote. In the 1960s, amendments eliminated poll taxes to protect poor, mostly black voters, and allowed Washington DC voters to participate in presidential elections. In 1971, the 26th Amendment established a consistent national minimum voting age. But as soon as freed male slaves were allowed to vote, the wealthiest white men created a better way to maintain control. Starting in the 1880s, ironically using the 14th Amendment, one of the Reconstruction Amendments that abolished the legal fiction that a person was property, corporate attorneys convinced a few judges (who were previously corporate attorneys) to create corporate personhood, the legal fiction that property is a person. This gave corporations, which are non-human, artificial legal entities for owning property, some of the rights intended for freed slaves. Toiling another century, more attorneys convinced more judges to expand corporate rights to add protections from the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments. (Legislators who were elected through the largesse of corporations shoulder the blame for allowing these decisions to stand.) Today, corporate personhood is fully mature, giving corporations all the rights necessary to combine with their wealth to control our governance. Using modern media and marketing science, voters are persuaded which candidates to elect. With gifts, campaign contributions and no spending limits on lobbyists, lawmakers are influenced. "We the People" are not in control; instead, non-humans dominate the process of making laws that control humans! Corporations are directed by more than humans. Although corporations were initially created centuries ago by lawmakers for the purpose of serving the public good, they now must obey legal obligations to strive for profit, not public good. Corporations are not human, they simply don't share our morality or mortality and they have no business participating in the process of making laws that govern people. Democracy embodies the ideal of one person, one vote, but corporations have hijacked democracy by diminishing the power of all our votes below the influence of their wealth. To gain control, humans must ban corporations from politics using a constitutional amendment that abolishes corporate personhood. Corporations serve a vital function in our society; they allow capital to be combined to accomplish amazing things. They drive our glorious way of life and prosperity. We must provide corporations with the rights and tools they need to thrive while serving the public good; we can do that without letting them participate in our law making process. But they'll use their persuasive powers to disagree. They'll vilify candidates who promise to limit corporate influence. We must be strong and ignore their deluge of ads and pundits, and only vote for candidates who put "We the People" above "We the Corporations." If you believe in America's ideals for democracy, that all people are created equal and have an inalienable right to govern themselves, then you have a civic obligation to understand how corporate personhood nullifies democracy. Watch the documentary ~The Corporation~ on YouTube at http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pin8fbdGV9Y&feature=PlayList&p=FA50FBC214A6CE87&index=0&playnext=1 to learn more about the nature of corporations and corporate personhood. Click http://tinyurl.com/yv33og to search the Internet for more information about corporate personhood. Visit http://10Questions.com to vote for the questions you want presidential candidates to answer. Script of video: I'm Mike Pryslak from Miami (Florida) and the candidate who promises to rein in corporations and ban their money from politics gets my vote. Our democracy is dying because corporations and their wealthiest owners control our country. With no spending limits on lobbyists who direct lawmakers and media that sways voters, individuals, and often the truth, are silenced. Why won't you pledge to abolish corporate personhood, so we can relegate corporations to serving the public good as they were originally intended instead of letting them control us? Thank you.
Comments
sandcrab13 ::: Favorites I certainly hope that you consider Unions in your "big corporations in politics" issue, because most of the top political donors are unions giving money to Democrats (6 of the current top 10!). Go check and of the political donation web-sites and check out the "Top Donors". 07-10-22 19:22:46 __________________________________________________
truthtrekker ::: Favorites We need to abolish the IRS!!!! The income tax is an illegal and unconstitutional tribute to the central bankers who print the money from nothing and charge We the People interest on the face value of notes they created form thin air!!! Vote RON PAUL 2008!!! ABOLISH THE PRIVATELY OWNED FEDERAL RESERVE AND IRS!!!! 07-09-23 18:53:27 __________________________________________________
RobbieXyOhio ::: Favorites Voters, when are you going to get smart and only vote for those few candidates who put DEMOCRACY first? All other issues will only be solved right when we have a working DEMOCRACY. That's something we gave away long ago. It's time to get it back. DEMAND that your representatives promise to focus on DEMOCRACY first. BAN CORPORATE MONEY FROM POLITICS! I just posted a similar comment on your same video on I-Caught. Robbie, Ohio 07-08-10 11:15:55 __________________________________________________
RobbieXyOhio ::: Favorites Politicians, when are you going to have the COURAGE to ban corporate money from politics? When are you going to have the COURAGE to pass laws to make elections publicly funded? When are you going to have the COURAGE to pass term limits, proportional representation, proportional voting? When are you going to acknowledge that DEMOCRACY is the FOUNDATION of our country and you've let our democracy DIE? When are you going to have the COURAGE to speak the truth? 07-08-10 11:15:02 __________________________________________________
RobbieXyOhio ::: Favorites Washington is RUN by lobbyists - people who are paid a lot of money to do nothing but get lawmakers to vote the way they want them to vote. If lobbyists weren't successful, then the companies that pay them would stop paying them. Since they're still getting paid, they're successful. 07-08-10 11:14:18 __________________________________________________
RobbieXyOhio ::: Favorites Mr. Pryslak, you are wrong. Our democracy isn't dying, it's DEAD! Getting rid of corporate personhood is the key to solving our other problems. No matter what other issue we're talking about - war, oil, immigration, health care, schools, highways, whatever - the companies with the most to gain or lose bombard us with ads, true or false, but so well made that our human nature kicks in and we either believe what they tell us or we're too distracted to care. 07-08-10 11:13:10 __________________________________________________
MikePryslak ::: Favorites I hope you're wrong and CNN will recognize that ABOLISHING CORPORATE PERSONHOOD is the first step to solving all our country's other problems. Corporations serve an important function in our society and should be allowed to propser, however, their interests should not be put above ours. Corporations exist because we elected representatives who wrote laws to authorize them to exist. We should be able to control corporations; they should not be able to dominate our public dialog. 07-08-01 21:37:52 __________________________________________________
Lois56133 ::: Favorites It would be nice if money were not running the country, but, it is. The corporations have the money and the power to keep any legislation restricting them from being passed. Unless the voting public can be persuaded to endorse this cause so that the candidates would know they have the people behind them in this matter, a political candidate would be afraid of the loss of corporations' campaign money. CNN is a corporation, so it will be a miracle if your question makes it to the debate. 07-08-01 17:58:04 __________________________________________________
catgil3 ::: Favorites A topic of importance, and another question that will not get asked in the debates. I agree with RobbieXyOhio and Paula5544. Unfortunately the political/corporate/media/military system will fend off any real inquiries into business as usual. Yet we need to keep trying - democracy makes headway only as far as people force it forward. 07-07-30 11:25:07 __________________________________________________
paula5544 ::: Favorites I just watched the YouTube video "CNN/YouTube Presidential Debate Media Critique" by ssmackley submitted on July 26th. Her question on energy was used on the last CNN debate. There's no way CNN will air your question because CNN is a big part of the corporate media. CNN needs the status quo to prosper. 07-07-30 08:35:53 __________________________________________________