[Original 1/31/2012 Post]

I’ve been thinking a lot about corporate personhood lately – all the controversy surrounding Citizens United v. FEC, which protects unlimited, undisclosed corporate political donations as “free speech”.  We built up a good wiki page about this in the New Economic Charter last fall.  In that page, constitutional amendments proposed by US Rep. Jim McGovern, US Rep. Ted Deutch, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that would reverse Citizens United v. FEC are described.  This, of course, is an idea that radio personality Thom Hartmann has been pushing for several years:  a constitutional amendment that curtails the construct of corporate personhood and the ability of said legal persons to manipulate our political system for their own purposes.

In the current Congress, those amendments appear to have zero chances of passage.  Will they ever?  The sluices carrying corporate and wealthy individuals’ money into politics are so wide open now that the legendary Morganza Spillway (remember that?  how soon we forget!) is a mere tinkle beside that torrent.

Consistent with this, our society’s autophagy continues unabated…  Barack Obama trumpets ever more desperate and expensive efforts to wring fossil fuels from the land.  The health-extraction industry keeps growing at a rate many multiples of the CPI.  Entergy Nuclear Corp. continues its court-supported stare-down of the entire political and civic establishment of the State of Vermont.

Here’s a crazy thought.  Let’s assume there won’t be any constitutional or judicial relief for decades – generations, even – until the excess of dysfunction over whatever good corporations can achieve is so overshot that Americans rise up as one nation and actually vote in their own interests, beating corporate personhood back to something resembling the mid-20th century corp., or the German soziale Marktwirtschaft.  Admittedly, this is a lunatic’s raving.

What to do in the meantime?

Idea: turn the situation on its head.  By this, I mean, act as if every corporate employee, from the CEO down to the shipping room clerk, is personally and unboundedly responsible for everything the corporation does.  Make it personal.  Confront them.  Refuse to deal with them.  Insult them.  Ostracize them.  Spill things on their sleeves.  Conduct a citizen’s arrest.  Tell them they can’t hide behind that big old giant Corporate Person anymore.  We don’t buy it.  Sure, sure…  ”Good people working for bad companies.”  Right.  Like, “what’s a nice girl like you doing, working for a nasty company like that?”  Tell them that if they’re going to get to pass the responsibility up to a giant mega-construct that abstracts away human morality, accountability, citizenship, and civic duty – yet enjoys Bill of Rights protections – then tell them, nope, we’re going to start at the other end of the pipe now.  You are your corporation.  It’s fractal: the whole corporation and all its deeds and misdeeds reproduced in every little human atom of its structure.

Yikes!

That’ll cause a stir.

And illustrate the complete absurdity of the situation we have created in the Virtual Forbidden City that our klepto-capitalist society has become.

Time to Get Personal!

OccupyMBA!

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February 28, 2012 “Get Personal!” Update

Wow.  This is actually being put into practice.  Check out the campaign that Rebuild the Dream is launching against Freddie Mac:

From: Natalie Foster, Rebuild the Dream <info@rebuildthedream.com>

Subject: Let’s pop Freddie Mac’s bubble

Date: February 28, 2012 11:34:44 AM EST

To: …

Reply-To: info@rebuildthedream.com

Dear NNN,The heads of Freddie Mac and JPMorgan Chase aren’t getting the message. Arturo de los Santos and his family are heroically resisting eviction from their home in Riverside, CA, but Freddie Mac’s attorneys are taking Arturo to court on Friday and accusing him of “contempt of court,” because he’s living in his own home. So it’s time to try something a little different. While these companies like to remain faceless, the truth is that regular people like you and me are the ones who keep them running day in and day out — people with families, children, and bills to pay. So it’s time to take this message directly to them. Our plan is to take out ads on Facebook that will go directly to employees of Freddie Mac and JPMorgan Chase, to make sure they see Arturo’s story and know what their companies are doing to Arturo and the 40 million other Americans struggling just like him. Can you chip in $3 so we can reach as many of these employees as possible? Sitting in their fancy top floor offices, the heads of Freddie Mac and JPMorgan Chase are clearly comfortable doing something that the majority of Americans find appalling. They must think they live in some kind of protective bubble, where they don’t have to answer for the pain and suffering they cause to ordinary Americans. What if we popped that bubble by taking this message to the men and women who work with these two guys every day? We’re willing to bet they wouldn’t like that one bit. With Facebook ads, we can target exactly who we want to see the ad — people who identify themselves as employees of Freddie Mac and JPMorgan Chase. It’s a great opportunity to send a very targeted message. The time for politely worded letters and automated 1-800 numbers is over. Arturo and the rest of America can’t afford any more reckless corporate greed from Freddie Mac and JPMorgan Chase, and it’s time for their employees to know it. Donate $3 now and let’s send these companies a Facebook message they can’t ignore. Thanks, Natalie and the Rebuild the Dream team