Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Romney is Wrong! Corporations are NOT People

By Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Mitt Romney has claimed that corporations are people, real people! He even got upset with his audience for daring to challenge his absurd assertions. Now --when corporations are held responsible for their crimes in the same way that individuals, that real people, are held responsible for their crimes, then and only then can I even begin to take seriously the utter BS re: 'corporate personhood' that has been put forward by the GOP, by the extremists on the right wing SCOTUS or by the legion of powerful, wealthy lobbies on K-Street!

The fact is corporations are mere 'legal abstractions'; they are NOT people. The definition of 'people' may be found in biology textbooks; I deny that old men or liars in robes can redefine with a mere decree some several million years of evolution over which they have had no control or input. Robed judges are not 'God' nor can they --with a decree --change the laws of evolution and/or physics.

I deny that SCOTUS may decree that gravity will not work, that Earth will not orbit the sun or the moon, the earth! Say what it will, SCOTUS may not redefine a person; nor may it decree that words on paper may live, breate and procreate biologically as do real people. SCOTUS has no jurisdiction on this point. Rather, some several million years of biological precedent should humble the likes of Scalia.

Nor can I imagine how 'fundamentalists' reconcile their fundamentalist religious beliefs with the ludicrous idea that by squeezing a 'corporate seal' one may CREATE a person, and a REAL person at that! That SCOTUS may be taken seriously could be understandable in a state like Texas, victimized by the GOP assault on education. Texas ranks dead last in high school graduations, thanks to the GOP incompetence of Bush/Perry. However, it is not only Texas under Bush/Perry that has fallen off the radar with respect to education. Education, logic, intellect are always targeted by a party that has made of itself an enemy of erudition, science, logic and, most importantly, good will.

Real people are interchangeable in a corporation --an abstraction. Moreover, anyone can form a corporation for very little money and they can do it by mail order. The corporation is nothing more than 'data' recorded with a Secretary of State (somewhere, probably Delaware), a corporate seal, and a Certificate of Incorporation:

From Cornell University Law School:
"A corporation is a legal entity [emphasis, EC] created through the laws of its state of incorporation. Individual states have the power to promulgate laws relating to the creation, organization and dissolution of corporations. Many states follow the Model Business Corporation Act. (See Minnesota's adoption.) State corporation laws require articles of incorporation to document the corporation's creation and to provide provisions regarding the management of internal affairs. Most state corporation statutes also operate under the assumption that each corporation will adopt bylaws to define the rights and obligations of officers, persons and groups within its structure."
--Cornell University Law School
ERGO: people are INTER-CHANGEABLE in a corporation. A real person doing business as a 'sole proprietorship' does not have that luxury. To create this Orwellian interchangeability, SCOTUS seeks to bestow upon corporations 'privileges', privileges that real people are denied in the same decision.

The law treats a corporation as a legal "person" only in so far as it can sue and be sued. That is not to be confused with either legal or biological personhood. And the reason that it MAY NOT be so confused is that 'suing and being sued' DOES NOT DEFINE a person. If corporations were people, then DuPONT et al should have been put to death for the deaths it caused at Bhopal.

When has ANY corporation --at any time in history --been held to account for the many crimes to include mass murder and other atrocities in the same way that REAL PEOPLE are held to account?

NEVER!

Moreover, the legal independence of a corporation prevents shareholder liability for corporate debts; ERGO, corporations are NOT people. Real people have NO such exemptions, no such luxuries. Corporations are NOT people; SCOTUS, MITT and the GOP are dead wrong. I will be happy to set them straight.

Monday, August 22, 2011

How to Survive U.S. Cops

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Until police 'hot dogs' and taser fetishists are brought to heel, I propose some survival hints that might help keep you alive in the face of rising police thuggery, goonery, idiocy, and hot-doggery:
  1. Never go out at night alone; always bring a witness!
  2. Never go out in the daytime alone; always bring a witness!
  3. Never go to the toilet alone; always bring a witness!
  4. Never go anywhere unless you have back-up following you at 20 paces or so with a camcorder so that when you are assaulted or murdered, there will be a record of it!
  5. If you are cross-eyed and drool, do NOT look at a cop! He will think you're making fun of him!
  6. When COPS are near, try your best to look like a Republican i.e, look stupid!
  7. Don't look 'black' even if you are white; don't ever say 'bro' or 'get down wit yo' bad self' unless you want to get the shit beat out of you and/or dumped off a bridge.
  8. Carry a copy of the Wall St Journal or the Washington Times but don't use it to wrap a cod. It could be mistaken for a .357 with gills.
  9. Perfect a 'neutral', expressionless face. Emotion of any kind is a threat!
  10. Never mention that you have read Thoreau or Sartre! Do you want to die?

SEATTLE -- Seattle police are investigating what they call an assault of an officer in South Seattle. However, a police officer is seen punching a 17-year-old girl in the face during the incident captured by a video camera on Monday.

According to Seattle police, the incident began when an officer spotted a man jaywalking in the 3100 block of Martin Luther King, Jr. Way S. at approximately 3:10 p.m. The man was some 15 feet away from a pedestrian overpass, police said.

The officer was talking to the man when he saw four young women jaywalk across the same street at the same spot. The officer asked the women to step over to his patrol car, but the women were being "verbally antagonistic toward the officer," according to officials.

One of the women, later identified as a 19 year old, began to walk away from the scene despite the officer's instructions, prompting the officer to walk over to her and escort her back to his patrol car.
...
My two cents: there is absolutely no justification for so much as touching someone for having jay-walked! Police have a right to defend themselves --but against what? Death or severe injury resulting from someone jaywalking a block or more distant? Had the woman jaywalked or committed some 'ticketable offense', cops need only write her out a ticket, give her a chance to challenge in court should she choose to do so!

If cops don't wish to be videotaped being belligerent, utterly unprofessional, stupid, felonious, anti-Constitutional, then they should STOP being unprofessional, stupid, felonious, anti-Constitutional.

These low-rent assholes, brownshirt wannabes work for us! Perhaps we should start firing their sorry asses without retirement! Let them find a real job!

Now --any cop reading this, here's your assignment: write me 1,000 words on the following topic: PROBABLE CAUSE! Post it here! Don't even think about stealing it --that's crooked! And I can check it out online. Don't even think about trying to snow me. You will be graded!