APPENDIX V: PLAN TO END CORPORATE PLUTOCRACY

TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2009

APPENDIX V: PLAN TO END CORPORATE PLUTOCRACY

Most discussions of how to pass a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood pass over what is likely to be the only possible solution. Instead of calling for a constitutional convention, we should be focusing our efforts on getting an amendment introduced into Congress. While a number of prominent amendment advocates regard this as impossible, the idea of calling for a constitutional convention is far less plausible and much more complicated. With the rapid expansion of corporate power in the politics of the United States, we simply do not have the time to spend focused exclusively on the unlikely goal of getting a constitutional conventionof getting a constitutional convention.

 

The assumption behind the skepticism of those who reject out of hand the idea of getting an amendment introduced into Congress is that it won’t pass because Congress as a body is too corrupt. This is clearly true, but what has not been widely recognized is that now that Dennis Kucinich has introduced a resolution calling for an amendment to abolish corporate personhood, if he follows through with introducing the amendment itself we can make support for it a litmus test in every subsequent congressional election. He has publicly pledged to actively work to get cosponsors in Congress. Progressives can help by making their members of Congress know that we support them.

Imagine the difficulty a contender for national office would have convincing voters that they will represent their interests if they oppose the one measure that would assure that they must. When passed, members of Congress would have no choice but to serve the people because they won’t be able to depend on propaganda campaigns financed by the corporate interests who put our current crop of legislators in office.

The idea of a constitutional convention is widely opposed by both liberals and conservatives. Both are justly concerned about the results of a convention where a fundamentally restructuring of the constitution could conceivably take place. Coming from fundamentally different perspectives, neither camp would be willing to take the risk that the other side would hold the day in an open convention. The process would also run the risk of being subverted by the same corporate interests that we are trying to challenge. It is hard to imagine that we would do any better selecting representatives for the convention than we do when we select our representatives in Congress. It seems unlikely that in the end there would be many who would want to take that chance.

The idea of calling for a constitutional convention has one merit, however. It is a way to get students, union members and others who understand the threat to democracy posed by corporate personhood involved in the grassroots educational movement needed to convince our legislators that they have no real choice but to support the amendment if they wish to keep their privileged positions. With tens of thousands of students and union activists on the streets, going door to door and speaking to groups and individuals about the idea of a constitutional convention, the level of public understanding of the need for an amendment will grow exponentially.

There are members of Congress who have shown that they are passionately committed to democracy and to addressing the many critical needs of the nation that their less idealistic colleagues seem willing to ignore or to treat with half-solutions that always seem to benefit their corporate patrons. It is our job to convince them that the only path forward is to challenge their colleagues to choose between the people of the United States and the corporate plutocracy on which both major parties have come to depend for campaign cash. 

Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley are two senators who clearly understand the problem. If they were to convince a few other senators and House members such as Kucinich and Ron Paul that they can break the grip of corporate power over Congress, they could choose to do so. All it would take to succeed is to have the political courage to put into motion a process that would cost the careers of any of their colleagues who are unwilling to stand up for the people in challenging their corporate patrons.

The problem of course is that even these stalwarts of democracy might balk at the idea of making themselves targets of groups like Citizens United that would surely pour millions into campaigns to defeat them when they run for re-election. That is where the growing coalition of Move to Amend and others trying to get corporate cash out of politics come in. It is the job of these organizations to work together to educate voters that not only is corporate personhood the problem, but that there is a realistic way to end it through the electoral process. 

LABELS: ABOLISH CORPORATE PERSONHOOD, ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY,AMERICAN FASCISM, AMERICAN REVOLUTION, DEMOCRATIC CHANGE, MOVE TO AMEND, SOLDIERS FOR PEACE INTERNATIONAL.