Listen now (67 min) | Ralph explains it all for you, the history and the consequences of the legal fiction that is corporate personhood. Then his associate, Francesco DeSantis, from the Center of Study of Responsive law updates us on progress being made to institute a corporate crime data base along the lines of the street crime database in order to track repeat corporate criminal offenders.
Thank you . This was excellent.... I See it every day and feel it every day. From Corporate Media that controls the narrative, to are horrific health care system that wants us like robots to be used and sucked out of as much money as they can get to the destruction of small business. How greedy does this this kind of capitalism have to go before they destroy themselves?
As usual the most criminal corporations are overlooked. The Hudson Bay Company and the East India Company were revealed, but the biggest criminal was The Bank of England. Those corporations' major stock holders were also making the laws in Parliament and Monarchy that led to the American Revolution. The Currency Acts which prohibited the Coloniew from creating their own money was only one of many, but it alone created unemployment and transferred much wealth to the 1%. Interestingly George Washington was a stockholder in The Bank of England. He joined the Revolution to gain access to property in the Ohio Valley. After the Revolution he sold that property and became America's richest person. Today it is the privately held Federal Reserve and Bank of International settlements that are doing the most damage. The Constitution gives Congress the right to create money not the Fed.
Slavery is where a person is owned by another person or perhaps several persons and the 13th amendment mostly prohibits slavery. Does this not create a problem for the notion of corporate personhood? After all corporations are generally owned by persons, sometimes real persons and sometimes by corporations.
To Ralph Nader and his entire team (maybe I missed it) how can we who agree with the problem of American Corporations as People - , the best way to overrule the Supreme Court Court decision in the Citizens United vs FEC case effectively blocked the ability to enact limits on campaign spending.
 The 15 year old lifeguards let the chlorine level in the pool go to 50. It’s not supposed to be more than three. I thought swimming for nine hours that day. My wetsuit got eaten through by the chemicals. Its color was completely changed. I got cellulitis in my feet my lungs were damaged And the next day I woke up blind at birth, the lacrimal glands out of my eyes. My tears are now only composed of salt water and not salt, water and fat so they burn my eyes and make me cry. The cornea’s were burnt out of my eyes, I went to wills I for two years, the corniest did grow back, but in a way that makes me feel like there’s something in my eye 24 seven that’s just how they grow back. If they grow back, I couldn’t get a lawyer to take my case. Finally, I did get one a special lawyer, who takes mostly women’s rights case we had to end up going to arbitration. I got $20,000 for a $10 million case. The lawyers told me if this was before bush or after bush I would’ve got millions but since it’s during push corporate and worker comp laws are skew to the corporations and even though I’m an American citizen has been paying taxes all my life
 I can’t simply go to hell
 This is why politics today reminds me of the cover of my banned book  with Trump and uncle Sam tug-of-war in the Earth over the pit of hell with Covid bats flying out Ralph I’d love to send you one
Spot on that executive orders or legislation can't undue corporate constitutional rights. You're right that a constitutional amendment is needed. That would be HJR48 in the last Congress with 95 House supporters, https://www.movetoamend.org/amendment -- to be introduced again in the current Congress. More than 1400 organizations and communities (via municipal resolutions and ballot initiatives) support abolishing corporate constitutional rights and the equally bizarre constitutional doctrine that money is free speech. As do nearly 500,000 individuals who've signed out petition, https://www.movetoamend.org/motion
Move to Amend would be happy to discuss the campaign at any time.
This show got me thinking. Questions: Are States and Nations that issue corporate charters legal fictions too? How do those get the authority to create legal fictions/corporations? Only living beings can create anything real, correct? How can a fiction create anything real?
How are living people under the rule of legal fictions? Shouldn't that be voluntary? Have We, the Persons, unwittingly become corporations? Is a Person a corporation? Is citizenship in a legal fiction real if it's involuntary? Is citizenship a legal fiction too?
Can living beings un-create legal fictions? If only legal fictions can create or uncreate other legal fictions don't we have a problem?
Seems purposefully confusioning. . Makes my head spin. But these are basic real questions we should know the answers to.
You said the answer is legislation or a constitutional amendment stating money is corruptive and providing public financing of elections.
Who is going to pass the legislation or constitutional amendments?
Not the big money Deathocrats or Republikillers. The corporations say to those politicians do what you're told or get fired (no more campaign money).
To get any such legislation or amendments passed we must first replace the big money corporate controlled politicians with small donor politicians that are not controlled by the corporations. The problem has to be solved before legislation to solve the problem can be passed.
But just as citizens have to take it by forming a union, citizens have to take it by forming a union for politics.
And the tools are already in place.
Citizens can join together to demand small donor candidates and say to politicians if you take big money you will be fired (no more votes).
If citizens keep voting for corporate controlled candidates we will keep getting corporate controlled legislators.
Now is the time for citizens to declare a national emergency and exercise our authority provided by the power of the vote to replace the corporate controlled legislators with small donor legislators.
80% plus of citizens want the big money out of politics so this could be inclusive of citizens from all political persuasions.
A wise man once said that politicians want our votes more than big money. Let's find out.
F Tim Cook,apple,and Microsoft! Vandana Shiva, with our food is monoculture horse crap 💩 that Bill Gates owns as well! We are loosing everything to Olagarkey,corrupt,corrupt blood money that’s 1.5 trillion a year and 23 trillion over 22 years now! Still running you can’t stop the beast they own us all!
Changing the Corporation's legal identity and resetting its liability and civic responsibility? With a legalized Accountability so its Charter can't jump thru loopholes?
Would ever 545 elected voices ever cooperate on any phase of this?
Where are even 10 of our Elected to ratify anything ...What Power is required???
How about: would we, dearest consumers, be prepared to exit the stock market? To boycott the entire 66 worldwide stock markets? Where the Frankenstein's play? We all made these games we play- and we vote with our dollars, francs, pounds yen, yuan, & peso -correct? But if Goodbye Frankenstein, goodbye investments --- there goes 15% or 25% or 35% returns of all these humongous funds. There goes Condominium Corners! Are you part of this?
How 'bout 1/2 part? or tiniest of parts? Every bank account or 401K or however your money dances or doesn't dance all take part---How will Uncle thrive without his pension fund? How will we retire?
How will profits be hid or rolled or untaxed...You are suggesting a new entity entirely which we greedy Sapiens --all those A Type personality or those C Types-whatever pushes us all -will just manipulate as they will...but let us recall that there is one lone supreme, refreshing and quite unbelievable example of
a Good Company, Patagonia! I hope they aren't too expensive...they only pollute a little, I'm told.
So, there is one company---Then let's look at all the notices of incorporations-- hundreds per day ---mandatory listings in larger newspapers-ever look at em all?--We have this driving ambition of wanna be's our own boss
Maybe someday I'll be a Carnegie or sell my new app or ---or open up the 10,000th pizzeria or nail salon or liquor store or Wendy's or--if I have a little more money a yoga studio and yeah that's the small business side where like 90% of a County's Tax Revenue collects to fund our once more glorious towns and counties. These are our 30.2 million small businesses making up 99.9 % --of all U.S. business ---and we know how much tax Frankenstein pays or doesn't pay or ex-presidents to boot!
Everybody is selling or buying everything -- just jump in /spending is good and if taxes are unfair
it is because Frankenstein pays shit.
Meaning first, I do think, with all my cold heart that we need to collect (by legal force?) Frankenstein's justly &correctly assessed tax levy which means overhaul the tax code--darn it-nothings easy.is it?
And let us (all) live and lead a life not based on buy and sell.... right??
To combine the topic of Russell Mokhiber's report about the Piedmont ramp worker who was ingested into one of the Embraer E175's engines in Montgomery, AL with the general topic of corporate abuses, I do have a question, or at least a request for a comment, for Mr. Nader. Let me set the question up first. I was reading an aviation-centered web forum a few days ago regarding the Piedmont situation. There were many interesting views from airline and airport employees about the hazards confronting regional airline employees especially given that the dangers of the job, especially working near propeller airplanes, though the Embraer E175 is not one of those, and also substandard training compared to mainline airlines. One commenter even specifically blamed Alfred E. Kahn and Ralph Nader for the death! Given the Kahn reference, I assume, though perhaps incorrectly, that the commenter is referring to Nader's questioning of the old Civil Aeronautics Board promoting government organized quasi-monopolies for private airlines on air routes prior to President Carter's airline deregulation. Here's the link to the comment about Mr. Nader: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1480201&sid=36ca3a055be2d2835f00769000f7be29&start=100#p23610179
I would have to assume that when Mr. Nader questioned the old CAB's policies, he was not advocating for the current deregulated circumstances where a small group of powerful, consolidated airlines control the airline industry. Airlines are quick to beg for 'corporate socialism' when their business is poor, but then are quick to privatize profits. I'm guessing Mr. Nader would not approve of the circumstances which allow events such as the Southwest Airlines situation in December.
Given that Mr. Nader is being blamed for degraded circumstances after deregulation from the Carter era, it would be interesting to hear Mr. Nader speak about what his goals were in criticizing the CAB and what type of reform and outcome he was looking for in the 1970s when criticizing the CAB. It seems to me that perhaps some of Mr. Nader's comments from the 1970s might still be used out of context here in the 2020s. Perhaps Mr. Nader would like to offer clarification given that he is being blamed for deregulation-related death here in 2023.
Thank you . This was excellent.... I See it every day and feel it every day. From Corporate Media that controls the narrative, to are horrific health care system that wants us like robots to be used and sucked out of as much money as they can get to the destruction of small business. How greedy does this this kind of capitalism have to go before they destroy themselves?
Vandana shiva is the light we should listen to for start. She’s is a part of the light we should be listening to.
As usual the most criminal corporations are overlooked. The Hudson Bay Company and the East India Company were revealed, but the biggest criminal was The Bank of England. Those corporations' major stock holders were also making the laws in Parliament and Monarchy that led to the American Revolution. The Currency Acts which prohibited the Coloniew from creating their own money was only one of many, but it alone created unemployment and transferred much wealth to the 1%. Interestingly George Washington was a stockholder in The Bank of England. He joined the Revolution to gain access to property in the Ohio Valley. After the Revolution he sold that property and became America's richest person. Today it is the privately held Federal Reserve and Bank of International settlements that are doing the most damage. The Constitution gives Congress the right to create money not the Fed.
Slavery is where a person is owned by another person or perhaps several persons and the 13th amendment mostly prohibits slavery. Does this not create a problem for the notion of corporate personhood? After all corporations are generally owned by persons, sometimes real persons and sometimes by corporations.
To Ralph Nader and his entire team (maybe I missed it) how can we who agree with the problem of American Corporations as People - , the best way to overrule the Supreme Court Court decision in the Citizens United vs FEC case effectively blocked the ability to enact limits on campaign spending.
When Bush was in the presidency
I was a lifeguard at a Jyc
 The 15 year old lifeguards let the chlorine level in the pool go to 50. It’s not supposed to be more than three. I thought swimming for nine hours that day. My wetsuit got eaten through by the chemicals. Its color was completely changed. I got cellulitis in my feet my lungs were damaged And the next day I woke up blind at birth, the lacrimal glands out of my eyes. My tears are now only composed of salt water and not salt, water and fat so they burn my eyes and make me cry. The cornea’s were burnt out of my eyes, I went to wills I for two years, the corniest did grow back, but in a way that makes me feel like there’s something in my eye 24 seven that’s just how they grow back. If they grow back, I couldn’t get a lawyer to take my case. Finally, I did get one a special lawyer, who takes mostly women’s rights case we had to end up going to arbitration. I got $20,000 for a $10 million case. The lawyers told me if this was before bush or after bush I would’ve got millions but since it’s during push corporate and worker comp laws are skew to the corporations and even though I’m an American citizen has been paying taxes all my life
 I can’t simply go to hell
 This is why politics today reminds me of the cover of my banned book  with Trump and uncle Sam tug-of-war in the Earth over the pit of hell with Covid bats flying out Ralph I’d love to send you one
Cowsandpigsmaketheearthwarm.com
Bravo, Ralph, on a brilliant description and analysis of corporate constitutional rights (aka "corporate personhood")! FYI, even clauses of the Fifth Amendment (due process, double jeopardy and takings), https://assets.nationbuilder.com/movetoamend/pages/752/attachments/original/1585063341/Corporate_Hijacking_of_the_5th_Amendment.pdf, have been hijacked by corporations. The piece is one of Move to Amend's many Constitutional Rights Resources, https://www.movetoamend.org/corporate-constitutional-rights
You may also want to check out the new 4 1/2 minute "Why We Need the We the People Amendment" video narrated by Peter Coyote, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPMxwVfIKhs
Spot on that executive orders or legislation can't undue corporate constitutional rights. You're right that a constitutional amendment is needed. That would be HJR48 in the last Congress with 95 House supporters, https://www.movetoamend.org/amendment -- to be introduced again in the current Congress. More than 1400 organizations and communities (via municipal resolutions and ballot initiatives) support abolishing corporate constitutional rights and the equally bizarre constitutional doctrine that money is free speech. As do nearly 500,000 individuals who've signed out petition, https://www.movetoamend.org/motion
Move to Amend would be happy to discuss the campaign at any time.
Keep up the great work!
This show got me thinking. Questions: Are States and Nations that issue corporate charters legal fictions too? How do those get the authority to create legal fictions/corporations? Only living beings can create anything real, correct? How can a fiction create anything real?
How are living people under the rule of legal fictions? Shouldn't that be voluntary? Have We, the Persons, unwittingly become corporations? Is a Person a corporation? Is citizenship in a legal fiction real if it's involuntary? Is citizenship a legal fiction too?
Can living beings un-create legal fictions? If only legal fictions can create or uncreate other legal fictions don't we have a problem?
Seems purposefully confusioning. . Makes my head spin. But these are basic real questions we should know the answers to.
Just wondering.
Ralph,
You said the answer is legislation or a constitutional amendment stating money is corruptive and providing public financing of elections.
Who is going to pass the legislation or constitutional amendments?
Not the big money Deathocrats or Republikillers. The corporations say to those politicians do what you're told or get fired (no more campaign money).
To get any such legislation or amendments passed we must first replace the big money corporate controlled politicians with small donor politicians that are not controlled by the corporations. The problem has to be solved before legislation to solve the problem can be passed.
But just as citizens have to take it by forming a union, citizens have to take it by forming a union for politics.
And the tools are already in place.
Citizens can join together to demand small donor candidates and say to politicians if you take big money you will be fired (no more votes).
If citizens keep voting for corporate controlled candidates we will keep getting corporate controlled legislators.
Now is the time for citizens to declare a national emergency and exercise our authority provided by the power of the vote to replace the corporate controlled legislators with small donor legislators.
80% plus of citizens want the big money out of politics so this could be inclusive of citizens from all political persuasions.
A wise man once said that politicians want our votes more than big money. Let's find out.
X the first Vandana my bad 😣 I was flustered.
F Tim Cook,apple,and Microsoft! Vandana Shiva, with our food is monoculture horse crap 💩 that Bill Gates owns as well! We are loosing everything to Olagarkey,corrupt,corrupt blood money that’s 1.5 trillion a year and 23 trillion over 22 years now! Still running you can’t stop the beast they own us all!
Changing the Corporation's legal identity and resetting its liability and civic responsibility? With a legalized Accountability so its Charter can't jump thru loopholes?
Would ever 545 elected voices ever cooperate on any phase of this?
Where are even 10 of our Elected to ratify anything ...What Power is required???
How about: would we, dearest consumers, be prepared to exit the stock market? To boycott the entire 66 worldwide stock markets? Where the Frankenstein's play? We all made these games we play- and we vote with our dollars, francs, pounds yen, yuan, & peso -correct? But if Goodbye Frankenstein, goodbye investments --- there goes 15% or 25% or 35% returns of all these humongous funds. There goes Condominium Corners! Are you part of this?
How 'bout 1/2 part? or tiniest of parts? Every bank account or 401K or however your money dances or doesn't dance all take part---How will Uncle thrive without his pension fund? How will we retire?
How will profits be hid or rolled or untaxed...You are suggesting a new entity entirely which we greedy Sapiens --all those A Type personality or those C Types-whatever pushes us all -will just manipulate as they will...but let us recall that there is one lone supreme, refreshing and quite unbelievable example of
a Good Company, Patagonia! I hope they aren't too expensive...they only pollute a little, I'm told.
So, there is one company---Then let's look at all the notices of incorporations-- hundreds per day ---mandatory listings in larger newspapers-ever look at em all?--We have this driving ambition of wanna be's our own boss
Maybe someday I'll be a Carnegie or sell my new app or ---or open up the 10,000th pizzeria or nail salon or liquor store or Wendy's or--if I have a little more money a yoga studio and yeah that's the small business side where like 90% of a County's Tax Revenue collects to fund our once more glorious towns and counties. These are our 30.2 million small businesses making up 99.9 % --of all U.S. business ---and we know how much tax Frankenstein pays or doesn't pay or ex-presidents to boot!
Everybody is selling or buying everything -- just jump in /spending is good and if taxes are unfair
it is because Frankenstein pays shit.
Meaning first, I do think, with all my cold heart that we need to collect (by legal force?) Frankenstein's justly &correctly assessed tax levy which means overhaul the tax code--darn it-nothings easy.is it?
And let us (all) live and lead a life not based on buy and sell.... right??
Right.
To combine the topic of Russell Mokhiber's report about the Piedmont ramp worker who was ingested into one of the Embraer E175's engines in Montgomery, AL with the general topic of corporate abuses, I do have a question, or at least a request for a comment, for Mr. Nader. Let me set the question up first. I was reading an aviation-centered web forum a few days ago regarding the Piedmont situation. There were many interesting views from airline and airport employees about the hazards confronting regional airline employees especially given that the dangers of the job, especially working near propeller airplanes, though the Embraer E175 is not one of those, and also substandard training compared to mainline airlines. One commenter even specifically blamed Alfred E. Kahn and Ralph Nader for the death! Given the Kahn reference, I assume, though perhaps incorrectly, that the commenter is referring to Nader's questioning of the old Civil Aeronautics Board promoting government organized quasi-monopolies for private airlines on air routes prior to President Carter's airline deregulation. Here's the link to the comment about Mr. Nader: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1480201&sid=36ca3a055be2d2835f00769000f7be29&start=100#p23610179
I would have to assume that when Mr. Nader questioned the old CAB's policies, he was not advocating for the current deregulated circumstances where a small group of powerful, consolidated airlines control the airline industry. Airlines are quick to beg for 'corporate socialism' when their business is poor, but then are quick to privatize profits. I'm guessing Mr. Nader would not approve of the circumstances which allow events such as the Southwest Airlines situation in December.
Given that Mr. Nader is being blamed for degraded circumstances after deregulation from the Carter era, it would be interesting to hear Mr. Nader speak about what his goals were in criticizing the CAB and what type of reform and outcome he was looking for in the 1970s when criticizing the CAB. It seems to me that perhaps some of Mr. Nader's comments from the 1970s might still be used out of context here in the 2020s. Perhaps Mr. Nader would like to offer clarification given that he is being blamed for deregulation-related death here in 2023.