Letter 111... Dear Mr. President... Corporations don't dig through rubble.

Letter 111

Dear Mr. President:

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a big believer in miracles… I’m more of a pragmatist and realist when it comes to most things. But today’s rescue of a two week old baby girl from the rubble of an apartment building 48 hours after the devastating earthquake in Turkey, certainly qualifies as a miracle… even more miraculous was the subsequent rescue of her mother and grandmother.

Three generations rescued by dedicated and determined people working together for a common cause… saving lives. One can only imagine the joy felt by the mother and grandmother after they were rescued, to find out that their precious tiny, vulnerable infant had also survived the devastation.

That’s why it’s so difficult to understand the decision of the Supreme Court when it sided with Citizens United and declared corporations to be people with first amendment rights of free speech. I guess that’s when the expression “money talks”… speaks volumes as to what’s really wrong in Politics.

Was it a corporation digging through the rubble to save lives? Would a corporation continue to claw through tons of cement and steel hour after hour when there is only a slight chance of finding anyone alive? No… corporations are not people… they do not have a heart, they do not care, and they cannot fathom the despair, or the joy that can only be felt by the ‘human’ heart.

The only species capable of speech are people, so it’s only people that need their free speech protected. Yes, corporations are ‘run’ by people, but why should those people collectively have a larger and more powerful voice than just one person? I believe the answer is… they shouldn’t. Each person in that corporation has a right to express their own personal views, but should a corporation have the right to speak for all of them, and if it does then shouldn’t each person have exactly the same position on any given issue in order to be the ‘one’ voice of all the people?

Demanding transparency through the DISCLOSE Act is not enough we must demand a constitutional amendment to repeal the decision entirely. The torrent of corporate spending in the 2010 election was heavily tilted towards Republicans and most of it was anonymous. Regardless of who benefits the most, C.U. is a terrible law.

H.J. Res. 78, by Rep. Donna Edwards would become the 28^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution if enacted, and would overturn Citizens United and clarify the authority of Congress to regulate and restrict the political activity of corporations of any sort…

Miracles happen to real ‘people’ and through real ‘people’… so until we find a corporation with a ‘beating heart’ capable of digging through rubble to save an infant… we should all work to rid this country of Citizens United.

Most Respectfully,

Marcia Reimers, 

Your Gadfly Granny