<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Greetings Visionaries:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:150%">
<span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">This was last week's column/radio commentary.  </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:24px">The so-called "originalists" on the Roberts Court certainly didn't follow the Founders on Citizens United.</span></p>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">The full version (attached) adds the abortion issue to the mix, because the word Hebrew "golem" appears in a oft-cited biblical passage used by anti-abortionists. Here is the opening paragraph of the full version.  </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">The
Hebrew word <i>golem</i> is found in Psalms
139:16, which reads: “</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#001320;background:#f9fdff">Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in your book
were all written the days that were ordained for me” (<i>New American Bible</i>).  In the
Jewish tradition this unformed substance does not have a soul, so it is really ironic
that today’s conservative Christians use this passage for their anti-abortion
campaigns.  </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#001320;background:#f9fdff"><br>
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#001320;background:#f9fdff">The legendary Golem wreaked havoc against both Jews and Gentiles in the 16th Century, and the modern corporation--without proper regulation--will do the same for America.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#001320;background:#f9fdff"><br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><font color="#001320" face="Georgia, serif" size="3"><span style="line-height:18px">Please join me in the campaign for a constitutional amendment stating that corporations are not natural persons (explained below),</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><font color="#001320" face="Georgia, serif" size="3"><span style="line-height:18px"><br></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;margin-bottom:0.0001pt">
<font color="#001320" face="Georgia, serif" size="3"><span style="line-height:18px">Nick</span></font></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-indent:0.5in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#001320;background:#f9fdff"> </span></p>
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">THE
GOLEM, THE CORPORATION, AND PERSONHOOD</span></b></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:150%"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Incorporated companies with proper limitations and guards, may</span></i></p>


<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">in particular cases be useful; but they are at best a necessary
evil only.</span></i></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">—James Madison, father of the
Constitution</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span><i><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Corporations are not
themselves members of “We the People”</span></i></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;line-height:150%;background:white"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.</span></i></p>


<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;line-height:150%;background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">—Justice
John Paul Stevens, dissenting opinion in <i>Citizens
United</i></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">            The German silent film <i>Der Golem</i> (1915)—considered the first
horror movie—was based on the legend of a monster that medieval Jews created to
protect their ghettoes from anti-Semitic attacks. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">One version of the story is set in 16^th
Century Prague where the head rabbi created a golem from the mud of a local river.  He brought it to life by chanting certain
sacred words over the clay body.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">The golem proved to be such a threat to
the gentile community that Emperor Rudolf II begged the rabbi to restrain the
monster. The emperor promised to stop all persecution, so the rabbi deactivated
the golem.  Some claim that its lifeless
body is still kept in the attic of the Prague Synagogue. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">So far we can say this much about golems
and corporations: they are artificial entities that have been brought into
being by either sacred or legal incantations. 
The Jews, however, were smart enough not to call their soulless
protector a person. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Unlike the life-less golem in the
atttic, British Petroleum and other companies have “perpetual existence.” Human
persons can be damned to Hell for theirs sins, but the laws of all the states
grant limited liability to all stock holders. 
</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Even though both golems and companies are
mute, the Supreme Court argued, incredibly enough, that Citizens United is a
“speaker” with the full First Amendment rights of a natural person.  </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">In some versions of the legend the golem
runs amok and starts killings Jews as well as Gentiles.  Initially most Republicans saw nothing wrong with
a legal decision that allowed unlimited corporate contributions. But now that
Mitt Romney’s Super PAC has destroyed conservatives more to their liking,
perhaps they are having second thoughts about the monster the good justices
have created.  Again the Jews were wise
to decommission the golem when it starting killing fellow Jews.  </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">In the early American Republic only
human beings and God were held to be persons. 
Corporations existed at that time and they were considered legal persons,
but not natural, or as I prefer to say, moral persons.  Natural persons have inalienable rights, but
corporate rights are granted and can be taken away by legislative fiat. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Corporations were actually viewed with much
suspicion by our founders.  As Thomas
Jefferson states: “We shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied
corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trail of
strength and to bid defiance to the laws of our country.” The Founders would be
shocked learn that 220 years later the Supreme Court would declare that
corporate money is protected speech under the First Amendment.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">In the Gilded Age of the 1990s courts gave
constitutional rights to corporations that the framers would never have
countenanced. According to right-wing slogans today, these men were “activist” judges
“legislating from the bench” and “creating rights out of thin air.”  So were the five justices who ruled last year
that corporations would become a “disadvantaged class” if they did not have the
right to express their political opinions with massive unregulated campaign contributions.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Philosopher Gary Gutting argues that
privately own, for-profit companies “</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">have no core dedication to fundamental
human values.  Such corporations exist as instruments of profit for their
shareholders.  This does not mean that they do not make essential economic
contributions to society.  But left to themselves they can be serious
threats to human values that conflict with the goal of corporate profit.”  </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">One core human value that is
jeopardized is truth, because advertising “explicitly aims at convincing us to
prefer a product regardless of its actual merit.”</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Congressman Jim McGovern has introduced
the People's Rights Amendment, which is the best
means to reverse <i>Citizens United</i>. 
Similar measures have already passed in California, New Mexico, Montana,
Hawaii, Massachusetts, and dozens of local jurisdictions.  </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">A 2011 Hart Research poll
found that 80 percent of those surveyed did not approve of the Supreme Court
decision.  Perhaps this overwhelming
response could turn into enough political support to overturn the greatest
threat to American democracy. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Citizens United</span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> has unleashed a golem that
must be legally sedated and placed in the dusty attic of history.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%;background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Nick Gier taught philosophy
at the University of Idaho for 31 years.  </span></p>