From: Eric Hensal
To: Board of Directors
Date: January 22, 2010
Re: Market opportunities after Citizens United
______
Introduction
The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC is a landmark decision and an opportunity to seize. The court has said nothing less than “Corporations are People Too.” And, while there will be much hand-wringing about the influence of corporate money in politics, I believe the central point will be lost, even to this ruling’s chief beneficiary--the corporate community.
If corporations are people, corporations can vote. If they can vote, they can hold office. Holding office means direct control over public spending. Instead of lobbying so-called independent representatives to take corporate positions, we can save the time and expense and directly run for these positions. Then government becomes another corporation to corporation negotiation and, in effect, cuts out expensive middlemen who must be continually pushed through election after election.
There are over 500,000 elected officials in the United States controlling the trillions of dollars in public expenditures. That is a tremendous untapped market for us to exploit.
Citizens United--what it means to us.
The telling point is found in the dissent written by Justice John Paul Stevens. "Under the majority's view," Stevens wrote, "I suppose it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech."
Corporations able to vote, recognized as full corporate persons under the U.S. Constitution, that is the new frontier of civil rights for the supreme court and this country. The issue becomes the full recognition of our rights as a corporate person, as opposed to the bodied persons who have held office until today.
My recommendation is to press this issue by becoming the first corporation to run for congress. By entering this market early and developing the procedures and technology necessary to make this a reality, we will be at the cusp of an amazing new market, both here in the United States, but across the world as the corporate model holds increasing sway.
Why Congress?
There are practical and public relations reasons for running for Congress. On the practical level, there are fewer restrictions on candidates running for Congress than most state or even local government positions. We will be challenging a substantial bias and we need to pare down the potential roadblocks.
But on the political front, running for congress is a statement. The U.S. Supreme Court says we are corporate person, and the first expression of this expansion of civil rights should not be running for dogcatcher. For the time being, we needed the support of bodied persons if Murray Hill is to be elected, and the most compelling story for voters is running for congress with all the rights our founding fathers meant for us.
The Potential
In 1992, the last year the U.S. Census collected this information, there were 85,006 governments in the United States with 513,200 elected officials—approximately one elected official for every 485 inhabitants, or about 150 people at every NFL game in 2009. There is no reason for these numbers to be substantially different today.
While 513,000 positions is a substantial number, it is well within the reach of a corporation to manage that number of employees. Wal-Mart has 1.8 million employees. McDonald’s has nearly 500,000. While Murray Hill is not in a position today to take on such a task, we can either grow into the task as an industry leader, as Google has done, or develop a business model with the aim to be acquired by Google, Exxon, Bank of China, or any other substantial corporate partner who sees the vision behind our actions and wishes to profit through it.
Obstacles
Our research department is preparing more detailed analyses of this proposal, but we are facing several challenges.
The target district under consideration is the Maryland 8th district. It is a simple choice because it is where the corporate headquarters is located, the district borders Washington DC, putting us in an important media marker, and, symbolically, Chief Justice Roberts lives in this district. The current member of congress is Democrat Chris Van Hollen.
There are two obstacles to overcome. First is the constitutional requirement for a candidate to be 25 years old. We believe the constitution, however, sets no procedure for determining age and the assumption has always been age as bodied persons experience it. Corporations do not age, and are as old they will ever be the day corporation papers are filed. We are working on language for a “reasonable accommodation” that will reflect the new nature of corporate persons.
Second is voter registration. We have determined the best course of action will be to run as a Republican. It is the party most sympathetic to corporate views. While the constitution does not require a candidate for congress to be a registered voter, Maryland requires a candidate be a registered voter to the party in question to run in a party primary. Our task is to register and our paperwork is prepared for submission as we speak.
Next Steps
There are three immediate tasks to undertake. First is to submit an application for voter registration. This will force a debate on our status as a corporate person.
Second is to distribute an introduction video laying out our case for corporate personhood and our campaign.
Third, the corporation should retain the services of William Klein as our campaign manager. We need a skilled “hired gun” to assist in developing a winning strategy.
Conclusion
This is a great opportunity that cannot be passed up. I recommend pressing forward with deliberate speed to position Murray Hill as the first and best corporation running for congress. It is the best solution to democracy money can buy.
To: Board of Directors
Date: January 22, 2010
Re: Market opportunities after Citizens United
______
Introduction
The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC is a landmark decision and an opportunity to seize. The court has said nothing less than “Corporations are People Too.” And, while there will be much hand-wringing about the influence of corporate money in politics, I believe the central point will be lost, even to this ruling’s chief beneficiary--the corporate community.
If corporations are people, corporations can vote. If they can vote, they can hold office. Holding office means direct control over public spending. Instead of lobbying so-called independent representatives to take corporate positions, we can save the time and expense and directly run for these positions. Then government becomes another corporation to corporation negotiation and, in effect, cuts out expensive middlemen who must be continually pushed through election after election.
There are over 500,000 elected officials in the United States controlling the trillions of dollars in public expenditures. That is a tremendous untapped market for us to exploit.
Citizens United--what it means to us.
The telling point is found in the dissent written by Justice John Paul Stevens. "Under the majority's view," Stevens wrote, "I suppose it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech."
Corporations able to vote, recognized as full corporate persons under the U.S. Constitution, that is the new frontier of civil rights for the supreme court and this country. The issue becomes the full recognition of our rights as a corporate person, as opposed to the bodied persons who have held office until today.
My recommendation is to press this issue by becoming the first corporation to run for congress. By entering this market early and developing the procedures and technology necessary to make this a reality, we will be at the cusp of an amazing new market, both here in the United States, but across the world as the corporate model holds increasing sway.
Why Congress?
There are practical and public relations reasons for running for Congress. On the practical level, there are fewer restrictions on candidates running for Congress than most state or even local government positions. We will be challenging a substantial bias and we need to pare down the potential roadblocks.
But on the political front, running for congress is a statement. The U.S. Supreme Court says we are corporate person, and the first expression of this expansion of civil rights should not be running for dogcatcher. For the time being, we needed the support of bodied persons if Murray Hill is to be elected, and the most compelling story for voters is running for congress with all the rights our founding fathers meant for us.
The Potential
In 1992, the last year the U.S. Census collected this information, there were 85,006 governments in the United States with 513,200 elected officials—approximately one elected official for every 485 inhabitants, or about 150 people at every NFL game in 2009. There is no reason for these numbers to be substantially different today.
While 513,000 positions is a substantial number, it is well within the reach of a corporation to manage that number of employees. Wal-Mart has 1.8 million employees. McDonald’s has nearly 500,000. While Murray Hill is not in a position today to take on such a task, we can either grow into the task as an industry leader, as Google has done, or develop a business model with the aim to be acquired by Google, Exxon, Bank of China, or any other substantial corporate partner who sees the vision behind our actions and wishes to profit through it.
Obstacles
Our research department is preparing more detailed analyses of this proposal, but we are facing several challenges.
The target district under consideration is the Maryland 8th district. It is a simple choice because it is where the corporate headquarters is located, the district borders Washington DC, putting us in an important media marker, and, symbolically, Chief Justice Roberts lives in this district. The current member of congress is Democrat Chris Van Hollen.
There are two obstacles to overcome. First is the constitutional requirement for a candidate to be 25 years old. We believe the constitution, however, sets no procedure for determining age and the assumption has always been age as bodied persons experience it. Corporations do not age, and are as old they will ever be the day corporation papers are filed. We are working on language for a “reasonable accommodation” that will reflect the new nature of corporate persons.
Second is voter registration. We have determined the best course of action will be to run as a Republican. It is the party most sympathetic to corporate views. While the constitution does not require a candidate for congress to be a registered voter, Maryland requires a candidate be a registered voter to the party in question to run in a party primary. Our task is to register and our paperwork is prepared for submission as we speak.
Next Steps
There are three immediate tasks to undertake. First is to submit an application for voter registration. This will force a debate on our status as a corporate person.
Second is to distribute an introduction video laying out our case for corporate personhood and our campaign.
Third, the corporation should retain the services of William Klein as our campaign manager. We need a skilled “hired gun” to assist in developing a winning strategy.
Conclusion
This is a great opportunity that cannot be passed up. I recommend pressing forward with deliberate speed to position Murray Hill as the first and best corporation running for congress. It is the best solution to democracy money can buy.
Corporate Text excerpt: "The target district under consideration is the Maryland 8th district. It is a simple choice because it is where the corporate headquarters is located, the district boarders Washington DC, putting us in an important media marker..."
ReplyDeleteQuestion: is the term "boarders" a typo, or an illiteracy, that should have been typed as "borders"; or, does Washington DC sublet a room that includes meals from the district, making it a district boarder?
Please clarify. It would help us to understand the definition of person as it applies to political territories and governments.
Thanks to anonymous for the detailed post regarding a typo.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Duhaime.org, a person is "(a)n entity recognized by the law as separate and independent, with legal rights and existence including the ability to sue and be sued, to sign contracts, to receive gifts, to appear in court either by themselves or by lawyer and, generally, other powers incidental to the full expression of the entity in law." Additonally, the U.S. code now associates personhood with "corporations (and) companies" amongst other types of organizations, in addition to individuals. Case law in Citizens United v. FEC pushed this further, literally to the point of making it possible to fundamentally, as the authors of this website suggest, have corporations orchestrate voting scenarios directly impacting directly what happens in government, absent any sort of representative governmental process or transparent structure (based on current law, Supreme Court case(s), etc.). However, the fundamental problem encountered here, beyond the obvious problems for our democracy which it would cause, is that the corporate entity is not "separate and independent" and does not have any "ability" to exert, express, and defend its own rights, such as they are, which have been granted to it. Any rights which have been, through some strange legal theorizing, grantd to corporate entities, are in fact moot since the corporate entity is a legal fiction which is only understood organizationally in name and is represented by living individual persons who are there by their own effort and the benefit of their own work (not that of a corporation, which does not work or provide for the individuals that make it up). As for lobbyists... corporations would be best not to use them at all, but rather, to periodically organize key elements of their workforce and engage elected officials through prolonged discourse via multiple modes of communication. The business in the courts and in legislative arenas of advancing the cause of corporate personhood has nothing to do with freedom of speech, as so many have claimed in legal circles. That argument is a front for what the proponents really want: money and power, which is what they need less of. Sadly, if proponents of corporate personhoods' efforts continue with success, it is possible that within ten or fifteen yesrs' time, substantial poverty and conflict in the United States could be a direct result.
ReplyDelete