Occupy Corvallis Protestors Rally Against Corporate Greed | KEZI

Good for you, them, and us all. Look forward to the photos.

Why don't you ask them why they don't think of that issue as they dial their cellphone (Apple anyone?) or go to the next Hollywood blockbuster?

Why only corporations? What about the Hollywood set? Is $20 million for a few months work out of line? It makes the CEO annual salary look like chicken feed.

Additionally, if the public would not partake of the goods and services proliferated by the greedy corporations, there would be nothing to get steamed about because they would not be making any money.

gotta hand it to 'Patroit' .... still backing greedy corporations and Wall Street instead of the average joe whose getting screwed by them.

Agree Ripley8, I don't bother with anything 88 says, it's not worth the effort, it is just the same thing over & over.Just a waste of time.

Ripley8:

gotta hand it to 'Patroit' .... still backing greedy corporations and Wall Street instead of the average joe whose getting screwed by them.

Do you own a cellphone, a computer,or have you ever seen a movie in a theater?

Do you fill out a long-form tax return?

Have you ever eaten in a fast-food restaurant?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions, you certainly fit the mold of encouraging the proliferation of evil corporations and taking advantage of "tax loopholes".

It is rather hypocritical of the Left to condone by actions exactly what they are preaching against.

Patriot 8888, while I agree that people could be more sophisticated and discriminating consumers, that alone is insufficient to curb the outrageous power that Wall Street and multinational corporations have on our political and economic system. It is simply a question of scale, and America is totally out of balance in this regard.

The number of real choices available to consumers has been declining for over three decades due to industry consolidation, globalization, and unfair trade policies.

The excesses of greed and the power of money are the problem, and if we don't do something about it soon we're in big trouble as a nation.

Money is not speech, and corporations are not people.

http://www.getmoneyout.com/

http://movetoamend.org/

Patriot888

The federal government is the largest Greedy Corporation, seeking to take money from Americans because the Feds spent 50% more money (4,000,000,000,000) than they collected in taxes (3,000,000,000,000).

Government...Largest employer, largest Car Manufacturer, Largest buyer of automobiles for it's fleet, largest writer of regulation killing jobs, etc.....the Greedy Government wants your money.

Money is not speech ?

Give me some money, and I'll talk. Take my money away, and I'll scream (or Join a Tea party).

Give a Politician money, and he/she is on a speaking tour. Money talks.

Corporations are people, so says the SCOTUS. IT's the Law now, so get over it. Steve Jobs was people.

Were you the woman that spoke first, after the news reporter?

The federal government is the largest Greedy Corporation

Equating the United States Government - established by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution - with amoral for-profit corporations who worship money above country, is nonsense of the highest order. Absurd notions such as this spew out from Tea Party La-La Land like catcalls at a strip-joint these days. Nobody takes either one seriously.

Take my money away, and I'll scream

Thanks for proving my point. No one needs money to scream or speak.

Corporations are people, so says the SCOTUS. IT's the Law now, so get over it. Steve Jobs was people.

You are wrong and so is SCOTUS. Steve Jobs was a human being. Apple Inc. is a corporation. Corporations do not eat, sleep, raise children, feel joy or despair, grow old and die, and cannot be thrown into jail. The U. S. Constitution begins: We the People of the United States...

It specifically says "People," and not "Corporations."

Note to Bobbievee

People are Corporations, for without people, Corporations would not exist.

So, yes indeed, SCOTUS is correct.

Hey, steph. Sorry I was out. Actually I'm out of town visiting the Left Coast! In San Francisco, my former hometown.

Looking forward to your pix. Go, Corvallis!

People are Corporations, for without people, Corporations would not exist. So, yes indeed, SCOTUS is correct.

The logic of this statement strains the limits of rational thought. Nothing created by people would exist without people. Corporations, governments, religions, books, automobiles, and hand tools, are all ideas and things created by people. A hammer is not a person. SCOTUS ruled the way they did because enough of their justices believed that America should be governed by corporatism instead of democracy. It is a question of who rules.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation

A corporation is a legal entity that is created under the laws of a state designed to establish the entity as a separate legal entity having its own privileges and liabilities distinct from those of its members.[1] There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter (i.e. by an ad hoc act passed by a parliament or legislature). Most jurisdictions now allow the creation of new corporations through registration.

An important (but not universal) contemporary feature of a corporation is limited liability. If a corporation fails, shareholders normally only stand to lose their investment and employees will lose their jobs, but neither will be further liable for debts that remain owing to the corporation's creditors.

Despite not being natural persons, corporations are recognized by the law to have rights and responsibilities like natural persons ("people"). Corporations can exercise human rights against real individuals and the state,[2] and they can themselves be responsible for human rights violations.[3] Corporations are conceptually immortal but they can "die" when they are "dissolved" either by statutory operation, order of court, or voluntary action on the part of shareholders. Insolvency may result in a form of corporate 'death', when creditors force the liquidation and dissolution of the corporation under court order,[4] but it most often results in a restructuring of corporate holdings. Corporations can even be convicted of criminal offenses, such as fraud and manslaughter.[5]

background info about how this corporate personhood thing started with a legal argument the railroads were making back in the 1800s...

For twenty years corporate personhood was debated. Across America, politicians were elected repeatedly on platforms that included the regulation of corporations, particularly the railroads. But the legal fight continued - and in 1886 the railroad hit paydirt.

The Supreme Court ruled on an obscure taxation issue in the Santa Clara County vs. The Union Pacific Railroad case, but the Recorder of the court - a man named J. C. Bancroft Davis, himself formerly the president of a small railroad - wrote into his personal commentary of the case (known as a headnote) that the Chief Justice had said that all the Justices agreed that corporations are persons.

And in so doing, he - not the Supreme Court, but its clerical recorder - inserted a statement that would change history and give corporations enormous powers that were not granted by Congress, not granted by the voters, and not even granted by the Supreme Court. Davis’s headnote, which had no legal standing, was taken as precedent by generations of jurists (including the Supreme Court) who followed and apparently read the headnote but not the decision.

What is especially ironic about this is that Davis knew the Court had not ruled on this issue. We found a handwritten note in the J.C. Bancroft Davis collection in the Library of Congress, from Chief Justice Waite to reporter Davis, explicitly saying, “we did not meet the constitutional issues in the case.” (In other words, the Court had decided the case on lesser grounds, which it always prefers to do when possible.)

And this is why it took what may be the most corrupt Supreme Court in history, headed now by John Roberts, to push the idea of corporate personhood so far as to pervert our political process and democracy. It's an outrage, and they did it at the best of extraordinarily wealthy and powerful interests whose greed knows no bounds.

Before the Supremes ruled in that horrid Citizen's United Case, which unraveled so much of the McCain/Feingold legislation, Scalia and Thomas were "special guests" of the Koch brothers at one of their swanky confabs for billionaires. More info here...

Absolutely correct, American Idle! The establishment of corporate personhood was a farce from the very beginning. It never had Constitutional merit, and was done only to solidify the power of the aristocracy over the collective interests of the American people and the exercise of democracy.

Looking at the balance sheet of "free speech" rights in the U. S., we see it is heavily skewed towards wealth and away from individual citizens. This is the definition of an aristocracy, or more accurately - a plutocracy, which is precisely what our Founding Fathers fought against in 1776. How ironic that we've become the very thing that triggered our revolution.

A CEO has the same legal right to vote as any other citizen. Equal rights so far.

A CEO has the same legal right to free speech as any other citizen. Again, this is an equality of Constitutional rights.

A CEO also has the ability to use corporate assets to support a political candidate, promote a political agenda, and lobby government officials to get them to do what he/she wants. This ability is far beyond that available to most citizens, and is inherently a granting of additional free speech rights only to those so fortunate. It is not equal rights.

Now, suppose a CEO is not a United States citizen. Although lacking the individual rights of citizens, he/she still has the above mentioned free speech rights as a corporate executive. It is preposterous and patently un-American that a foreign national be able to influence our political system and governmental policies simply due to holding a high corporate office.

I must question the motivations of anyone who knowingly and willingly supports this blatant inequality of our basic Constitutional rights.

It's just a big scam. That Citizen's United decision makes about as much sense as the Supremes ruling in Bush v. Gore.