"You, too, Bru Crew?"By Phasma Scriptor
The documentary produced by Joel Bakan, Professor of Law at British Columbia University, “The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profits” (The Corporation Film: Joel Bakan, 2003) (“TC“), attributes a psychological condition, specifically, Antisocial Personality Disorder, to the manner in which corporations frequently behave (and, ultimately, always behave since only the most pathological of corporations thrive and, as a consequence, are able to cannibalize less pathological organizations). Maneuvering corporations into psychoanalysis, that is, in a courtroom setting, would have a potentially devastating effect on the willingness of predatory corporations to commit what would be considered heinous crimes were the perp to belong to the company of real live humans. Because of the ability of corporations, in general, and certain corporations, in particular, to defrock attorneys for arbitrary and capricious reasons, litigation of that magnitude would need to attract attorneys with the integrity of the legendary Untouchables. Possible, but unlikely without some reasonable way, even with the odds adversely stacked, to a W as the desired outcome.
Part of that path would have to include, inter alia, the initiation of a Katy-storm-the-ramparts public relations blitzkrieg on the Internet to provide a loud and raucous chorus of web-based supporters. Parallel to the e-path, organizing “spontaneous” scenes in TC similar to those defiant Bolivians, oppressed by one of those corporations, Bechtel, is the kind of backs-against-the-wall, us-Davids-against-the-Goliathan physical presence that encourages nicely irksome “film at 11” media coverage, even though, as the blogosphere has informed us, Internet PR is almost as effective as takin’ it to the streets. A more socially beneficial use of flash mobs organized via Twitter would quickly direct demonstrators to the appropriate courthouse steps, where handbills, rapidly produced on site, could be distributed to the litigation faithful for passing out to passersby, but especially to courthouse denizens. Judges prefer to operate “in closet” and not with mug shots on leaflets that become viral as those leaflets give courthouse copiers a workout and reporters a convenient press release. Mudslinging high-rent PR firms that pimp for the commercial behemoths meet your populist, on-the-cheap, street-fight match.
Corporate officers and their corporate lawyers, engaged in the long con rising, like a specter, from the collective id of the corporations, have plotted, as pawns for the ultra-super-rich, for over a century-and-a-half to transform totally artificial entities into real live humans, sort of a wicked-Blue-Fairy-morphs-Pinocchio-into-Stromboli vision of terror in an economic eclipse of civilization; the recent US Supreme Court decision (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, USSC No. 08-205, 1/21/2010, 08-205 Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm'n (01/21/10)) which purports to allow unlimited corporate contributions to political candidates, has seemingly finalized the imputation of real live human status to corporations, an ultimate legal term of art … based on Dr. Frankenstein’s concepts of what constitutes human life.
Citizens United mainlines right into the cold-blooded veins of Richard A. Posner, former Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and still pontificating after all these years, who is the putative father of the judicial theory of economic efficiency (Biography - IT Services: Documentation - home.uchicago.edu). According to this so-called judicial theory, a euphemism for radically activist judge-concocted, separation-of-powers-busting legislation from the bench, litigants with the greatest financial prowess ought to prevail more often than not with the result that litigants whose financial resources are exhausted first can’t afford justice. This flows, like hot lava scorching its way downhill, from the cautionary tale of the very common judicial put-off that the pathetic slob of a plaintiff/defendant must exhaust all his/her administrative remedies before the courts will hear the case, meaning, of course, that the poor will always lose to the defendant/plaintiff with a massive bankroll, meaning, of course, big business, since what gets exhausted first is the wallet of the impecunious litigant. Thus, presuming to give the judiciary the discretion to weight rulings based on pocketbook factors (fatter being better), which would be unconstitutional (per the 14th Amendment, FindLaw: U.S. Constitution: Fourteenth Amendment, to say nothing of Deuteronomy 16:18-19, Deuteronomy 16:18,Deuteronomy 16:19 - Passage Lookup - New ...) if written into statutes, is an invasion of legislative authority; a purposeful intention to favor the rich and/or the powerful (like the king who is not permitted to do wrong, according to Par. 61 of the Magna Carta, Amendment I (Petition and Assembly): Magna Carta, c. 61) is so foreign to the basic tenets of equality upon which the US was founded that ripping the fabric of this society seems an apt metaphor. (Note: The word “unconstitutional” is used in the relative sense, since, as will be shown in a future post, the Constitution of the United States has been knocked out of the box)
That sneaky, weasel-y Supreme Court judges might aspire to dominate the other branches, after sucking the authority of the states dry, was the subject of Anti-Federalist Papers Nos. 11, 1/31/1788, and 12, 2/7/1788 (The Essential Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers - Humanities), penned by "Brutus", the nom-de-plume widely thought to have been New York State judge Robert Yates, a delegate to the Federal Convention. Yates went further than that old politician’s tale about absolute power; he described the collegial intergenerational spirit of the brethren (and, now, sistern) in the art of grifting and grafting in high political places:
Every body of men invested with office are tenacious of power; they feel interested, and hence it has become a kind of maxim, to hand down their offices, with all its rights and privileges, unimpaired to their successors … [AFP, No. 11]
This sort of putrid process bears the distinct stench of the Pharisees, acridly arising into the noses of those who are really supposed to be in charge, which would be, purportedly in this country, the People. What Yates/Brutus foresees is the usurpation of ever more power by the supreme court pursuant to the gifting of a wide “latitude of interpretation” by the proposed Article III (FindLaw: U.S. Constitution: Article III), far beyond any boundaries of the separation between federal, State and local governments.
[T]he same principle will influence them to extend their power, and increase their rights; this of itself will operate strongly upon the courts to give such a meaning to the constitution in all cases where it can possibly be done, as will enlarge the sphere of their own authority. Every extension of the power of the general legislature, as well as of the judicial powers, will increase the powers of the courts; and the dignity and importance of the judges, will be in proportion to the extent and magnitude of the powers they exercise. [ibid]
Would the judiciary and its cherry-on-top, the Supremes, operating under this maximizing principle, ever stop extending and increasing their sphere of authority? Well, yeah, saith Brutus, when they had totally subjugated the States, which, by the provisions of the proposed constitution would be made inferior to the federal administration.
[T]he leading features of [the judicial branch as set forth in the proposed Constitution] will operate to a total subversion of the state judiciaries, if not, to the legislative authority of the states.
* * *
The judicial power [of the supreme court] will operate to effect, in the most certain, but yet silent and imperceptible manner, … an entire subversion of the legislative, executive and judicial powers of the individual states. … In proportion as the former enlarge the exercise of their powers, will that of the latter be restricted. [ibid, emphasis added]
But, would the judges and so-called justices restrain themselves after bringing the States to heel? NO! But not because they loved subverting the States less, but that they loved subverting the federal executive and legislative branches more.
If Yates had extended and increased his own line of reasoning into, what was apparently for him, the unthinkable or, at least, the unmentionable, he would have come to the conclusion that the logical end of that line would be the conclusion, be the final chapter, be the see-ya of the proposed free nation as a free nation, wherein, the federal judiciary didn’t just subvert the States, but also both of the other federal branches … and, by that means, subvert the People themselves, who, after Citizens United, are looking pretty pathetically powerless.
Yates goes on to explain how these judges and so-called justices, empowered under the proposed Article III, would have a ready, recent model.
[The federal judges] will have precedent to plead, to justify them in [their usurpations]. It is well known, that the courts in England, have by their own authority, extended their jurisdiction far beyond the limits set them in their original institution, and by the laws of the land. [emphasis added]
When the courts will have a precedent before them of a court which extended its jurisdiction in opposition to an act of the legislature, is it not to be expected that they will extend theirs, especially when there is nothing in the constitution expressly against it? and they are authorised to construe its meaning, and are not under any controul? [ibid]
When the courts will have a precedent before them of a court which extended its jurisdiction in opposition to an act of the legislature, is it not to be expected that they will extend theirs, especially when there is nothing in the constitution expressly against it? and they are authorised to construe its meaning, and are not under any controul? [ibid]
(Note: Brutus makes a bru-boo by stating that the kings, er, the judges of England could “by their own authority [extend] their jurisdiction far beyond the limits set them in their original institution, and by the laws of the land.” No such “authority” existed; what is described is a usurpation of authority, that is, stealing the authority.)
So, past is prologue, especially where precedent is king … and queen, rook, knight, the whole damn chess board. As I’ve suggested above, the more appropriate historical path for comparison would be the subversion of the Laws of God, the Torah (The Torah), by the Pharisees (Matthew 15:1-20 - Passage Lookup - King James Version .) whose slow-cook-the-frog techniques, amongst the longest of long cons, successfully turned the divine Commandments on their head, which Yates states as, “This power in the judicial, will enable them to mould the government, into almost any shape they please.” [ibid, emphasis added]
Clearly, Brutus was an honorable man … and a prescient one whose perceptions have been fully justified by, in the last instance (and the last straw), the Roberts-cum-Kennedy Court.
ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE
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