Hightower Lowdown

So, corporations are now "people." While these inanimate paper constructs have no brain, heart, or soul, the five ideological screwballs on our Supreme Court say that corporations henceforth have a First Amendment right to "speak" in any election by spending unlimited cash to elect or defeat candidates.

This issue of the Lowdown is all about the disastrous impact the screwballs' decision will have on the democratic sovereignty of us actual people. But the Court's idea of turning corporate entities into persons has also unleashed a gusher of excellent thoughts from human-type persons. For example, will same-sex corporations be allowed to merge? And if corporations are people, shouldn't they have to face getting drafted into the army, just like people people? And since the 13th Amendment prohibits slavery, which is ownership of a person, don't we now have to shut down the stock market, where corporations are bought and sold? It's a new civil-rights battleground--"Free the Corporate Slaves! Now!"

What's next? If corporations have the First Amendment political right to support candidates, how can they be denied the right to become candidates? Indeed, one corporation, Murray Hill Inc., has already filed for a Maryland congressional seat. A Murray Hill executive says that his corporation simply decided to "eliminate the middleman," and he's urging other corporate brothers and sisters to take the political plunge. "We're saying to Wal-Mart, AIG and Pfizer, if not you, who? If not now, when?" All sorts of things might be possible in the Supreme Court's Corporate Wonderland.