For the Corporate Person by the Corporate Person
The Melting Pot. That was the name of my third grade social studies book in 1970s Chicago Public School. I remember reading about the first Thanksgiving dinner and all the peace and love that abound and coming home to show my parents the Native American headdress I was wearing made from brightly colored construction paper. I remember going home and watching Schoolhouse Rock on TV and singing “Lovely Lady Liberty!” to the Great American Melting Pot song and dancing along to I’m Just a Bill. I dressed up as the Statue of Liberty for the 1976 bicentennial parade at school and still have the Chicago Tribune news clip with my picture waving the tinfoil and cardboard ‘torch.’ Growing up in the 1970s, apple pie decade left me with a wide-eyed, patriot spirit that I carried into adulthood.
Born to left-leaning, working class, immigrant parents, my father identified as a democrat. The first president I remember vaguely is Nixon, then Ford and Carter. Idealist by nature, I always believed that one vote meant one vote. I believed that my one vote mattered. That it made a difference. I believed I had a voice in democracy. In my twenties, I never missed voting in elections though I didn’t overthink about politics. My socially conscious parents kept me in the political loop and we made sure to always vote for left-leaning presidents because they had the moral character that made them care about the people. The democrats would take care of the people.
Fast forward to today, I’m 51 years old with 2 teenage kids. My 18 year old daughter voted for the first time. We took our ceremonious and boastful “I Voted” selfie and posted it to Facebook.
My husband and I work full-time, own a home and just paid off the orthodontist for two mouthfuls of braces. We have medical and household expenses and will be sending 2 children off to college in 2020 and 2021. But our kids will have to figure out a way to pay for their own schooling. It is just not doable for middle class families.
And even though we know deep down it’s not really going to save the planet, we faithfully recycle.
The Bernie campaign asked me to look in the mirror and ask myself, “Am I willing to fight for someone I don’t know?” I thought about it. I bounced it against my worldview; my view of karma; my spiritual beliefs and decreed that yes. I am willing to fight for someone I don’t know.” I put a Bernie 2020 sign in my window and placed a “Not Me. Us” pin from the Bernie merch shop on my coat. I sent regular as well as rage donations to Bernie in denominations of $2.70, $5 and $10— and I became part of the progressive movement of America.
We all know the facts about how the 1% have used their money and political pull to create public policies that benefit them—and block public policies that negatively affect them. We all know the facts that the rest of us in the 99% (from rich to poor to sick and sicker and everyone in between) have to work hard to try and get some of our fair share back. We are patriotic, after all. We are not just willing but thrilled to become civically engaged and participate in democracy to make a better life for our children. To demand a better life for our children. The Bernie movement gave us hope. More hope than we’ve ever had in our lives because it meant that our government might start paying attention to us again. And not just at tax time when Uncle Sam came looking for 23-35% of our paychecks. Our government would begin to look at us again as human.
The United States Supreme Court some time ago ruled that a corporation is a person.
Are you listening?
C o r p o r a t i o n s a r e p e r s o n s.
Corporations have inalienable rights. Not sure if life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness happen to be any of those rights—but they definitely have the right to pay off our political system.
Corporations are persons who have the write to buy democracy away from the human persons.
The government likes to call the ability to buy American democracy “lobbying.” The term lobbying normalizes the process of buying democracy giving the impression that hardworking advocacy for some common good is happening. Even if a direct quid quo pro is not exchanged for political contributions, the duty and service of our politicians is always to the corporate-donor-lobbyist-person first and foremost, than to any human person that actually casts a vote for them in an election.
Corporations may become perpetual, giving them infinite years of personship with which to buy favors from our political system.
Citizens United in 2010, the Supreme Court’s First Amendment ruling, is what gives corporation-persons full rights under the law to buy elections at all levels of government. And superPACs are mega donors that give tons of cash to American politicians to really really REALLY be sure that their focus and attention and voting habits lend themselves to the interests and financial betterment of the corporation persons making up said superPACs. No matter how negatively it affects the human persons that cast the votes that got the politicians into office, superPACs fund the politicians and the politicians prioritize the needs of the superPACs above voting human persons.
So if Corporations are persons now and Citizens United allows them to buy our government and superPACs quadruple down on the election lottery winnings they can bestow upon our politicians to buy their policy-making, where does that leave the human persons in relation to their politicians and their government?
Regular human persons each have a VOTE. Regular human persons have our voices and our advocacy.
Millions of human persons joined the Not Me. Us Movement and lifted our voices up to tell our government and election entities that we want progressive policies that give us security to have a shot at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We raised our human person voices and said, “The only reason that corporations are successful is because we have been doing all the work.”
We raised our human person voices and said, “I have contributed to the social security system for decades. That is my money the government promised to keep in trust for me so that I don’t end up homeless when I”m 65. Please don’t steal it to give to your golf buddies, government! Stop in the name of human persons everywhere!”
We raised our human person voices to ask, “Isn’t our tax money better spent educating our youth to be amazing citizens of tomorrow instead of using it to fortify the military industrial complex and to drone-slaughter innocent kids overseas? (We know our government meant to drone strike a bad guy. We know our government has to find reasons to use the arsenal they have purchased from the military industrial complex and they don’t mean to kill little boys and girls across the ocean.)
We raised our human person voices and said, “I have a right to live if I have diabetes. Or cancer. Or mental health issues. I have a right to live on an inhabitable planet! I have the right to live!”
What did the political superPAC that consists of the DNC, corporate media and compliant election bodies do in response to our overt civic engagement? They gave us the middle finger. They told us human persons, “How dare you actively participate in democracy!”
And they mocked us.
They mocked us. Called us Bernie Bros. Wicked cultists who dare stand up for themselves. We were surely the reason for Trump’s existence, Trump’s reelection and Trump’s everything.
STOP WANTING LIFE LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, BERNIE BROS! BECAUSE TRUMP!
AND SOCIALISM!
STOP FIGHTING FOR YOURSELVES, HUMAN PERSONS. VOTE FOR WHO WE TELL YOU TO!
AND SHUT UP.
They marginalized our voices at the polls by closing polling stations in minority communities, thwarting the ability of thousands of human persons to cast their Bernie votes.
They marginalized our voices by depositing broken voting machines in our communities of color and giving useless provisional ballots to non-English speakers sending them home dazed and confused.
They wrote headline and after headline about how Bernie couldn’t get the youth vote to come out, yet videos on Twitter went viral showing UCLA students, a campus of 34,000, in lines that went on for a mile to try to cast their votes in a tiny room on campus. (This happened on multiple college campuses.)
They changed polling locations in heavy progressive areas at the last minute. Leaving voters scrambling to figure out where to vote. If they did end up voting at all.
They closed polling locations all together. On election day. With no notice.
They purged voter records. Some had successfully checked their statuses the day before.
The corporate media announced Biden the winner at the top of the hour, the moment the polls were closed, with zero percent polling reporting if the exit polls showed Biden did well. These raucous celebrations hit the corporate airwaves instantaneously. We’re talking lightening speed.
The corporate media failed to announce Bernie the winner — for days -— with 80-plus-percent reporting if the exit polls showed Bernie did well. These media blackouts appeared synchronized with the DNC.
There are still uncounted votes, uncounted delegates.
Bernie’s rallies broke records where thousands upon thousands of people showed up only to be rewarded with media blackouts.
The mini Super Tuesday results showed a sudden spike in Biden’s numbers that didn’t match the exit polls. No explanation has been offered. It’s not like the votes and the calculations are transparent to the public.
The corporate persons and superPACs have made it clear in 2016 and in 2020 that all of the phone banking, canvassing, texting, door knocking, donations, rallies and voting the human persons do — it will never be enough to actually NOMINATE our candidate of choice. Candidates whose couldn’t pull in the votes early on with absolutely no path to the White House deliberately stayed in the race. Some say they stayed in the race to specifically derail the wants and the needs of their constituents, the human person majority. Others say they stayed in the race to specifically benefit their own personal political careers. Holding out hope for a VP spot or secretary-of-something spot. These are recipients of superPAC money giving a clear signal to human persons to get the hell out of their way.
Some of them went on national television to mock us, defame us, gaslight us.
They scolded us for daring to vote in our own best interests.
They scolded us for daring to be civically engaged in our country where we work and pay taxes.
They scolded us for daring to participate in democracy and for daring to raise our human person voices.
They scolded us for daring to make demands on how our tax dollars are spent that are not in the interest of their corporate owners and superPAC donors.
They gaslit us and informed us that we have been, we are, and will continue to be the reason for Trump.
The human persons are the reason why everything is wrong with our elections and our fledgling democracy, they told us.
And we the people— We the human persons are saying:
Not Me!
Us!
Not Me!
Us!
Not Me!
Us damnit!
We thought for a moment our government would look at us again as human!
We thought for a moment our humanity and our votes mattered.
We dared cast our votes.
We dared to be human.
About the Author
About the Author: I'm a Writer, Speaker and Muslim Activist. I'm a former Board Member of the #MyJihad Public Education Campaign.
Follow my blog at yasminareality.com or follow me on Twitter: @yasmina_reality. I'm also now on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YasminaReality
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