From a Daily Kos Diary:
An 1886 Supreme Court clerk’s headnotes misreading (Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad) applied the 14th Amendment to corporations, extending to them all the rights, but none of the responsibilities, of human persons. The result has been the steady erosion of our democracy since then, and the consequent rise of the corporate state, which is primarily responsible for the military-corporate-media-academic complex, the expansion of the often brutal U.S. global empire (including the IMF, WTO, and World Bank) with its protecting militarism, and the destruction of our only planet’s environment, all in the service of corporate capital’s endless lust for power and profits. Corporate personhood is at the core of all of our problems. Ending it is the start of the way back to humane civilization.
Indeed. The time has come to end this double standard. If corporations want the protection of the Constitution they must also assume the responsibilities citizens must endure. Like, if I somehow killed all Republicans, I would be guilty of mass murder and would be tried, convicted and executed. In 1984, a Union Carbide subsidiary released 42 tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas in Bhopal, India. At least 520,000 people were exposed to toxic gases, and at least 11,000 people died from that exposure within two weeks. You can argue whether the release of gases was intentional or not, but we still jail people for unintentional murder, i.e. manslaughter. Can you jail a corporation? No, but you can take all of its assets for public use, and fine or imprison all of their megarich executives.