Unequal Protection: The Early Role of Corporations in America

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A quote from an commencement address:

"[There] is looming up a new and dark power...the enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marching, not for economical conquests only, but for political power....The question will arise and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine, which shall rule—wealth or man [sic]; which shall lead—money or intellect; who shall fill public stations—educated and patriotic freemen, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital..."

... from 1873.

http://truthout.org/print/1509

Le plus ca change ...

There's nothing new under the sun.

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extreme right-wing packed SCOTUS shields Cororate-Americans from Human-Americans

Court imposes limits on class actions

In a 5-4 ideological split, the high court's conservatives said businesses can block their customers from using class-action arbitration. The court said federal laws allowing class-action arbitration trump state laws that would invalidate contracts that ban it.

The Supreme Court's decision means that corporations now won't need to worry about consumers, shareholders or even employees banding together and fighting them using lawsuits or arbitration, consumer groups said.

"Now, whenever you sign a contract to get a cell phone, open a bank account or take a job, you may be giving up your right to hold companies accountable for fraud, discrimination or other illegal practices," said Deepak Gupta, a Public Citizen lawyer who argued the case.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the decision would hamper the rights of consumers to be protected by state laws.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/04/27/general-mobile-telecommunications-us-supreme-court-class-actions_8437727.html

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So conservatives LOVE states rights' to go after on niggas and Mexicans and incorporate in low-regulated states (eg, states with no anti-usury laws), but HATE states rights to go after on corporations.