At the Core of the U.S. Supreme Court, A Cabal of Corporate Hit Men | Black Agenda Report

At the Core of the U.S. Supreme Court, A Cabal of Corporate Hit Men

02 Jul 2014

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

The U.S. Supreme Court’s concept of corporate “personhood” apparently means that corporate religious rights – corporate gods – trump “the religious or secular beliefs of working people – specifically, working women.”

At the Core of the U.S. Supreme Court, A Cabal of Corporate Hit Men

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“The Federalist Society, a cabal of corporate conspirators, is always only one vote away from an outright majority on the nation’s highest court.”

The U.S. Supreme Court acted with reactionary zeal, this week, to accelerate the march of corporate power into every nook and cranny of American life. The High Court handed down three decisions that most dramatically affect women, but are mainly intended to buttress the rule of the moneyed classes. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the justices ruled that private corporations owned by religious fundamentalists have the right to eliminate contraceptive services from employee health plans, thus establishing the supremacy of corporate gods over the religious or secular beliefs of working people – specifically, working women. Thanks to the High Court, overwhelmingly female and non-white home health care employees – who have historically been among the country’s most poorly paid and oppressed workers, often laboring long hours with no benefits, no sick leave, and no security – will find it much harder to unionize. And, the Supreme Court decreed that women considering abortions at the dwindling number of clinics that provide such services will have to run the gauntlet of anti-abortion crazies, who can no longer be kept at a physical distance from the targets of their venomous free speech.

With every passing year, the federal courts become more firmly the domain of right-wing lawyers, whose mission is to set in stone the legal basis for a dictatorship of the rich. These judicial political hit men, including some women and lawyers of color, are chiefly organized under the banner of the Federalist Society. Formed in 1982 at the elite law schools at Yale, Harvard and the University of Chicago, the Federalist Society is most zealous in defending the rights of property and corporations. It now boasts 30,000 lawyers and 10,000 law students as members, including four of the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and chief justice John Roberts. That means the Federalist Society, a cabal of corporate conspirators, is always only one vote away from an outright majority on the nation’s highest court.

Money’s Unlimited Right to Speak

They are a devilishly clever crew, who revel in using the Bill of Rights as a weapon against the people. “Freedom of speech” was key to the Supreme Court majority’s arguments in the three recent cases. Justice Alito wrote that freedom of speech means workers cannot be forced to subsidize the speech of unions with whom they disagree. The ruling is a boon to corporate investors who want to corner the home health care market, which is projected to grow by 48 percent in the next eight years. Fewer unionized workers means higher profits. The High Court is super-sensitive to the free speech rights of anti-abortion activists, even as it typically sides with the State in creating vast zones where no free speech is allowed for those who oppose U.S. wars and corporate globalization. And, the Court’s recognition of corporate religious rights is based on the same bogus principle of corporate “personhood” that underlay its decision to allow virtually unlimited corporate contributions to political campaigns as a form of freedom of speech.

The Supreme Court’s legal logic grows clearer every year: The people have no rights that corporations are bound to respect.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com, and sign up to get email notifications when a new issue is published, each Wednesday.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20140702_gf_SCOTUS.mp3

More Stories

Jacqueline Luqman
What To the Exploited Working Class and Poor in a Capitalist Dictatorship Is the Fourth of July?
05 Jul 2023
The 4th of July celebration is a relic of American exceptionalist ideology. There is very little independence in a capitalist dictatorship.
Victoria Law
In Brutal Summer Heat, Prisoners Say Their Cells Are Like “Stifling Hot Coffins”
05 Jul 2023
Days of extreme heat without access to enough water and cooled air become deadlier for an aging prison population.
Abayomi Azikiwe
Police Brutality, Racism and Poverty Underlines Youth Rebellion in France
05 Jul 2023
Protests erupted in France after police killed a teenager of Algerian and Moroccan ancestry. Just as in the U.S. racism in France is the cause of police violence.
Horace G. Campbell
The United States Military, White Supremacy, and Affirmative Action
05 Jul 2023
The recent Supreme Court ruling which bans affirmative action as an admissions' criteria does not apply to the military academies. White elites are secure in their advantages while the military…
Ethan Baron
Tesla: The Cars That Racism Built? Black Workers Claim Lawsuits Have Not Stopped Discrimination
05 Jul 2023
Multi-billionaire Elon Musk claims to practice freedom of expression on his Twitter platform. But numerous complaints of anti-Black racism at his Tesla plant make a mockery of any claims of freedom…