The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on �free speech� for corporations in political campaigns and elsewhere has stirred up a furor among those who believe that the power and wealth of Corporate America already have corrupted the political system.

Treating corporations as individuals and, even, as citizens, has indeed corrupted the political system, without even considering a penny that they have contributed to political campaigns or that they have run scurrilous ads against an individual or a bill.

Corporations as citizens is a concept that should be alien to our democratic republic (if it were functioning properly), because the founders--in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights--were writing about individuals and citizens.

Individuals, citizens, are living, breathing human beings.� They have intellect, feelings, beliefs, and are capable of cooperating with their fellow citizens to act for the common good.� They can commit offenses against their society and they can be punished for them.� They go to jail for such violations.� They can express remorse for their offenses and they can, on their own--because they are sorry for what they have done--make restitution and change their ways.

Such is not the case for corporations, which are known as �legal fictions� as far as their citizenship goes.� No corporation expresses sorrow for its crimes and misdemeanors and no corporation is capable of mending its ways and vowing never to stray again.

Only human operatives in charge of corporations can do that and, because of the laws of the United States of America, they are generally protected from liability for the crimes committed by the corporations they run.� In other words, you can�t put a corporation in jail, although you can fine them for transgressions against the people and for harming people.

That, however, rarely happens.� We�ve seen a few miscreants go to jail in recent years, but for the most part, the greater the crime, the greater the reward.� And besides, many of our most dangerous corporations are �too big to fail.�� So, we coddle them.� But that doesn�t mean that we can�t rein them in and have some control over what they do to us.

In its recent 5-4 decision on �political speech� for corporations, the Supreme Court continued a series of decisions that allow legal fictions the rights of citizens.� Rightly, many Americans are worried about it, but many others say, �So what?� They already control much of our national life, including the political system.� What will change?�

Going back to the beginning of this country, national leaders, including those who led the revolution, expressed concern about the power of corporations over the people, because they knew that such power was corrupting and, if it went on too long, that power would be used to oppress the people.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter, �I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.�

His concern was justified and for 200 years, the elites of America have expressed their power through the money and influence of their corporations, which have become increasingly larger and ever more powerful.

In recent days, the �tea baggers� and other populist groups on the right--bankrolled by fake grass roots organizations--are filled with ranks of people who apparently hate the government, yet fail to see how corporate money controls the government.� Part of that can be attributed to their lack of education, but the educational system, itself, has been corrupted by corporate money for more than a century.

How can children be educated, taught to think clearly, when their schools are filled with misinformation and outright propaganda that is put there by the likes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable, and many others?� They have been able to provide teaching tools, pamphlets, videos, and whole programs for thousands of schools across America, simply because they have the money to do it.

In the past several decades, they have had help from right-wing think tanks that they have created, to give them and their views credibility.� And, they have had help from the mass media, which has been easy because they own most of the daily press, the local television stations, and the television networks.

The Internet was to have been a counterbalance to this awesome power, but the pressure to turn over this vast field of free expression to large corporations is immense.� The fight against such control is called �net neutrality,� the idea being that the net belongs to everyone, to all the people.

With all of its faults, the Internet is the kind of free exchange of ideas and communications that the founders envisioned, although they could not have had even an idea what technology would bring a few centuries into the future.

But what is clear to anyone with a passing ability to understand the language, they referred to humans in crafting the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.� At least a few, like Jefferson, feared the power of corporations.

Most importantly, when considering the damage the recent court decision could have on the body politic, it should be remembered that it is state legislatures that charter corporations, not the federal government.� The founders likely created the mechanism for charters so the system would be closer to the people and they could control corporations more easily.

Even today, corporations are chartered by the states.� But even that system has been corrupted.� Unrelenting pressure by the wealthy and their corporations over generations has watered down the popular control over the various state legislatures and the process of riding herd on corporations.

Historically, legislatures granted charters to corporations for specific periods and they were specific about the business conducted under each charter and the remedy for violations of those stipulations or the common good was revocation of the charter, dissolution of the corporation, and the distribution of assets among shareholders.

It�s doubtful if many state legislators even know about the power they have to regulate and control corporations.� Even if they do know, it�s not likely that they would be willing to cross such powerful entities that could, by the very act of opening the corporate purse strings, end their political careers.� That is a very real possibility for anyone with enough spine to take action.

There might be a few legislators in each of the 50 state legislatures who might be willing to take a stand against a corporation, but it takes the legislature acting as a whole to accomplish what needs to be done and, to do that, they need to know their country�s history and the series of legislative actions and judicial decisions over the past 150 years that have brought us to the present state of affairs.

Fear of acts by the people and their representatives at the state level is the reason that many corporations--if not the richest and most powerful--are incorporated in states where they are quite certain that this could never happen. �That�s why corporations seek charters from the State of Delaware.

For example, Wal-Mart is incorporated in Delaware, not in Arkansas.� They operate on certificates issued by the various secretaries of state in the other 49 states.� That way, they don�t have to be chartered in every state.

The recent court decision on �political speech� for our �citizen� corporations is rightfully alarming to many Americans, especially when one looks at the character of the majority of justices in this decision, along with the manner and philosophy of their jurisprudence.

The decision was more like an imprimatur of what is the reality of corporate control in American life, rather than a new twist on the electoral process, which has been touted as the linchpin of our democracy.� Money has been in charge of that for a long time.

Some court justices could be forgiven for believing that corporations have the rights of human citizens under the Bill of Rights, because a few courts have done just that.� The one that has been cited most in recent years is an 1886 ruling, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific, did rule that a corporation was a natural person under the U.S. Constitution.� By most accounts, it was an erroneous decision, but it has been allowed to stand to this day.

Now, the court in 2010 has added to the error of that long-ago decision, by emphasizing that a legal fiction can be a human person.� Despite protestations to the contrary, it is likely to further corrupt a corrupt electoral system and render most federal legislators wary, if not abjectly fearful, of what would happen to them if they cross the powerful corporations, which have the deepest of deep pockets.

Rather than wringing hands and calling the decision a tragedy (which it is), it�s time for citizens (real, human citizens) to take action.� It should start with learning what never was taught in school or university about corporate charters, and then taking action against any entity, corporate or otherwise, which threatens a �government of the people, by the people, and for the people.�

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former union organizer. His union work started when he became a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early 1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.