Zombies for Health Care Reform

Zombies for Health Care Reform, originally uploaded by Robbi Baba.

On Sunday Eden and I joined a throng of zombies down at Courthouse Square to draw attention to the need for health care reform.
I reckon there were about a hundred of us, along with a marching band and a lot of photographers.
We marched down Fourth Street, down past the library and up Third. I have no doubt that we made all the difference, just like the final snowflake that starts an avalanche. Harry Reid announced today that the Senate bill will include the "public option".
Ironically, it's the corporations that are the true undead.

As Krista Brown wrote in her fantastic blog Undercurrents:

After seeing the film The Corporation awhile back and reading Ted Nace’s Gangs of America, this idea of the act of incorporating being akin to creating a Frankenstein is not far off. A corporation enjoys the rights we as individuals do and yet it has superpowers, can shape shift (into new and diverse businesses), has an insatiable appetite (for profit), is immortal and cannot be held accountable. When you start to look a bit deeper at the nature of the corporation, it is frankly terrifying.

So, in the legend, when it becomes clear that the Golem must be destroyed, the rabbi can return the monster to earth by “removing the word of God”. When a corporation crosses the line, what recourse is there? That’s where the “revocation of charter” action starts to sound very interesting.

In the good old days, that’s what we Americans did. Revoked charters. Slam. Firstly, corporations back then were limited to the state where their charter was issued and it was so only with the clearest of terms and purpose, with a built in expiration. So when a corporation stepped out of bounds (by causing public harm, for instance), we the people revoked that corporation’s charter and it died. Slam. Death penalty.

Yes, let’s move beyond anemic slap-on-the-wrist fines. Gross polluter? Slam. Violation of human rights? Slam. Repeat offender? Slam. Could the modern day corporation, so different a creature from its early American predecessors, be kept in line with stricter limitations and the threat of death? I really don’t know.

It's a grim business when an able body has no soul.