MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

As Think Progress noted, Elizabeth Warren, Democratic Party senatorial candidate in Massachusetts (for the seat once held by Ted Kennedy), got to the heart of the matter about the difference between people and corporations. Warren admonished the one-time governor of her state, Mitt Romney, that:

No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts. They have kids. They get jobs. They get sick. They thrive. They dance. They live. They love. And they die. And that matters. That matters. That matters because we don’t run this country for corporations, we run it for people.

That's cutting to the chase.

It's not easy sharing the one prime time hour of a convention night with the master of crowd seduction, Bill Clinton, but Warren wooed the delegates and guests with words that spoke to the importance of individual lives over corporate institutions. She rebutted the deification of companies -- the bestowal of a corporate divinity that is at the epicenter of the Republican ticket -- over the value of hearts that beat in human souls. Ironically, the only lives that merit protection in the GOP platform are the unborn, not those who come into this world and are in need.

It has become a cliché to appeal to the travails of the working family, but Warren lit a spark of truth to the reality of living on the “ragged edge” of surviving:

I’m here tonight to talk about hard-working people: people who get up early, stay up late, cook dinner and help out with homework; people who can be counted on to help their kids, their parents, their neighbors, and the lady down the street whose car broke down; people who work their hearts out but are up against a hard truth--the game is rigged against them.

The game is rigged by institutions that profit off the work of those who are barely able to get by. When life is monetized, when the value of an individual with a beating heart is valued as nothing more than dollar signs in the eyes of vulture capitalism, then we have lost our values.

Not leaving the playing field of God to the GOP, Warren recalled:

I grew up in the Methodist Church and taught Sunday school. One of my favorite passages of scripture is: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 25:40. The passage teaches about God in each of us, that we are bound to each other and called to act. Not to sit, not to wait, but to act--all of us together.

No, corporations don't have hearts. They should be at the service of people who do.

Call it a divine spark or just the radiant human soul, Elizabeth Warren spoke to the heart of the matter: the blood and spirit of life run through the veins of people, not corporations.