No Corporate Rule

The Biggest Challenge of Our Time

2012-01-21T16:55:00.000-05:00

Protester's sign at Occupy the Courts in Washington D.C.

“Why the courts? Because frankly folks, that’s the scene of the crime. Corporate personhood and money equals political speech are court-created doctrines. We the people never decided it; our elected representatives didn’t decide it; ordinary people like me and you never decided it. The court created these doctrines and it’s going to take a movement to overturn it.” --- David Cobb, Move to Amend and an organizer of Friday’s Occupy the Courts protests.

In September a couple of years ago, I explored in a post how the Roberts Court obliterated the Constitution through corporate favoritism. I predicted -- which wasn't really that difficult -- how "big money in politics already subverted our democratic processes before [that election] year, but that [it would] seem like pennies-in-a-bucket when the steamroller of millions of corporate dollars start inundating the media with attack ads and influence peddling -- all designed to adversely influence your opinion to support their views and their candidates." Today's two-year anniversary of that inane and horrible Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, was the focus of yesterday's nation-wide network of protests called, collectively, Occupy the Courts. I was a part of the demonstration in Washington D.C., and although it was not as cold as last year's rally that observed the even colder and callous reasoning of that treasonous decision, it was still a brisk and windy day.

Thom Hartmann speaking at Occupy the Courts

The D.C. event included many skits, street theater, and speeches by David Cobb, former presidential aspirant for the Green Party, along with Thom Hartmann, who initiated my journey of realizing the destabilizing and destructive nature of corporate personhood and the resultant corporatocracy we live under today due to this.

The crowd was slightly larger than last year's event, but unlike a year ago the Capitol Police and Park Police were prominent and very visible. I interpret this to be a positive sign; the Occupy movement has created

awareness and fear within those corporatists who have overtaken our government over the last thirty years, and especially within this century.

I follow a friend's blog, aptly called "The Rant" by Tom Degan, and even before the realization of the near-collapse of the investment banking sector I expressed my doubts and frustrations about our country's burgeoning corporatocracy. The following reprint of a comment I posted on Mr. Degan's blog on September 9, 2008, which I highlighted in my very first post on No Corporate Rule, is worth repeating:

"Tom, like you, I used to be firmly in the Democratic camp each and every election cycle, just knowing that if only the Democrats could retain power, all our social and political problems would be worked on, and would finally get solved. But, decade-after-decade, the same problems continued to persist. They actually got worse, not better. Aside from a Republican revolution that oversaw a dismantling of much of the New Deal era's strides to put society on a more equal footing, even when Democratic control was firmly in place the slide continued towards further degradation of human rights, and citizen needs, in favor of corporate and moneyed interests.

I, too, sincerely hope I'm wrong in my opinion about Senator Obama. I truly do. But the evidence is irrefutable. Thankfully, in 2002, which is the year Thom Hartmann's remarkable Unequal Protection came out, I picked it off the bookstore shelf and only intended to take a quick glance, but then couldn't put it down. I immediately bought it, and read it - more like absorbed it. Since, I've done extensive reading and research concerning corporate personhood through other areas, such as POCLAD.

That day things really started to crystallize for me. I understood that our problems weren't unsolvable through democratic action; they were only resisted by corporate entities that held far more power and influence than I did as a voter, and an agenda that was antithetical to mine, and most Americans. I learned that although I had the protections and rights granted to me through the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, so did, underhandedly, multinational corporate and banking interests. Just as important, it became apparent that our elected officials, from both parties, were in the corner of their corporate benefactors; not mine, or yours, or any of the other millions of middle or working class people in this country. When I made that connection, I mean when it finally hit me like a ton of bricks, I understood that a slow-motion coup d’état had taken place right under our noses. It didn't take troops and tanks rolling through the streets; all it took was time and incremental steps. It worked, and sadly, most of America is oblivious to the fact that it happened. They know 'something's wrong' but they haven't figured it out. It was the most covert takeover of a people in history.

I'll probably never return to the Democratic Party, but it could happen. If, through some miracle, they adopted the same stance in their official party platform that the Green Party has regarding the elimination of corporate personhood, then I'll come back. The 'Greens' unabashedly call for 'legislation or constitutional amendment to end the legal fiction of corporate personhood.' This, Tom, would be the real panacea to true reform, and the return of our country to We the People. Without this, we're just pissin' in the wind."

I feel even more passionately about what I wrote that day then ever before. The benefit of hindsight has allowed me to know that the corporatists continue to whittle away at the rights only natural persons were granted through our Bill of Rights; only natural persons, those made of real flesh and blood, deserve the protections our forebearers recognized as natural law. The infusion of corporate money is shattering records this primary season, and we're already experiencing how Citizens United has effectively allowed corporations, domestic and foreign, to leapfrog over our democratic ideals and to the forefront of our constitutional protections. As these transgressions against democratic ideals continue; as each passing year brings us precariously closer to entering the throes of a fascist authoritarian regime, the stakes become higher and the threats loom larger.

Until corporate personhood dies and is buried, preferably through a constitutional amendment, we're only fooling ourselves if we think the normal recourse for democratic change will solve the problem. It won't. The last four years have shown us this, and if history is a reliable teacher, the next four years -- no matter who is in office -- will certainly prove this. It's time to think real change. Otherwise, as I said almost four years ago, we're certainly just pissin' in the wind -- and we'll deserve everything that blows our way.

The Slippery Slope Turned to Black Ice

2011-12-31T18:30:00.005-05:00

He did it! On the last day of the year, during a holiday weekend when most people aren't paying attention to the news, President Obama signed the egregious National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. Congratulations sir! You just set us on course for complete dictatorial control! From Anonymous earlier this month:

"If you have not yet woken up to the reality of the police state we've been warning you about, I hope you realize we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you have no rights whatsoever in America. — no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent, nothing."

So we'll begin 2012 under a completely new legal authority; not the rule of law as based upon our constitutional protections, but rather the murky and ambiguous sense of justice that the president -- any president -- feels like asserting on any given day.

We live in strange and dangerous times. May the new year's promise of peace, and increased awareness and raised consciousness, be with all of you and those you hold dear.

OWS: Grow Awareness; Expose Corruption. Demand Later

2011-12-03T14:25:00.000-05:00

Occupy D.C., Freedom Plaza, October 2011

“As Charles Stewart Parnell called out during the Irish rent strike campaign in 1879 and 1880: It is no use relying on the Government . . . . You must only rely upon your own determination . . . . Help yourselves by standing together . . .strengthen those amongst yourselves who are weak . . .band yourselves together, organize yourselves . . . and you must win . . . When you have made this question ripe for settlement, then and not till then will it be settled.” Gene Sharp (1928-present)

Much of the criticism of Occupy Wall Street, and the movement it has borne, is a perceived lack of focus and clarity, both from opponents on the Right and proponents on the Left. I've read comments from my own blog ("I do think OWS needs to do a better job of selling its message and connecting to the general population") and other's ("It is hard to negotiate for change without such demands set forth...[a]s much as I admire the demonstrators courage and spunk I think the whole idea was half baked and doomed to fail from the beginning"). "It’s not poll-tested or focus-grouped, but it expresses perfectly the outrage that is the appropriate response to the maddening political situation we find ourselves in today. It succeeds as symbolic politics: taking back the square is just what we need to do", argues Betsy Reed with The Nation. Even mainstream medium bulwark CNN concedes:

"Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not being truthful. Whether we agree with them or not, we all know what they are upset about, and we all know that there are investment bankers working on Wall Street getting richer while things for most of the rest of us are getting tougher. What upsets banking's defenders and politicians alike is the refusal of this movement to state its terms or set its goals in the traditional language of campaigns...there are a wide array of complaints, demands, and goals from the Wall Street protesters: the collapsing environment, labor standards, housing policy, government corruption, World Bank lending practices, unemployment, increasing wealth disparity and so on...they believe they are symptoms of the same core problem. Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president..."

Nonviolent protest is very successful in initiating change, something Gene Sharp, author of From Dictatorship to Democracy, knows more than anyone concerning the subject. Translated into over thirty languages, his work has inspired and created countless regime changes around the world. Examples of key nonviolent steps intrinsic to liberation:

Develop a strategy for winning freedom and a vision of the society you want

Overcome fear by small acts of resistance

Use colors and symbols to demonstrate unity of resistance

Learn from historical examples of the successes of non-violent movements

Use non-violent "weapons"

Identify the dictatorship's pillars of support and develop a strategy for undermining each

Use oppressive or brutal acts by the regime as a recruiting tool for your movement

Isolate or remove from the movement people who use or advocate violence

Central to Dr. Sharp's treatise is the premise that "the power of dictatorships comes from the willing obedience of the people they govern - and that if the people can develop techniques of withholding their consent, a regime will crumble."

For now, the work is to build momentum through numbers. The work is to grow awareness. The work is to expose. It's their money versus our numbers, our awareness, our shedding light on their corruptness and lies. Demands will be formally articulated later.

Here's the latest from Anonymous (Message to Occupy the World 11-18-11):

Greetings citizens of the world. We are Anonymous. Since the occupation of Wall Street began we have been watching closely as countless people in cities around the world have taken to the streets in peaceful support of the movement. A show of support for a humanity free from the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. Free from corruption in our political and financial institutions, and free from the injustices caused by corporate personhood and the oppression of others. This is not the Arab Spring, Egypt, Greece, Tunisia, nor The American Autumn.

This is mass global awakening.

The lies and corruptions that have attached themselves to our system like a parasite have been exposed.

A way to rid our world of this parasite uncovered.

The cure lies in all of us.

This is only the first wave of our brothers and sisters to awaken to the lies and corruptions taking place around them. You, my brothers and sisters bear the weight of carrying this message to the masses. You must continue to hold your ground and stand up to help educate others to these injustices. The practice of active non participation in the things we deem evil, peaceful protests, and large scale community education efforts are things each one of us can continue and teach others to help aid in the fight. This will assure us victory against tyranny in our world.

We have already seen signs of this process beginning to take hold. With the successful transfer of 4.5 billion dollars on Bank Transfer Day, and 690,000 new accounts created at credit unions in the U.S. alone, we have taken the first strike against the banks.

This will not be the last.

Occupy protests continue to grow despite the puppet media, who is bought and controlled by politicians and corporations continuing to lie about numbers involved in the protests. They have said there is no clear message and otherwise down played and belittled the protests as a whole. Yet our message has still gotten out.

Political and corporate backed entities continue to try to adopt and corrupt the movement.

Trying to turn it into a tool for their own purposes, yet they fail.

Worse yet, incidents of police brutality and the revocation of the rights of our citizens are growing more common place. Corrupt elements hidden within police forces around the world have begun to inflict terror and beat the otherwise peaceful protestors into submission. Mayors, and governing officials in cities around the world have begun to send in their dogs in an effort to stamp out the growth of revolution. They have taken notice of our actions and they are scared!

These crimes against our citizens do not go unnoticed, and must not be allowed to quell our efforts in seeking freedom. We must maintain peaceful despite these atrocities and not feed into their efforts to bring us down to their lowly level of existence.

The instigators of these actions are unaware that they are defeating themselves, for we are already at the third act of the famous quote; “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you. then you win.”

There has never been a more exciting time to be alive in all our lives.

It is important that we not be bored or let idle time pass, for the seeds of revolution against worldwide injustice have been sewn. Yet without enough nourishment they will not survive and grow to full fruition.

Citizens of the world, the power for change is in our hands. We must continue to expose the truth to the masses.

Know your own power; inform others of the immediate threat of corporations, banking institutions and the growing takeover of world governments. Maintain true to the foundations of the Occupy movement. Fight greed, corruption and corporate control of our democracy.

Continue to denounce the involvement of entities with political and financial affiliations in the movement. Express your free right to assemble via global, large scale peaceful protests.

Our efforts must not simply continue.

Our efforts must grow.

Corrupt governments, police, corporations, banking institutions and those who oppress others.

You cannot kill, or buy an idea.

You are the parasite, not our citizens who gather in peaceful protest against injustice in our world.

You are outnumbered, and surrounded.

The revolution has begun, and the end of your reign is near.

We will not stand for your atrocities and injustices any longer.

We are Bradley Manning, we are Scott Olsen. We are your brother, mother, and best friend.

We are people.

We are free.

We are one.

We are Anonymous.

We are legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

You should have expected us!

The Slipperiest of Slopes

2011-11-20T08:48:00.005-05:00

UC Davis Student Civil Disobedience, 11/18/2011

"The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second."

------ Chris Hedges, from 2011: A Brave New Dystopia, Truthdig 12/27/10

Nazi Execution of Dissident

By now, you've probably seen the video of the obviously intentional and grotesque behavior by campus police at the University of California in Davis. (If not, you can see it here.) This video, originally only available through fringe progressive blogs and websites, has finally seen the light of day within the corporate-owned mainstream media -- mainly because it has gone viral on the Internet. As with anything accusatory or demeaning of the corporate-state, unless there's no further chance of ignoring or omitting the obvious (as in the case of the Occupy movement), the corporate media is forced to undraw the curtain and reveal the events -- although, not necessarily, and often not, the truth and reasons behind them.

The question I want to ask is this: When this kind of despicable behavior is conducted by those entrusted to serve and protect us from criminal activities, and equally important, is condoned and approved by their superiors and those we supposedly elect, when and where is the line drawn that separates us from the inhumane and state-sanctioned slippery slope toward totalitarianism and demagoguery?

Wall Street Occupies Our Government

2011-10-23T11:40:00.000-04:00

Jefferson's Guardian at Freedom Plaza, October 8th

"If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed." .......GEORGE WASHINGTON, farewell address, Sept. 19, 1796

Attending and being a part of the Occupy DC movement the first four days, and also last weekend, it has become obvious to me that a true grassroots movement is taking hold and sprouting. Despite the mainstream media's (ABC) interviewing and airing of some fool's claim that "it's fabricated; it's not an authentic movement" during last weekend's Occupy Wall Street's (OWS) Times Square rally, it's obvious this is the real deal. The whole world is watching, and joining in against the corporatism that has invaded and infiltrated governments globally.

But protesting needs to be backed up with more than statements. Moving beyond why we're occupying, the next step is defining and redefining the demands that normally evolve from mass social movements. OWS recently published a list of user-suggested demands, that was not an official demand list, nor discussed or agreed upon by a collective NYC General Assembly, but reflects many of the concerns that are on the minds of Americans, and people of all western societies, right now. But the primary grievance, that's all-encompassing and in its totality, sums up what's happened to our country over the last few decades: Wall Street occupies our government.

Matt Taibbi has contributed his own list of demands; items he'd like to see formally proposed and implemented. Right now, he sees the "movement's basic strategy – to build numbers and stay in the fight, rather than tying itself to any particular set of principles", to be in its best interest right now. But he also agrees, before too long, it'll be necessary to document its demands and offer sound solutions to the problems it has already listed.

Jim Hightower, in his October "Lowdown", although not specifically citing OWS, calls for grassroots action beginning with a National Week of Action starting today, October 23rd, to stem the flow of corporate money in politics, and to reel in and abolish corporate personhood.

Others have proposed various demands, again none agreed upon by OWS, but certainly under a true democratic structure, welcomed and tabled and will be given due consideration. But all the thoughtfulness and careful deliberations will probably not go to the extent as proposed by Richard Grossman, "the father of the 'no to corporate personhood' movement", who has called for an across-the-board criminalization of the entity we call a corporation. Read what Mr. Grossman proposes from the Corporate Crime Reporter.

CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
Richard Grossman on Usurpation and the Corporation as Crime
25 Corporate Crime Reporter 39, October 6, 2011

Richard Grossman says that Occupy Wall Street activists need to go beyond greed and corruption and focus on usurpation.

As in – illegal seizure of power.

As in – the corporation has usurped – illegally seized – power from the people.

He quotes Thomas Hobbes as saying that a corporation is merely a “chip off the old block of sovereignty.”

Grossman, the father of the “no to corporate personhood” movement, says the first step in taking back the power is to criminalize the corporation.

To that end, he has drafted a four page law – “An Act to Criminalize Chartered Incorporated Business Enterprises.”

“As of 12:01 a.m. on July 4, 2012, no incorporated business shall exist or operate within the United States and its territories, or with any State or municipality,” the draft law reads.

“As of 12:01 a.m. on July 4, 2012, all existing business corporation charters granted by the United States, and by all States, shall be null and void.”

“If people want to go into business, fine,” Grossman said. “But this law would strip away 500 years of Constitutional protections and privileges. No more limited liability for shareholders. No more perpetual life. No more Constitutional protections.”

Those local, state or federal officials “who fail to implement and sustain the prohibition – and criminalization – of chartered, incorporated business entities after 12:01 a.m. July 4, 2012, shall promptly be indicted and speedily tried for the crime of villainous usurpation – perfidious, felonious, illegitimate rule exceeding their proper authority – as well as for the crime of dereliction of duty.”

In a footnote to the draft law, Grossman writes that “in a corporate state, law, culture, contrived celebration and tradition illegitimately clothe directors and executive officers of chartered incorporated businesses in governing authority.”

“This is usurpation,” he writes. “A corporate state nurtures, enables and expedites such illegitimate governing authority by violence enforced by courts, jails, police and military force and by historians. Less-overtly ferocious institutions – for profit and non profit – routinely reinforce that reality.”

A Statement of Democratic Values

2011-10-06T00:00:00.004-04:00

The Wall Street occupation is entering its third week. What began as a loosely organized, scattered, and lowly attended protest, has swelled into a movement decrying the corporate hijacking of this country's democratic traditions and underpinnings. Days ago, organized labor was represented by airline pilots from United Airlines, but Thursday's addition of major unions in and around New York City, added breadth and solidarity to a growing and unyielding cause. Also yesterday, student groups also showed their support of Occupy Wall Street by joining the occupiers and current residents of southern Manhattan's Liberty Square and Zuccotti Park with a march on City Hall. As the field grows larger, and as the corporate media are forced to stop ignoring its growing strength, many new and previously unaware observers question the group's motives.

Late last week, an ad hoc people's congress formed a General Assembly and released their first official statement of who they are, why they're there, and exactly what their concerns are. Here's their statement in its entirety.

This was unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street last night, around 8pm, Sept 29. It is our first official document for release. We have three more underway, that will likely be released in the upcoming days: 1) A declaration of demands. 2) Principles of Solidarity 3) Documentation on how to form your own Direct Democracy Occupation Group. This is a living document. you can receive an official press copy of the latest version by emailing c2anycgaATgmailDOTcom

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

(End of Statement)

Today, Thursday, these same grievances will be the reason thousands of us will begin occupying Washington D.C. to help plant the grassroots of a new democracy; one that allows all Americans -- the remaining 99% -- to participate. If you're in the area, please come join us at Freedom Plaza. Go to Stop the Machine! to find out more.

Our Crisis of Democracy

2011-09-25T10:20:00.002-04:00

There is a crisis in America. One that didn't start in January, two years ago, or in January, ten years ago. It has been in the making for many decades, although the "official" start of the escalation can be traced to Ronald Reagan's inauguration in January -- thirty years in the past. At that time, the gloves came off and the full scale assault by the corporatocracy, or as Chris Hedges has coined the accused, the Corporate-State, began. Each administration since, including the "Democratic" presidencies of Clinton and Obama, have been led and ruled by corporatists -- those who favor, and cater to, those groups comprised of political-economic power elites. In other words, multinational corporations and transcontinental banking institutions. Our elected leaders over the past thirty years have been dominant over a political culture, in which members believe the basic unit of society and the primary concern of the state is the corporate group rather than the individual, and that the interests of the corporate group are the same as the interest of the nation.

We've been seduced into believing the dual party system is alive and well...okay, not so well, but alive nonetheless. Nothing could be more wrong. The traditional political parties you and I grew up with, and at one time or another identified with, no longer exist. They're gone, both of them, and the pieces have morphed into one singular, monolithic, non-democratic entity that serves only moneyed interests; the wealthy, the elite, and the culture of corporatism.

Ralph Nader warned us of this -- many times. We didn't listen. We still don't. He says Obama needs to have competition with true progressive values. He's proposed, along with Cornel West, author and professor at Princeton University, that several candidates challenge Obama, where "each represent[s] a field in which Obama has never clearly staked a progressive claim or where he has drifted toward the corporatist right."

Both Nader and West have been Obama-bashers from almost the onset of his administration, and for good reason. Back in early December, after Obama extended the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy during a lame-duck congress, Mr. Nader said of Mr. Obama, "He has no fixed principles," and "He's opportunistic -- he goes for expedience, like Clinton. Some call him temperamentally conflict-averse. If you want to be harsher, you say he has no principles and he's opportunistic." Nader continued, "He's a con man, I have no use for him." There are those on the Left who agree, and others who adamantly disagree, thinking his words are harsh and fear-provoking, believing a split in the Democratic ranks will certainly put a Republican in the White House. In other words, claiming the unhallowed ground of "the least worst".

Following is Ralph Nader's speech announcing his candidacy for the Green Party's nomination for president in the 2000 campaign. Read and see how many times he references the tilted table of our weakened democracy, and the systemic corruption which has created so many imbalances of justice and fairness in our society. Notice how what he says could have been written or said today, despite his words being almost eleven years old. The same problems persist, and as a matter of fact are even worse now. Much worse. Corporatism has gained an even stronger foothold since 2000, evidenced by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision last year and the TARP bank bailout of three years ago. Since 2000, the stakes have become higher, and the casualties to our citizenry have been mounting. Eleven years ago, most people would have claimed Mr. Nader was crying wolf. I bet they don't today.

SOURCE: Ralph Nader, Crashing the Party: How to tell the Truth and Still Run for President. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002

Today I wish to explain why, after working for years as a citizen advocate for consumers, workers, taxpayers and the environment, I am seeking the Green Party's nomination for President. A crisis of democracy in our country convinces me to take this action. Over the past twenty years, big business has increasingly dominated our political economy. This control by the corporate government over our political government is creating a widening "democracy gap." Active citizens are left shouting their concerns over a deep chasm between them and their government. This state of affairs is a world away from the legislative milestones in civil rights, the environment, and health and safety of workers and consumers seen in the sixties and seventies. At that time, informed and dedicated citizens powered their concerns through the channels of government to produce laws that bettered the lives of millions of Americans.

Today we face grave and growing societal problems in health care, education, labor, energy and the environment. These are problems for which active citizens have solutions, yet their voices are not carrying across the democracy gap. Citizen groups and individual thinkers have generated a tremendous capital of ideas, information, and solutions to the point of surplus, while our government has been drawn away from us by a corporate government. Our political leadership has been hijacked.

Citizen advocates have no other choice but to close the democracy gap by direct political means. Only effective national political leadership will restore the responsiveness of government to its citizenry. Truly progressive political movements do not just produce more good results; they enable a flowering of progressive citizen movements to effectively advance the quality of our neighborhoods and communities outside of politics.

I have a personal distaste for the trappings of modern politics, in which incumbents and candidates daily extol their own inflated virtues, paint complex issues with trivial brush strokes, and propose plans quickly generated by campaign consultants. But I can no longer stomach the systemic political decay that has weakened our democracy. I can no longer watch people dedicate themselves to improving their country while their government leaders turn their backs, or worse, actively block fair treatment for citizens. It is necessary to launch a sustained effort to wrest control of our democracy from the corporate government and restore it to the political government under the control of citizens.

This campaign will challenge all Americans who are concerned with systemic imbalances of power and the undermining of our democracy, whether they consider themselves progressives, liberals, conservatives, or others. Presidential elections should be a time for deep discussions among the citizenry regarding the down-to-earth problems and injustices that are not addressed because of the gross power mismatch between the narrow vested interests and the public or common good.

The unconstrained behavior of big business is subordinating our democracy to the control of a corporate plutocracy that knows few self-imposed limits to the spread of its power to all sectors of our society. Moving on all fronts to advance narrow profit motives at the expense of civic values, large corporate lobbies and their law firms have produced a commanding, multi-faceted and powerful juggernaut. They flood public elections with cash, and they use their media conglomerates to exclude, divert, or propagandize. They brandish their willingness to close factories here and open them abroad if workers do not bend to their demands. By their control in Congress, they keep the federal cops off the corporate crime, fraud, and abuse beats. They imperiously demand and get a wide array of privileges and immunities: tax escapes, enormous corporate welfare subsidies, federal giveaways, and bailouts. They weaken the common law of torts in order to avoid their responsibility for injurious wrongdoing to innocent children, women and men.

Abuses of economic power are nothing new. Every major religion in the world has warned about societies allowing excessive influences of mercantile or commercial values. The profiteering motive is driven and single-minded. When unconstrained, it can override or erode community, health, safety, parental nurturing, due process, clean politics, and many other basic social values that hold together a society. Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Supreme Court Justices Louis Brandeis and William Douglas, among others, eloquently warned about what Thomas Jefferson called " the excesses of the monied interests" dominating people and their governments. The struggle between the forces of democracy and plutocracy has ebbed and flowed throughout our history. Each time the cycle of power has favored more democracy, our country has prospered ("a rising tide lifts all boats"). Each time the cycle of corporate plutocracy has lengthened, injustices and shortcomings proliferate.

In the sixties and seventies, for example, when the civil rights, consumer, environmental, and women's rights movements were in their ascendancy, there finally was a constructive responsiveness by government. Corporations, such as auto manufacturers, had to share more decision making with affected constituencies, both directly and through their public representatives and civil servants. Overall, our country has come out better, more tolerant, safer, and with greater opportunities. The earlier nineteenth century democratic struggles by abolitionists against slavery, by farmers against large oppressive railroads and banks, and later by new trade unionists against the brutal workplace conditions of the early industrial and mining era helped mightily to make America and its middle class what it is today. They demanded that economic power subside or be shared.

Democracy works, and a stronger democracy works better for reputable, competitive markets, equal opportunity and higher standards of living and justice. Generally, it brings out the best performances from people and from businesses.

A plutocracy-rule by the rich and powerful-on the other hand, obscures our historical quests for justice. Harnessing political power to corporate greed leaves us with a country that has far more problems than it deserves, while blocking ready solutions or improvements from being applied.

It is truly remarkable that for almost every widespread need or injustice in our country, there are citizens, civic groups, small and medium-sized businesses and farms that have shown how to meet these needs or end these injustices. However, all the innovative solutions in the world will accomplish little if the injustices they address or the problems they solve have been shoved aside because plutocracy reigns and democracy wanes. For all optimistic Americans, when their issues are thus swept from the table, it becomes civic mobilization time.

Consider the economy, which business commentators say could scarcely be better. If, instead of corporate yardsticks, we use human yardsticks to measure the performance of the economy and go beyond the quantitative indices of annual economic growth, structural deficiencies become readily evident. The complete dominion of traditional yardsticks for measuring economic prosperity masks not only these failures but also the inability of a weakened democracy to address how and why a majority of Americans are not benefiting from this prosperity in their daily lives. Despite record economic growth, corporate profits, and stock market highs year after year, a stunning array of deplorable conditions still prevails year after year. For example:

A majority of workers are making less now, inflation adjusted, than in 1979

Over 20% of children were growing up in poverty during the past decade, by far the highest among comparable western countries

The minimum wage is lower today, inflation-adjusted, than in 1979

American workers are working longer and longer hours-on average an additional 163 hours per year, compared to 20 years ago-with less time for family and community

Many full-time family farms cannot make a living in a market of giant buyer concentration and industrial agriculture

The public works (infrastructure) are crumbling, with decrepit schools and clinics, library closings, antiquated mass transit and more

Corporate welfare programs, paid for largely by middle-class taxpayers and amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars per year, continue to rise along with government giveaways of taxpayer assets such as public forests, minerals and new medicines

Affordable housing needs are at record levels while secondary mortgage market companies show record profits

The number of Americans without health insurance grows every year

There have been twenty-five straight years of growing foreign trade deficits ($270 billion in 1999)

Consumer debt is at an all time high, totaling over $ 6 trillion

Personal bankruptcies are at a record level

Personal savings are dropping to record lows and personal assets are so low that Bill Gates' net worth is equal to that of the net assets of the poorest 120 million Americans combined

The tiny federal budgets for the public's health and safety continue to be grossly inadequate

Motor vehicle fuel efficiency averages are actually declining and, overall, energy conservation efforts have slowed, while renewable energy takes a back seat to fossil fuel and atomic power subsidies

Wealth inequality is greater than at any time since WWII. The top one percent of the wealthiest people have more financial wealth than the bottom 90% of Americans combined, the worst inequality among large western nation

Despite annual declines in total business liability costs, business lobbyists drive for more privileges and immunities for their wrongdoing.

It is permissible to ask, in the light of these astonishing shortcomings during a period of touted prosperity, what the state of our country would be should a recession or depression occur? One import of these contrasts is clear: economic growth has been decoupled from economic progress for many Americans. In the early 1970s, our economy split into two tiers. Whereas once economic growth broadly benefited the majority, now the economy has become one wherein "a rising tide lifts all yachts," in the words of Jeff Gates, author of The Ownership Solution. Returns on capital outpaced returns on labor, and job insecurity increased for millions of seasoned workers. In the seventies, the top 300 CEOs paid themselves 40 times the entry-level wage in their companies. Now the average is over 400 times. This in an economy where impoverished assembly line workers suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome frantically process chickens which pass them in a continuous flow, where downsized white and blue collar employees are hired at lesser compensation, if they are lucky, where the focus of top business executives is no longer to provide a service that attracts customers, but rather to acquire customers through mergers and acquisitions. How long can the paper economy of speculation ignore its effects on the real economy of working families? Pluralistic democracy has enlarged markets and created the middle class. Yet the short-term monetized minds of the corporatists are bent on weakening, defeating, diluting, diminishing, circumventing, co-opting, or corrupting all traditional countervailing forces that have saved American corporate capitalism from itself.

Regulation of food, automobiles, banks and securities, for example, strengthened these markets along with protecting consumers and investors. Antitrust enforcement helped protect our country from monopoly capitalism and stimulated competition. Trade unions enfranchised workers and helped mightily to build the middle class for themselves, benefiting also non-union laborers. Producer and consumer cooperatives helped save the family farm, electrified rural areas, and offered another model of economic activity. Civil litigation-the right to have your day in court-helped deter producers of harmful products and brought them to some measure of justice. At the same time, the public learned about these hazards.

Public investment-from naval shipyards to Pentagon drug discoveries against infectious disease to public power authorities-provided yardsticks to measure the unwillingness of big business to change and respond to needs. Even under a rigged system, shareholder pressures on management sometimes have shaken complacency, wrongdoing, and mismanagement. Direct consumer remedies, including class actions, have given pause to crooked businesses and have stopped much of this unfair competition against honest businesses. Big business lobbies opposed all of this progress strenuously, but they lost and America gained. Ultimately, so did a chastened but myopic business community.

Now, these checkpoints face a relentless barrage from rampaging corporate titans assuming more control over elected officials, the workplace, the marketplace, technology, capital pools (including workers' pension trusts) and educational institutions. One clear sign of the reign of corporations over our government is that the key laws passed in the 60s and 70s that we use to curb corporate misbehavior would not even pass through Congressional committees today. Planning ahead, multinational corporations shaped the World Trade Organization's autocratic and secretive governing procedures so as to undermine non-trade health, safety, and other living standard laws and proposals in member countries.

Up against the corporate government, voters find themselves asked to choose between look-a-like candidates from two parties vying to see who takes the marching orders from their campaign paymasters and their future employers. The money of vested interests nullifies genuine voter choice and trust. Our elections have been put out for auction to the highest bidder. Public elections must be publicly financed and it can be done with well-promoted voluntary checkoffs and free TV and Radio time for ballot-qualified candidates.

Workers are disenfranchised more than any time since the 1920s. Many unions stagger under stagnant leadership and discouraged rank and file. Furthermore, weak labor laws actually obstruct new trade union organization and leave the economy with the lowest percentage of workers unionized in more than 60 years. Giant multinationals are pitting countries against one another and escaping national jurisdictions more and more. Under these circumstances, workers are entitled to stronger labor organizing laws and rights for their own protection in order to deal with highly organized corporations.

At a very low cost, government can help democratic solution building for a host of problems that citizens face, from consumer abuses, to environmental degradation. Government research and development generated whole new industries and company startups and created the Internet. At the least, our government can facilitate the voluntary banding together of interested citizens into democratic civic institutions. Such civic organizations can create more level playing fields in the banking, insurance, real estate, transportation, energy, health care, cable TV, educational, public services, and other sectors. Let's call this the flowering of a deep-rooted democratic society. A government that funnels your tax dollars to corporate welfare kings in the form of subsidies, bailouts, guarantees, and giveaways of valuable public assets can at least invest in promoting healthy democracy.

Taxpayers have very little legal standing in the federal courts and little indirect voice in the assembling and disposition of taxpayer revenues. Closer scrutiny of these matters between elections is necessary. Facilities can be established to accomplish a closer oversight of taxpayer assets and how tax dollars (apart from social insurance) are allocated. This is an arena which is, at present, shaped heavily by corporations that, despite record profits, pay far less in taxes as a percent of the federal budget than in the 1950s and 60s.

The "democracy gap" in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote or listlessly vote for the "least-worst" every four years and then wonder why after another cycle the "least-worst" gets worse. It is time to redress fundamentally these imbalances of power. We need a deep initiatory democracy in the embrace of its citizens, a usable brace of democratic tools that brings the best out of people, highlights the humane ideas and practical ways to raise and meet our expectations and resolve our society's deficiencies and injustices.

A few illustrative questions can begin to raise our expectations and suggest what can be lost when the few and powerful hijack our democracy:

Why can't the wealthiest nation in the world abolish the chronic poverty of millions of working and non-working Americans, including our children?

Are we reversing the disinvestment in our distressed inner cities and rural areas and using creatively some of the huge capital pools in the economy to make these areas more livable, productive and safe?

Are we able to end homelessness and wretched housing conditions with modern materials, designs, and financing mechanisms, without bank and insurance company redlining, to meet the affordable housing needs of millions of Americans?

Are we getting the best out of known ways to spread renewable, efficient energy throughout the land to save consumers money and to head off global warming and other land-based environmental damage from fossil fuels and atomic energy?

Are we getting the best out of the many bright and public-spirited civil servants who know how to improve governments but are rarely asked by their politically-appointed superiors or members of Congress?

Are we able to provide wide access to justice for all aggrieved people so that we apply rigorously the admonition of Judge Learned Hand, "If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: Thou Shall Not Ration Justice"?

Can we extend overseas the best examples of our country's democratic processes and achievements instead of annually using billions in tax dollars to subsidize corporate munitions exports, as Republican Senator Mark Hatfield always used to decry?

Can we stop the giveaways of our vast commonwealth assets and become better stewards of the public lands, better investors of trillions of dollars in worker pension monies, and allow broader access to the public airwaves and other assets now owned by the people but controlled by corporations?

Can we counter the coarse and brazen commercial culture, including television which daily highlights depravity and ignores the quiet civic heroisms in its communities, a commercialism that insidiously exploits childhood and plasters its logos everywhere?

Can we plan ahead as a society so we know our priorities and where we wish to go? Or do we continue to let global corporations remain astride the planet, corporatizing everything, from genes to education to the Internet to public institutions, in short planning our futures in their image? If a robust civic culture does not shape the future, corporatism surely will.

To address these and other compelling challenges, we must build a powerful, self-renewing civil society that focuses on ample justice so we do not have to desperately bestow limited charity. Such a culture strengthens existing civic associations and facilitates the creation of others to watch the complexities and technologies of a new century. Building the future also means providing the youngest of citizens with citizen skills that they can use to improve their communities.

This is the foundation of our campaign, to focus on active citizenship, to create fresh political movements that will displace the control of the Democratic and Republican Parties, two apparently distinct political entities that feed at the same corporate trough. They are in fact simply the two heads of one political duopoly, the DemRep Party. This duopoly does everything it can to obstruct the beginnings of new parties including raising ballot access barriers, entrenching winner-take-all voting systems, and thwarting participation in debates at election times

As befits its name, the Green Party, whose nomination I seek, stands for the regeneration of American politics. The new populism which the Green Party represents, involves motivated, informed voters who comprehend that "freedom is participation in power," to quote the ancient Roman orator, Cicero. When citizen participation flourishes, as this campaign will encourage it to do, human values can tame runaway commercial imperatives. The myopia of the short-term bottom line so often debases our democratic processes and our public and private domains. Putting human values first helps to make business responsible and to put government on the right track.

It is easy and true to say that this deep democracy campaign will be an uphill one. However, it is also true that widespread reform will not flourish without a fairer distribution of power for the key roles of voter, citizen, worker, taxpayer, and consumer. Comprehensive reform proposals from the corporate suites to the nation's streets, from the schools to the hospitals, from the preservation of small farm economies to the protection of privacies, from livable wages to sustainable environments, from more time for children to less time for commercialism, from waging peace and health to averting war and violence, from foreseeing and forestalling future troubles to journeying toward brighter horizons, will wither while power inequalities loom over us.

Our political campaign will highlight active and productive citizens who practice democracy often in the most difficult of situations. I intend to do this in the District of Columbia whose citizens have no full-voting representation in Congress or other rights accorded to states. The scope of this campaign is also to engage as many volunteers as possible to help overcome ballot barriers and to get the vote out. In addition it is designed to leave a momentum after election day for the various causes that committed people have worked so hard to further. For the Greens know that political parties need also to work between elections to make elections meaningful. The focus on fundamentals of broader distribution of power is the touchstone of this campaign. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis declared for the ages, "We can have a democratic society or we can have great concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both."

Thank you.

Around the Monopoly Board

2011-08-31T19:40:00.002-04:00

It was reported last week, but not by any major news outlets that I know of, that Bloomberg News took the Federal Reserve to court and won. A Freedom of Information Act request put together by Bloomberg had allowed the hard numbers to finally be made available to the public about the loans the Fed gave out to keep financial firms afloat in the middle of the last economic near-collapse. The aristocracy of wealth was unofficially bailed out, at the tune of $1.2 trillion, while about 6 million homeowners currently owe about the same amount on delinquent and foreclosed properties. (See who made out, and with how much, by clicking here.)

Obviously, despite the back-door bailout, it hasn't made getting a loan at your local bank, or refinancing with your mortgage lender, easier if even possible. So, what's the deal? If these banks are flush with our cash, which by the way include foreign banks and other non-U.S. lenders, why is liquidity stalled and our economy slipping toward a replay of a couple of years ago? Maybe financial intermediaries, i.e., banks, don't want to be the grease that keeps the economic engine of our commerce going any longer. Maybe it's just not profitable enough to loan to Main Street any more. Maybe the banks are lending it, but they're lending it to their elite clients, i.e., their hedge funds, who in turn leverage it from 10 to 100 times the value of the near zero interest loans that the Fed bequeathed them. And, maybe this is what's been artificially driving up stocks and bonds and commodities (gasoline and foodstuffs), and at the same time shorting the U.S. dollar. And, is this why the banks are signaling for a continuation of the recently dissolved quantitative easing ("QE2") and are hungry for QE3, then QE4, and so on and so on, because they know these unregulated and under-supervised funds are bleeding their reserves away as quickly as the Fed replenishes them? Or, are they just sitting on a mountain of money -- our money?

Whatever is happening, one thing's for sure. The lending institutions are making out like bandits. While they're drawing interest on public funds given to them to stay alive, they're capitalizing into derivatives, commodities, precious metals, and god knows what else, while we're feeling the double-whammy of increased food prices, increased energy costs, and increased everything. It's like when we played Monopoly as kids, and one person had everything. Their stack of money just sat and didn't help anyone. All we could do was go around the board and hope to land on Community Chest (i.e., public assistance) or Free Parking (i.e., the lottery), but eventually we knew it was just a matter of time before we were sucked down the drain with the little money we had left. Our only other hope was going to jail. In our current real life scenario, that's not a pleasant thought.

Maybe, starting on October 6th, that's what we should all do. H.D. Thoreau would be proud. Think about it, then join us.

Here's a report from RT, interviewing an economic analyst named Max Fraad Wolff, about this disclosure last week. There's really nothing extraordinarily revealing about what he says, but I have to admit, the guy's extremely smooth in his delivery and his demeanor. The discussion about the Fed loans begins at about 2:50 into the video.

The Discomfort of Thinking That, Yes, It Can Happen to Us. Watch This...

2011-07-31T12:20:00.002-04:00

With all the closed door negotiations going on in Washington D.C. concerning the debt ceiling and the national budget, it's easy to side with your favorite political party of choice. As a matter of fact, it's easy simply because it's intentionally designed for you to do so. The co-mingling of terms, with divergent meaning, has purposely created confusion and anxiety within a population that looks for order and assurance and security. It's Sunday, two days before the presupposed deadline, and still no deal has been met with sufficient compromise. Each side has dug its heels into the ground, from what the media tell us, and it's going to be a fight to the finish.

But consider the possibility that this is all for show. Consider for a moment that this run to an eleventh-hour agreement, which I'm betting will be the outcome, is all grandstanding and political spectacle. Is this is all street theater -- Wall Street theater -- carefully choreographed and acted out in order to extract more blood from a turnip, as the saying goes? Will the perpetrators congratulate themselves in canned and unauthentic somber impromptu speeches late Monday night, and claim a bipartisan effort pulled us back from the precipice of economic chaos, while the true congratulatory champagne cork-popping will be out of camera range when, unbeknownst to the American public, they'll exult with glee that they've bamboozled and duped us again?

Naomi Klein, the author of The Shock Doctrine, premised that "[f]rom Chile in the 1970s onward...right-wing ideologues have exploited crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society." It can be argued, and the evidence supports the idea, that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was, and is, the latest example of "shock doctrinism" in play -- that is, before the methodology was let loose on the American people. Are we the Chile of 1973? Are we witnessing a complete privatization like the crumbling Soviet empire did in the 1990s? And, was Iraq only a dress rehearsal to ensure that all the details of the performance were prepared, refined, and coordinated -- before commencing with the biggest and most elaborate attempt to exploit a perceived fiscal crisis in this country's history? Is our economy being held hostage -- in order to destroy the last major counterbalance to the political power of corporations and the wealthy? You tell me.

If you haven't read The Shock Doctrine, you owe it to yourself to do so. There are few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is definitely one of those books. Even if you have read it, watch this embedded video of the film based upon the bestseller. At almost an hour-and-twenty minutes, it's a film, remember, not a short skit or flash-video, so get comfy and be ready to explore how shock doctrinism works, how it was conceived, and how the resultant predatory and mutant malignancy of disaster capitalism has been used over and over again to impose privatization over the commons and the lives of millions already. After viewing, ask yourself whether The Shock Doctrine has been unleashed on this unwitting nation, bit by bit, and think about whether this perceived crisis is just another step toward total privatization of everything. Tuesday's only two days away. It's my guess we'll be less a pound of flesh, if not more, by then, although the exact details may not be forthcoming for several weeks. Let's see.

Permanent War is a Racket

2011-06-29T17:30:00.006-04:00

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." ~~ Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (USMC), from his book War Is a Racket (1935)

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The French novelist and critic, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, didn't live during the American militarism of the twentieth century, and certainly wasn't speaking of perpetual and permanent war, but his oft translated "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose", accurately describes the nature of imperialism and the expansion of empire by the United States during the last century and up to the present. General Smedley Butler couldn't have refined the business of expansionism better than in his controversial, War Is a Racket, when he summarized:

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

General Butler knew the theatrics of war: the propaganda and lies that are useful to inciting and continuing war; the pain and suffering inflicted, not only upon those unfortunate enough to be within the direct path of the carnage of war, but also those who pay an economic cost through the depletion of their nation's treasury. No nation is rich enough to pay for war and the betterment of society, although Lyndon Johnson tried.

Greg Coleridge cites six very lucrative ways that corporations profit from war. One is the control of strategic resources. "[O]il, natural gas, and other physical resources (water in the future) are the aim of business corporations to either control or gain access to. US- and UK-based transnational energy corporations initiated the drive for war in Iraq for oil and in Afghanistan for natural gas." It's not just coincidental that Exxon/Mobile and other Big Oil corporations recorded record profits recently. Another way corporations profit, obviously, is through the sale of weaponry. The Pentagon’s top three contractors are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman. Their projects usually operate on a cost-plus arrangement, so the more expensive the implement of war, the more profitable the company.

The profits from waging war are obvious. Merriam-Webster defines mercenary this way: "One that serves merely for wages; especially a soldier hired into foreign service." Mercenaries are motivated to take part in hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain. Because the term, "mercenary", retains so many negative connotations, the new term used internationally is Private Military Companies (PMCs). To further dilute and confuse, the mainstream media usually refer to these simply as "contractors". You know them well: Xe Services, LLC, formally Known as Blackwater. Their name became synonymous with Fallujah in 2004, when four of their own were killed and hung from a bridge by Iraqi insurgents.

At least ninety percent of its revenue comes from government contracts, two-thirds of which are no-bid contracts. From CorpWatch: "In 2003, Blackwater landed its first truly high-profile contract: guarding civilian Administrator L. Paul Bremer in Iraq, at the cost of $21 million for 11 months. Since June 2004, Blackwater has been paid more than $320 million out of a $1 billion, five-year State Department budget for the Worldwide Personal Protective Service, which protects U.S. officials and some foreign officials in conflict zones. In 2006, Blackwater won the remunerative contract to protect the U.S. embassy in Iraq, which is the largest American embassy in the world." To understand the enormity of the costs involved, every U.S. soldier deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq is matched by at least one civilian working for a private company. War is big business.

After war devastates and destroys, reconstruction reaps billions of dollars for large construction contractors such as Bechtel Corporation and Halliburton. War reconstruction, as Mr. Coleridge compares, is similar to what conservatives disdained about "make work" projects of FDR's Works Progress Administration, except they're beneficial to a select few corporate entities as opposed to society at-large. Instead of participating in the building of infrastructure, such as the construction of Hoover Dam back in the 1930s, for example, companies such as Bechtel are awarded prime cost-plus contracts to rebuild torn apart countries -- inept and as inefficient as they may be. As disaster capitalism dictates, for-profiteers are dispatched to privatize previously publicly owned and controlled infrastructure -- all at taxpayer expense. Amazingly, greater than one-third of Bechtel's and Haliburton's revenues came from sweetheart no bid contracts to rebuild Iraq, as reported by The Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), an independent and non-profit research and media organization based in Montreal. From the article:

"Apart from Halliburton the Bechtel Corporation was immediately singled out for a no bid contract by USAID, for the repair and rebuilding of destroyed power generation facilities, electrical grids, municipal water systems, sewage systems, airport facilities, dredging and repair of Umm Qasr seaport before the seaport was occupied; and for reconstruction of schools, ministries, irrigation structures and transport links, after the deliberate destruction of a substantial part of the civilian infrastructure by targeted precision bombing only with a view to justify these reconstruction contracts. Never before in history has one company been granted a contract for the reconstruction of an entire country which will eventually be worth up to $100 billion. Since 2003 more than one third of the annual revenues of Halliburton and Bechtel are derived from the no bid contracts in Iraq, conclusively establishing the real objective of the war."

War is big business; reconstruction is also big business. But what is even more lucrative, more profitable, and easy money for the banking syndicate is government debt. War costs money -- masses amount of money. More money than any country, or empire, can generate from normal tax revenue streams. So, of course, debt accrues...and accrues...and accrues. That's the problem we face now. Deficits have spun out of control, adding more debt to an already beleagued budget. Not only have we bailed out the "too big to fail" banking system, but we're now paying interest on war debt (along with the interest to bail them out, among other things). As Coleridge correctly points out, "[t]he government allows banks to literally create money out of thin air to purchase US Treasury notes. Governments are on the hook for not only the principle of the loans but interest. Thus, banks profit from receiving interest payments and whatever principle may be repaid for money they never had to begin with. This is profit of glorious proportions to banking corporations. Wars, thus, create government dependency to banks – which explains why throughout history banks have encouraged Kings and other royalty to war with each other."

And of course, next comes the privatization part -- the part that's hanging over our heads like the sharpened blade of an already bloodied guillotine. If you've read Naomi Klein's brilliant The Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, you already know what this means and how it works. From Ms. Klein's introduction:

"I call these ochestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catatrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities, 'disaster capitalism'."

The "catastrophic event" we're experiencing is that there's not enough money to pay for domestic programs and war at the same time. It's the old, and very true, economic truism that's anything but a cliché: "guns or butter". Any economist will tell you that a nation can have one or the other, but not both -- at least not for long. We've reached "the long", and it hasn't been by accident. It was purposeful and carefully arranged. Just as a it takes all the musical instruments in a symphony orchestra playing their individual parts, the current push to privatize Medicare, for example, took an assault on many fronts in order to get the traction that it has. Under a relatively stable economy with manageable yearly deficits, topics such as the Paul Ryan's privatization plan would never see the light of day. But wars and occupations, and the preparations that accompany them, costing $6 trillion (one trillion is a million millions) since 2001, the business of war has tapped us out. And that's just the business of war! It doesn't include the notorious Bush tax cuts that were extended for two years by our sitting president, and which he's considering making permanent, or the TARP to bail-out the "too big to fail" investment banks in the fall of 2008. The meter's still running on this debacle.

So whether the provocations and pretenses for war, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, were legitimate or not; whether they were retaliatory for actual injustices or only purported as such, Naomi Klein's book title provides the essential understanding of how contemporary capitalism -- disaster capitalism -- works. It was the classical economist, Milton Friedman, who observed that "only a crisis -- actual or perceived -- produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable." We saw this in Wisconsin earlier this year, in Ohio, and in so many other states that instituted austerity measures while selling off public assets to corporate interests.

Yes, General Butler was right -- war is a racket. Today it's a permanent racket. It's the fastest and most convenient way to alter a society economically. The financial ramifications have been devastating for most, but for a select and elitist few, the riches are unimaginable.

The embedded trailer for Why We Fight (2005 film) is an amazing documentary describing the rise and maintenance of the military-industrial-[congressional] complex that President Eisenhower warned us about during his farewell address in January, 1961 -- fifty years ago. Download it, rent it, borrow it, or watch it at a friend's house. Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki offers an in-depth look at how the United States has become a permanent-war machine and empire.

The Road (to Travel) to Solidarity

2011-05-22T16:45:00.074-04:00

"The corporate media routinely divides Americans as 'liberals,' 'conservatives' and 'moderates,' a useful division for the corporatocracy, because no matter which of these groups is the current electoral winner, the corporatocracy retains power. In order to defeat the corporatocracy, it's more useful to divide people in terms of authoritarians versus anti-authoritarians, elitists versus populists and corporatists versus anticorporatists. Both left anti-authoritarians and libertarian anti-authoritarians passionately oppose current US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Wall Street bailout, the PATRIOT Act, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the so-called 'war on drugs' and several other corporatocracy policies." -- Bruce E. Levine

I've been feeling a bit melancholy lately, mostly -- but not entirely -- because I've felt no matter what actions the Left takes, or seems to take, it's never good enough, or it's never on target. I had mentioned to a friend a few months ago that as far-fetched and off-target the right-wing fringe was, in particular the Tea Party, it was correct in its assessment that something dreadfully was wrong. In our conversation I remarked that we, the Left along with the right-wing, held some very common ground in some very important aspects. Sure, in more areas than can possibly be enumerated here, we're as different as night and day -- as unmixable as oil and water -- but in some very key areas we recognize that there is something frightfully wrong.

As I wrote in my initial blog post last July, I came across that "something" back in 2002. It's not that I didn't have a rudimentary understanding that multinational corporations wielded great power and influence, but I wasn't totally understanding the reasons how and why -- and how deeply and almost transparently. As I read and researched more and more about these reasons, and understood the ramifications of key court rulings over the last century-and-a-quarter, I came to understand the true disease that has poisoned our republic and its assumed democratic processes. This morning, out of the blue, that same friend who I had been talking to about Left and Right commonalities, brought me out of that funk with the following uplifting article.

As the author, Bruce Levine, a clinical psychologist, articulates: "Many Americans are embarrassed to accept that, after years of corporatocracy subjugation, we have developed 'battered people's syndrome' and what Bob Marley called 'Mental Slavery'." It's what activist and author Jane Anne Morris coined, the "colonizing of our minds". The psychological manipulation that has taken place, accelerated and more intense with each passing day, has been a long-term and piece-by-piece process.

In order to un-do the damage of mental-colonization, it'll take a step-by-step process -- from building individual self-respect and collective self-confidence, to siding with anti-authoritarianism and democratic values against authoritarianism and the values of the corporatocracy. It'll take more courage and critical thinking; more thinking in terms of local institutions and activities that affect our day-to-day lives, and less about national agendas and politics and elections. It'll take the uniting of "comfortable anti-authoritarians" and "afflicted anti-authoritarians". As Dr. Levine summarizes, "democracy will not be won without guts and solidarity" and some risk. Read this excellent article and tell me if you agree.

The Tenfold Path to Guts, Solidarity and the Defeat of the Corporate Elite

by Bruce E. Levine, Truthout

Many Americans know that the United States is not a democracy but a "corporatocracy," in which we are ruled by a partnership of giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite and corporate-collaborator government officials. However, the truth of such tyranny is not enough to set most of us free to take action. Too many of us have become pacified by corporatocracy-created institutions and culture.

Some activists insist that this political passivity problem is caused by Americans' ignorance due to corporate media propaganda, and others claim that political passivity is caused by the inability to organize due to a lack of money. However, polls show that on the important issues of our day - from senseless wars, to Wall Street bailouts, to corporate tax-dodging, to health insurance rip-offs - the majority of Americans are not ignorant to the reality that they are being screwed. And American history is replete with organizational examples - from the Underground Railroad, to the Great Populist Revolt, to the Flint sit-down strike, to large wildcat strikes a generation ago - of successful rebels who had little money but lots of guts and solidarity.

The elite spend their lives stockpiling money and have the financial clout to bribe, divide and conquer the rest of us. The only way to overcome the power of money is with the power of courage and solidarity. When we regain our guts and solidarity, we can then more wisely select from - and implement - time-honored strategies and tactics that oppressed peoples have long used to defeat the elite. So, how do we regain our guts and solidarity?

individual self-respect and collective self-confidencebuilding individual self-respect and collective self-confidence, to siding with anti-authoritarianism and democratic values against authoritarianism and the values of the corporatocracy. It'll take more courage and critical thinking; more thinking in terms of local institutions and activities that affect our day-to-day lives, and less about national agendas and politics and elections. It'll take the uniting of "comfortable anti-authoritarians" and "afflicted anti-authoritarians". As Dr. Levine summarizes, "democracy will not be won without guts and solidarity" and some risk. Read this excellent article and tell me if you agree.

individual self-respect and collective self-confidencebuilding

individual self-respect and collective self-confidence.

individual self-respect and collective self

individual self-respect and collective self-confidencebuilding

individual self-respect and collective self-confidence.

individual self-respect and collective self-confidence. siding with anti-authoritarianism and democratic values against authoritarianism and the values of the corporatocracy. It'll take more courage and critical thinking; more thinking in terms of local institutions and activities that affect our day-to-day lives, and less about national agendas and politics and elections. It'll take the uniting of "comfortable anti-authoritarians" and "afflicted anti-authoritarians". As Dr. Levine summarizes, "democracy will not be won without guts and solidarity" and also some risk. Read this excellent article and tell me whether you agree.

authoritarianism and the corporatocracy or on the side of anti-authoritarianism and democracy

The Tenfold Path to Guts, Solidarity and the Defeat of the Corporate EliteThe Tenfold Path to Guts, Solidarity and the Defeat of the Corporate EliteThe Tenfold Path to Guts, Solidarity and the Defeat of the Corporate EliteThe Tenfold Path to Guts, Solidarity and the Defeat of the Corporate Elite

1. Create the Cultural and Psychological "Building Blocks" for Democratic Movements

Some activists insist that this political passivity problem is caused by Americans' ignorance due to corporate media propaganda, and others claim that political passivity is caused by the inability to organize due to a lack of money. However, polls show that on the important issues of our day - from senseless wars, to Wall Street bailouts, to corporate tax-dodging, to health insurance rip-offs - the majority of Americans are not ignorant to the reality that they are being screwed. And American history is replete with organizational examples - from the Underground Railroad, to the Great Populist Revolt, to the Flint sit-down strike, to large wildcat strikes a generation ago - of successful rebels who had little money but lots of guts and solidarity.

The elite spend their lives stockpiling money and have the financial clout to bribe, divide and conquer the rest of us. The only way to overcome the power of money is with the power of courage and solidarity. When we regain our guts and solidarity, we can then more wisely select from - and implement - time-honored strategies and tactics that oppressed peoples have long used to defeat the elite. So, how do we regain our guts and solidarity?

1. Create the Cultural and Psychological "Building Blocks" for Democratic Movements

Historian Lawrence Goodwyn has studied democratic movements such as Solidarity in Poland, and he has written extensively about the populist movement in the United States that occurred during the end of the 19th century (what he calls "the largest democratic mass movement in American history"). Goodwyn concludes that democratic movements are initiated by people who are neither resigned to the status quo nor intimidated by established powers. For Goodwyn, the cultural and psychological building blocks of democratic movements are individual self-respect and collective self-confidence. Without individual self-respect, we do not believe that we are worthy of power or capable of utilizing power wisely, and we accept as our role being a subject of power. Without collective self-confidence, we do not believe that we can succeed in wresting away power from our rulers.

Thus, it is the job of all of us - from parents, to students, to teachers, to journalists, to clergy, to psychologists, to artists and EVERYBODY who gives a damn about genuine democracy - to create individual self-respect and collective self-confidence.

2. Confront and Transform ALL Institutions that Have Destroyed Individual Self-Respect and Collective Self-Confidence

In "Get Up, Stand Up, " I detail 12 major institutional and cultural areas that have broken people's sprit of resistance, and all are "battlefields for democracy" in which we can fight to regain our individual self-respect and collective self confidence:

Television

Isolation and bureaucratization

"Fundamentalist consumerism" and advertising/propaganda

Student loan debt and indentured servitude

Surveillance

The decline of unions/solidarity among working people

Greed and a "money-centric" culture

Fear-based schools that teach obedience

Psychopathologizing noncompliance

Elitism via professional training

The corporate media

The US electoral system

As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, "All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike."

3. Side Each Day in Every Way With Anti-Authoritarians

We can recover our self-respect and strength by regaining our integrity. This process requires a personal transformation to overcome our sense of powerlessness and fight for what we believe in. Integrity includes acts of courage resisting all illegitimate authorities. We must recognize that in virtually every aspect of our life in every day, we can either be on the side of authoritarianism and the corporatocracy or on the side of anti-authoritarianism and democracy. Specifically, we can question the legitimacy of government, media, religious, educational and other authorities in our lives, and if we establish that an authority is not legitimate, we can resist it. And we can support others who are resisting illegitimate authorities. A huge part of solidarity comes from supporting others who are resisting the illegitimate authorities in their lives. Walt Whitman had it right: "Resist much, obey little. Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved."Many Americans know that the United States is not a democracy but a "corporatocracy," in which we are ruled by a partnership of giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite and corporate-collaborator government officials. However, the truth of such tyranny is not enough to set most of us free to take action. Too many of us have become pacified by corporatocracy-created institutions and culture.Some activists insist that this political passivity problem is caused by Americans' ignorance due to corporate media propaganda, and others claim that political passivity is caused by the inability to organize due to a lack of money. However, polls show that on the important issues of our day - from senseless wars, to Wall Street bailouts, to corporate tax-dodging, to health insurance rip-offs - the majority of Americans are not ignorant to the reality that they are being screwed. And American history is replete with organizational examples - from the Underground Railroad, to the Great Populist Revolt, to the Flint sit-down strike, to large wildcat strikes a generation ago - of successful rebels who had little money but lots of guts and solidarity.1. Create the Cultural and Psychological "Building Blocks" for Democratic Movements

Historian Lawrence Goodwyn has studied democratic movements such as Solidarity in Poland, and he has written extensively about the populist movement in the United States that occurred during the end of the 19th century (what he calls "the largest democratic mass movement in American history"). Goodwyn concludes that democratic movements are initiated by people who are neither resigned to the status quo nor intimidated by established powers. For Goodwyn, the cultural and psychological building blocks of democratic movements are individual self-respect and collective self-confidence. Without individual self-respect, we do not believe that we are worthy of power or capable of utilizing power wisely, and we accept as our role being a subject of power. Without collective self-confidence, we do not believe that we can succeed in wresting away power from our rulers.

2. Confront and Transform ALL Institutions that Have Destroyed Individual Self-Respect and Collective Self-Confidence

In "Get Up, Stand Up, " I detail 12 major institutional and cultural areas that have broken people's spirit of resistance, and all are "battlefields for democracy" in which we can fight to regain our individual self-respect and collective self confidence:

• Television

• Isolation and bureaucratization

• "Fundamentalist consumerism" and advertising/propaganda

• Student loan debt and indentured servitude

• Surveillance

• The decline of unions/solidarity among working people

• Greed and a "money-centric" culture

• Fear-based schools that teach obedience

• Psychopathologizing noncompliance

• Elitism via professional training

• The corporate media

• The US electoral system

As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, "All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike."

3. Side Each Day in Every Way With Anti-Authoritarians

Read the rest at truthout

Going Beyond Locke's Natural Rights

2011-05-01T20:05:00.000-04:00

Our environment is being dramatically transformed in ways that soon will make it difficult for the human species to survive. We must direct our energies toward building sustainable, local communities to weather the coming crisis, since we will be unable to survive and resist without a cooperative effort. The liberal class, which clings to the decaying ideologies used to justify globalism and imperialism, which has refused to defy the exploitation or galvanize behind militants to halt the destruction of the ecosystem, has become a useless appendage. The decimation of our manufacturing base, the rise of the corporate state, and the contamination of our environment could have been fought by militant movements and radicals, but with these voices banished, there were no real impediments to the self-destructive forces of corporate power. --- Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class (New York: Nation Books, 2010), 194

We're precariously close to reaching a point of no return, a tipping-point where there's no looking back; where the environment is in dire jeopardy, due to climatic changes fueled by runaway corporate greed and myopic visions of unsustainable growth and profit at any cost. Living within ecosystems where we've created unforeseen levels of unbalance, the accelerating economic devastation of global capitalism...globalization...will shortly be matched by ecological devastation. With increasingly dramatic changes caused by global warning, coupled with economic despair, communities will fragment and disintegrate from internal chaos and division. Gradual, turning to certain, economic collapse will happen sooner than later, if we don't stop rearranging the deck chairs and start averting this mothership from a collision course with disaster. That's what assuredly awaits us, and in the very near future, if major paradigm shifts are not acknowledged and implemented -- soon.

Maybe it's going to take the foresight and stewardship of Bolivia's recently passed law that gives Mother Earth, and all living things and ecosystems and natural resources, the same recognizable rights that transformed humankind since Locke's universal and self-evident natural, or inalienable, rights of man found traction and footing in the 17th century. A passage toward, and through, another enlightenment may be all that separates us from the worst of Dante's Inferno. The Bolivian document speaks of the country's natural resources as "blessings", and grants the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clean air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities, and the right to be free from human-created pollution. A Ministry of Mother Earth is proposed, and provides the planet with an ombudsman whose job is to hear nature's complaints as voiced by activist groups and other organizations, including the state itself. Bolivia's ambassador to the United Nations, speaking of the nation's law, said "If you want to have balance, and you think that the only (entities) who have rights are humans or companies, then how can you reach balance? But if you recognize that nature too has rights, and (if you provide) legal forms to protect and preserve those rights, then you can achieve balance." In 2008, prior to Bolivia's Earth-protection law, Ecuador became the first nation in the world to rewrite their Constitution to include rights for nature to exist, flourish and evolve.

But this idea must not be restricted; it needs to grow and find realization here, in the United States, and in other developed and developing nations of the world. For example, last November, the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, became the first in the nation to assert the rights of communities and nature over those of corporations when it passed a city ordinance banning the practice of "shale fracking" within city limits. In addition, nearly two-dozen U.S. municipalities have passed similar ordinances, finding that existing laws are unable to protect their local ecosystems. Canadian communities are wondering if legally recognizing rights for nature can halt the privatization of their public water systems and stop tar sands extraction in the fragile Alberta region. For the last two decades, the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) has advocated such grassroots and local organization and legal advocacy in stemming the tide of corporate prerogative through the challenging of the existing corporate paradigm which manipulates our democratic processes.

Other organizations that have changed tactics, like the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), used to work within the body of existing environmental law -- helping affected residents file lawsuits or appeal corporate permits -- to protect communities from environmental damage. Over time it became apparent this was only playing into the corporate game, and that the only viable strategy was to rewrite local laws to effectively give communities legal authority to say "no" to unwanted corporate activities, recognize the rights of nature, and strip corporations of their constitutional rights. To solidify this approach, democracy schools are a key piece of community organizing, and CELDF promotes and provides one-to-three day intensive seminars that examine how communities across the U.S. are beginning to demand local control to protect the rights of their communities.

The fight for survival has moved from Locke's natural rights, to the even more encompassing understanding by our southern neighbors that trying to protect their land and their people from exploitation is crucial to saving the planet and our species from annihilation. Once the shift in consciousness takes root, and people everywhere see the moral imperative that confronts them, I'm hopeful that restoration of our fragile world and all its magnificent beings and ecosystems will find balance and equilibrium through systemic processes that nurture instead of destroy, and replenish instead of consume. Because if this mindset doesn't form a taproot to grow and expand, we're truly doomed to extinction. There's no other recourse. Otherwise, Hedges's final chapter of Death of the Liberal Class, "Rebellion", is as sure to occur as the sun rising in the east. What choice do we have? Now you must make a decision.

Happy and blessed Beltane to all this May 1st! Let's continue to celebrate the fertility of spring and the greening of the earth, so we may all live; and live peacefully and in harmony with the only home we have -- Earth.

Watch the following interview of Vandana Shiva on GritTV: Understanding the Corporate Takeover. "The American people should see that corporations have abandoned them long ago", says scientist, environmentalist, and food justice activist Dr. Vandana Shiva, named one of the seven most influential women in the world by Forbes magazine. "The people will have to rebuild democracy as a living democracy."

Organized Labor Movements: Spawned by Predatory Greed

2011-04-10T14:18:00.000-04:00

Seal of the Knights of Labor (1872)

The history of the American labor movement has always been a response to the predatory and, as any free market advocate will agree, the greedy nature of capitalism. It wasn't spawned on its own. It took the inherent nature of greed, which is the lubricating oil of the engine of capitalism, to make human beings revolt and fight back against the injustices borne of that greed.

Dyed-in-the wool laissez-faire capitalists like to argue that unions harm economies by driving up wage expenses. As Thom Hartmann explains in What Would Jefferson Do?, that's a myth. In a phrase attributed to John F. Kennedy in a speech he made in 1963, "a rising tide lifts all boats", it was thought that improvements to the overall economy, the macro-economy at large, benefits all participating in that economy -- not just a few. Also attributed to President Kennedy is the phrase, "And a partnership, by definition, serves both partners, without domination or unfair advantage."

This is the equilibrium sought by labor, through collective bargaining, which resulted in widespread well-paid workers resulting in a strong middle class, and not only a healthy national economy but also vibrant local and regional economies as well -- before radical conservatives took control of our executive and legislative processes, more frequently, starting in the 1980s. In its simplest terms, the unwritten partnership has always been, as an exchange for a livable wage, and not hurting people or harming the environment, corporations would receive an educated workforce, a stable currency, a court system based upon the rule of law, reliable transportation systems along with other infrastructure, and international agreements protecting businesses and workers alike.

But that partnership has withered and died in the last thirty-plus years. By chipping away slowly and methodically, through manipulation of our legislatures and executive leaders with untold infusions of cash (i.e. influence) and the lies of mutual and beneficial rewards of globalization and tariff-less trade; through deteriorating tax bases that made good education improbable, if not impossible, and a physical infrastructure crumbling and deteriorating; a stable currency stable, only if our foreign treasury-bond holders decide it to be; and the corruption of our court systems through powerful outside influences intent on circumventing justice for all in favor of justice for the few, these powerful interests are now aimed at taking it all away -- livable wages and benefits (what few remain), and the protection, or "do no harm", of humans and the environment.

Please read the following short article about the struggle of the working class in this country, and the reasons we intimately remain in that struggle to this very day. Understand why the labor movement was instrumental in creating a strong middle class, and how that movement shaped our workplaces for the benefit of all. Then, take the short test at the end. See whether your knowledge of how this nation was built on the backs of the working class coincides with what you were taught in school. You may be surprised.

The Working Class History Test

by Peter Kellman

from Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy (2001), pp. 46-48 (Reprinted with permission from POCLAD.)

The dominant history taught in the United States today reinforces the notion that from 1776 to the present “We the People” have formed our own government, and this government operates to protect and promote the interests of most of the people most of the time. Slavery and the denial of the right to vote for women are pointed to as exceptions that have been rectified through constitutional amendments.

Most working people today believe that the country is not run by We the People but by a small group of the very rich and powerful who manage large corporations. Many of us have in the back of our minds an image of this country, based on the history we have been taught, where the government was run to protect and promote the interests of most of the people. Therefore our vision of a better future is based on getting back to a time when things were better. The problem is that from its inception the United States government and economy has been run by and for the very wealthy.

If we are to build a society where the government is run to protect and promote the interests of We the People, we need to know the history of the elite who have always run this country and the history of the working class that built it. The following test was put together to bring out some of the history that has been denied. It is this denied history that should form the image of the past we carry around with us because we need to have a truthful understanding of the past to create a vision of the future.

We need to be clear about what it is we want to go back to. Do we want to go back to the vision of President James Madison -- a slave owner and “Master Builder of the Constitution” -- or to the vision of the people who built the early Abolition, Suffrage, and Labor Movements? Do we want to go back to the vision of President Hayes -- who used Federal troops to break strikes, promote corporate interests and end Reconstruction -- or to the Knights of Labor who demanded equal pay for equal work, and voting rights for all citizens regardless of race or gender? [1]

NOTES: [1] Still, most "traditional" histories show events punctuated not with the actions of the ordinary but with the acts of the powerful: landed, privileged, and in control. One noted exception is Howard Zinn's book A Peoples History of the united States: 1492 to Present. --Editor

The Test Try the test. Answers at the end.

1. It is easy for citizens of the United States to form a corporation but very hard to form a union. Name three countries where it is as easy for workers to form a union as it is in the United States for investors to form a corporation.

2. In 1770, what percentage of the colonial population lived in slavery?

3. At the time of the War of Independence, what percentage of the people who made up the colonies of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia were or had been indentured servants?

4. Who was the richest man in America at the time of the Revolution?

5. What percentage of We the People could vote in 1776?

6. Who said, “The people who own the country ought to govern it.”

7. What great American document was written behind closed doors at a meeting held in 1787, the minutes of which were made public only 53 years later?

8. What great American “told a British visitor shortly after the American Revolution that he could make $257 on every Negro in a year, and spend only $12 or $13 on his keep.”

9. What were the demands of the Labor Movement in 1830?

10. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed after the Civil War in 1868 to extend due process and equal protection of the law to African Americans. In the first 50 years after its adoption what percentage of the cases brought under it were on behalf of African Americans and what percentage of the cases were brought on behalf of corporations?

11. The Supreme Court ruled in 1872 that women do not have the right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment. What year did the Supreme Court rule: “Corporations are persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States”?

12. How can five people amend the Constitution?

13. Whose election to the Presidency of the United States was determined by a special commission, controlled by the CEO of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and made up of Supreme Court justices and members of Congress? In what year did that president pull the last of the federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction, and use those troops to put down the first national labor strike in the United States in which over 100 strikers were killed?

14. In 1886 the largest labor organization in the United States was the Knights of Labor. What issues did they advocate and fight for?

15. When was the labor movement politically powerful enough to prevent the Governor of Michigan and the President of the United States from sending troops to break up a strike in which workers were occupying corporate property?

16. Which president (John Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt or Herbert Hoover) signed into law an act which included the following: it is necessary that he have full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing; to negotiate the terms and conditions of his employment; and that he shall be free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or mutual aid or protection.

17. In many countries workers have benefits like paid maternity leave, maximum hours of work, health care, paid holidays, and vacations defined by law. In these countries workers have what, that they don’t have in the United States?

Answers:

1. Sweden, Germany, Italy, Japan, Belgian, Ireland, and more.

2. 20%.

3. 75%.

4. According to historian Charles Beard in his book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, George "Washington of Virginia, was probably the richest man in the United States in his time, and his financial ability was not surpassed among his countrymen anywhere."

5. 75%.

6. John Jay, first president of the Continental Congress and first chief justice of the Supreme Court.

7. The Constitution.

8. “Master Builder of the Constitution", and fourth president of the United States, James Madison.

9. The 10 hour day and public education.

10. African Americans 0.5% (one-half of one percent); corporations 50%. Also, of the 307 Fourteenth Amendment cases brought before the U.S. Supreme Court between 1890 and 1910, 19 dealt with the rights of African Americans and 288 dealt with corporations.

11. 1886.

12. They become U.S. Supreme Court Justices.

13. Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877.

14. They advocated the creation of producer, consumer, and distributive cooperatives, the prohibition of child labor, equal pay for equal work between the sexes and races, universal suffrage; the eight-hour day. And they opposed the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, reasoning that as long as a few people controlled most of the wealth they would use their economic power politically to prevent the creation of a real democracy.

15. 1936–37 [The sit-in strike at General Motors in Flint, Michigan.]

16. Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 was passed by Congress and signed into law by Herbert Hoover.

17. Strong working class political parties.

Toward a Democratic Insurgency

2011-03-27T11:00:00.001-04:00

The Oxford English Dictionary defines an insurgency as a rebellion against a constituted authority (for example, an authority recognized as such by the United Nations) when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents. Since December, there have been insurgencies occurring in the form of an unprecedented revolutionary wave of protests and demonstrations against oppressive governments throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

But insurgencies aren't always against tyrannical dictatorships. Insurgencies can start in order to challenge any sort of oppressive or manipulative force, or existing paradigm, entrenched within a culture. In this excellent article, Ward Morehouse calls for a democratic insurgency as a first step toward building a truly democratic society, one that tames the autocratic rule so entrenched in our society by a structure where giant corporations have been wrongly delegated authority to make our laws and define our culture. Although fourteen years old, and dated as far as the continuing triumphant of corporatism and corporate-state fascism (i.e. Citizens United v FEC; ratios of pay inequality in the U.S., etc.), his message is as fresh and relevant as if it were written today.

We the People -- Building a Truly Democratic Society, by Ward Morehouse

from Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy (2001), pp. 211-216, and is an edited version of a sermon delivered by the author to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Frederick, Maryland, on March 9, 1997. (Reprinted with permission from POCLAD and the author.)

MY TASK TODAY is an ambitious one: to persuade you in the brief time we have together to launch a “democratic insurgency” as a first step toward building a truly democratic society. In Daniel Quinn's extraordinary book, Ishmael: A Novel, which every person concerned about the human predicament should read, the narrator of the story answers an unusual ad:

Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.

To the narrator's surprise, his teacher turns out to be a gorilla named Ishmael. Then ensues an extended dialogue filled with insights about the human condition that only a non-human could have.

In a memorable exchange, Ishmael observes of the young people who were in the vanguard of the struggles of the 60s: “they made an ingenuous and disorganized effort to escape from captivity but ultimately failed because they were unable to find the bars of their cage.”

So it is for us today. The bars to our cage are our colonized minds that have led us to surrender our sovereignty to giant corporations which increasingly dominate our society, not to mention the rest of the world.

The principle that We the People are in charge is clearly stated in the preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

But over the intervening decades we have abandoned that principle in practice if not in theory. “American society is disproportionately shaped by the outlooks, interests, and aims of the business community -- especially that of big business,” observed Cornel West, the social critic and Harvard Professor, “The sheer power of corporate capital is extraordinary. This power makes it difficult even to imagine what a free and democratic society would look like . . .” [1]

What, indeed, should a “free and democratic society” look like? Let us begin by considering the dictionary definition. Democracy, according to Webster's, has two major components: government in which the supreme power is retained by the people; and the less widely recognized belief in and practice of social equality. It is clear that we have strayed a long way from the ideals expressed so eloquently in our Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution.

What went wrong? Why do we find ourselves in a plutocracy with such gross inequality? I think there are at least three critical factors growing out of our past. The first is that the foundation for our republic was deeply flawed by design. The political rights set forth in the Constitution were essentially restricted to white property-owning males. A continuing thread in our national history since then has been the struggle by all those excluded from Constitutional “personhood” -- women, African-Americans, poor whites, indigenous people -- to gain that personhood and the equally determined resistance of those empowered by the Constitution to prevent them from achieving that goal.

Second is the huge internal contradiction in the Constitution between its Preamble and the rest of the Constitution which seeks above all else to protect and give sanctity to property rights over human rights.

Third has been the usurpation of the peoples' authority by corporations, especially during the last 100 years. Although this process did not begin there, it stands exposed by the infamous 1886 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co, which asserted that corporations were like natural persons before the law. From this fundamental determination corporations worked assiduously through the decades to claim more and more constitutional rights of natural persons, including those protected by the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. How ironic it is that corporations achieved their constitutional “personhood” before all of the other natural persons I have just mentioned. And how absurd it is that today corporations have more rights than mortals like you and me.

Closely aligned to this process was defining “liberty” to mean the right of the individual to do whatever he or she wanted to do with his or her property regardless of the social or environmental consequences. The expansion of property rights, carefully and methodically orchestrated by major corporations, has been inexorable. It now includes intangible rights such as managerial prerogative and the business judgment rule which effectively place much of what corporations do beyond democratic control.

The failure of our democracy has been tragically evident in the growing inequality of income and wealth, particularly in the last decade. During the 1980s the net worth of the 400 richest persons in America increased by 522%. During that same decade the bottom 99% lost over 5% of their share of personal income, while the top 1% almost doubled its share from 8 to 14%.

This growing inequality has achieved greatest visibility in the ratio of compensation paid to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and their lowest paid workers. That ratio now stands at 160 to 1. [2] By contrast, in Europe it is only 20 to 1, and in Japan merely 15 to 1.

In 1993 Michael Eisner, the CEO of Walt Disney Corporation, received $203 million in total compensation. That works out to $84,000 an hour -- nice work if you can get it.

Even the much heralded expansion of participation in the closest thing we have to a national lottery -- namely, the Stock Exchange -- remains highly unequal and largely limited to upper income brackets. The richest 1% have 39% of the stock owned by individuals. The richest 10% own 81%.

This state of affairs leads to the fundamental question: How can we have a democracy when so much power and wealth is concentrated in so few hands? If we are to be true to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution, and to reassert our sovereignty as “We the People,” then we must work toward replacing anti-democratic institutions that consolidate wealth and power with democratic institutions which disperse wealth and power.

But in the view of those who have pondered more deeply the meaning of democracy, we must look beyond building institutions. Douglas Lummis, in his seminal book Radical Democracy, argues that democracy is more than a set of institutions or a “system.” It is rather a state of being.

He observes that many of the experiences most precious to human life can not be institutionalized.

Laughter cannot be institutionalized -- which does not mean that we should abolish institutions such as comic theater. Love cannot be institutionalized -- which does not mean that institutions of courtship and marriage are useless. Wisdom cannot be institutionalized -- which does not mean that educational institutions are a waste . . . [3]

We design institutions, Lummis states, hoping that they will bring about or preserve a certain kind and state of being. Sometimes they do and sometimes they do not. And sometimes that state of being may appear without the support of any institutions. The same uncertainty of cause and effect is certainly true of democracy. All of the institutions asserted to achieve democracy may be created, and yet still not achieve it. It is also true that all of the institutions designed to suppress it may be established, and democracy may break out before our very eyes.

The essence of democracy is politics -- the art of the possible. Democracy is a performance art like music, dance, and theater. We can construct theaters, and assemble troupes of dancers and musicians but the art exists only while it is being performed. So it is with democracy.

But if democracy can not be institutionalized, it none the less tends to take on certain typical forms when it does appear. Again in the words of Lummis:

People develop a desire to act together, and to talk with one another about their common life. They tend to gather in groups small enough to make this talk possible in what have been called committees of correspondence, councils, soviets, affinity groups, sectoral groups, and so on. These become a form of `civil society.'

That “civil society” has long been considered one of the distinctive characteristics of these United States, as Alexis de Tocqueville observed many decades ago regarding the propensity of Americans to join associations of all diverse kinds. But from the beginning of our history as an independent country, democratic values and process have been under severe stress.

No one has been more eloquent in advocacy of the task of building a truly democratic society than William Greider in Who Will Tell the People. His book is in my view the most important critique of U.S. society since Gunnar Myrdal's study of race relations in North America more than a half-century ago, An American Dilemma.

Building such a society, Greider insists, will require citizens to devote themselves to challenging the status quo, disrupting the existing contours of power and opening the way for renewal. Just how do we open the way for renewal? Ishmael's pupil was puzzled by the same question.

“What do I do if I earnestly desire to save the world?” he asked Ishmael.

Ishmael frowned at him through the bars of his cage for a long moment. “You want a program?” he asked.

“Of course I want a program” replied his pupil.

“Then here is a program: the story of Genesis must be reversed. First Cain must stop murdering Abel. This is essential if you're to survive . . . And then, of course, you must spit out the fruit of that forbidden tree. You must absolutely and forever relinquish the idea you know who should live and who should die on this planet.”

“Yes, I see all that,” responded Ishmael's pupil, “but that's a program for mankind, that is not a program for me. What do I do?”

“What you do is to teach a hundred what I've taught you, and inspire each of them to teach a hundred. That's how it's always done.”

So that is our program -- where we must begin. And we have just started, here today -- with this “democratic conversation” in Greider's choice phrase.

“Strange as it may seem to an era governed by mass-market politics, democracy begins in human conversation,” Greider insists. “The simplest least threatening investment any citizen may make in democratic renewal is to begin talking with other people about these questions, as though the answers matter to them. Harmless talk around a kitchen table or in a church basement will not affect anyone but themselves, unless they decide that it ought to. When the circle is enlarged to include others, they will be embarking on the fertile terrain of politics that now seems so barren.”

It is important to understand that a democratic conversation does not need elaborate rules and procedures or idealistic notions of perfect consensus. What it must have is a spirit of mutual respect -- that is, people talking among themselves critically, in an atmosphere of honesty and shared purpose. That respect must even extend to one's adversaries, since the objective of these conversations is not to destroy them but to reach eventual understanding. The very heart of democracy is as simple as that -- a society based on mutual respect.

Ishmael's pupil was less than satisfied with Ishmael's definition of the “program.” “Yes, but” he asks Ishmael, “is it enough?”

Ishmael frowned. “Of course it's not enough but if you begin anywhere else there's no hope at all . . . You can't change these things with laws. You must change people's minds first. And you can't just root out a harmful complex of ideas and leave a void behind; you have to give people something that is as meaningful as what they've lost -- something that makes better sense.”

So, too, will many of you ask: Is a “program” of “democratic conversations,” of raising levels of consciousness about the myth of democracy in which we live, and of the possibilities and implementation of a democracy which rises to our highest ideals of self-governance, enough?

Of course it is not enough. But we must start there, for many of the same reasons Ishmael gives to his pupil. However, we all want to do something, not just sit around talking about the problem. And there are things we can do, but they should grow out of a deeper understanding of democracy, and they should yield real solutions, not cosmetic ones.

Take election campaign finance reform. [4] Persons of genuine commitment to democratic values are rallying around the McCain-Feingold-Thompson Campaign Finance Reform Bill, not because they are oblivious to its limitations but because it seems to be the only game in town.

But the great difficulty with that bill is that, assuming it is passed more or less in its present form, many of those supporting it will conclude that we have solved the problem, making it that much more difficult in the next round of struggle to get at the real causes of corruption of democratic values in our society.

Real campaign reform must address and work toward reversing the Supreme Court's decision in Buckley v. Valeo equating money with speech and asserting that, as a form of speech, spending money in election campaigns cannot be limited because it would violate the First Amendment protection of free speech.

For those who say that Supreme Court doctrines cannot be overturned, I respond by pointing to the long struggle for racial equality in the United States. A group of young black lawyers gathered together in 1930 and formulated a plan to overturn the Supreme Court doctrine of “separate but equal” which had been the law of the land since Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. It took them almost a quarter of a century, but led by Thurgood Marshall, they achieved their goal in 1954 with the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

In addition to working toward the overturn of the doctrine that money equates with speech, real campaign finance reform must also:

Prohibit all paid political ads on radio and television.

Require all radio and television corporations to provide free air time. (After all, they are using the people's airwaves).

Mandate only signatures on petitions, not money contributed to a candidate, to qualify for public financing. (Paying money is just what Blacks in the South had to do in order to vote when there was a poll tax.)

Distinguish between natural persons and corporations, and prohibit profit-making corporations from making any kind of political contribution.

Those who think these are unattainable goals need to be reminded of a Wisconsin Law from 1905 to 1973:

No corporation doing business in this state shall pay or contribute, or offer, consent or agree to pay or contribute, directly or indirectly, any money, property, free service of its officers or employees, or thing of value to any political party, organization, committee or individual for any political purpose whatsoever or for the purpose of influencing legislation of any kind or to promote or defeat the candidacy of any person for nomination, appointment or election to any political office. [5]

Establishing our democracy must begin with citizens prepared to devote themselves to challenging the status quo, and to disrupting the contours of power. But the ultimate task, William Greider reminds us, is much more difficult -- creating something that does not now exist -- the basis for politics as a shared enterprise. “The search for democratic meaning is necessarily a path of hard conflict,” Greider writes, “but the distant horizon is reconciliation. Americans coming to terms with themselves, that is the high purpose politics was meant to serve.”

My modest hope for the time we are together is, as I suggested at the outset, to persuade you to launch what Greider calls a “democratic insurgency,” individually and collectively.

This insurgency will not begin with abstract ideas or charismatic political leaders. Its origins will lie among ordinary people who have the will to engage themselves with their surrounding reality and to act on the conflict between what they are told and what they experience -- thus disrupting existing structures of power and opening up paths for renewal.

NOTES

West, Cornel, "The Role of Progressive Politics." In The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique, edited by David Kairys. New York, N.Y.: Pantheon Books, 1982, pp. 468-469.

Today it is over 200 to 1. See “The Rising Costs of Inequality in the U.S.” in this volume. --Ed.

Lummis, C. Douglas. Radical Democracy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996, p. 159.

See “Speaking Truth to Power About Campaign Reform” in this volume. --Ed.

Wis. Laws, Section 4479a. (Sec. 1, ch 492, 1905).

Iraq, Afghanistan, and Civil Disobedience

2011-03-20T12:45:00.003-04:00

Speaker: Chris Hedges

"Law never made men a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? The mass of men serve the State thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.... In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well." ~Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

As Chris Hedges proclaimed last December when he committed to participate in nonviolent civil disobedience by refusing to obey civil laws in a last ditch effort to induce change in governmental policy concerning the on-going wars and occupations of both Iraq and Afghanistan, "it's all we have left". As war -- perpetual and on-going war -- has become the norm in American society, it is neither criticized or rebuked by either faction of our two-party dictatorship. It's all that remains of hope for an end to the carnage, an end to the depravity of conflict inflicted not only on those we occupy, but also the psyche and ever-increasing percentage of our treasure that goes to training our young men and women in the trades of slaughter. Truly, as Gandhi wrote in Non-violence in Peace and War, "Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood."

In Washington D.C., yesterday's demonstration and observance of civil disobedience was seen and cheered by hundreds behind police-erected barricades, as over one-hundred activists, including Daniel Ellsberg and members of ANSWER Coalition, March Forward!, Code Pink, and several veterans organizations, risked arrest in order to expose and shine light on the continuing war policies inherited and escalated by the Obama Administration. As many speakers before the march and ensuing civil resistance noted, just showing up for demonstrations doesn't sway our governmental leaders anymore. The exploitation, manipulation, and subjugation continues. As Ralph Nader reminded us, $700 million per day is spent to operate and support the war and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. $700 million per day! This would appear hypocritically obscene and profane if budget talks weren't fixated on austerity cuts that primarily contribute to the well-being and welfare of the less fortunate in American society, but that's not the case. Both wings of our colluding dual-party dictatorship, continually echoing the patriotic script of freedom and liberty, are embarking on taking everything away from the middle and working class people in this society and handing it all over to the wealthy, the elite and the powerful. Perpetual war is one means to achieving that end. Sadly, by not resisting, the American people are complicit in their own demise. Yesterday, over one-hundred resisters stood up for the American people.

Voltaire wrote that it is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. Chris Hedges, while at the podium yesterday, said war is organized sadism. Both men are right. Nations have borrowed billions for war, while no nation, to my knowledge, has ever borrowed largely for education. Undoubtedly, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and the betterment of civilization (although Lyndon Johnson tried). We must make a choice, and apparently that choice has already been made. We are seeing that now.

Corporations Don't Pay Fair Share

2011-03-13T11:30:00.001-04:00

Currently, many multinational corporations avoid paying U.S. taxes on revenue from foreign subsidiaries by reinvesting the money overseas, either by parking cash in various accounts or by plowing it back into foreign operations. Under existing laws, companies with operations overseas pay U.S. taxes only if they bring the profits back to the United States. If they keep the profits offshore, they can defer paying taxes indefinitely. President Obama, almost two years ago (May, 2009), proposed a plan that would have taken effect this year, and which would change that.

In a statement from that time, the White House said that in 2004, multinational corporations only paid an effective tax rate of 2.3 percent in the United States because of such allowances. Aides said that was the most recent year available for analysis, and they also indicated this situation was indefensible. Nothing was mentioned about this again until January, during Obama's most recent State of the Union address, when he indicated he wanted to close the loopholes.

Understandably, much of these deductions are legal methods of tax avoidance, many of which this administration has addressed in its tax loophole closure plan, but so much comes under the category of tax evasion, which means the deliberate misrepresenting or concealing of the true state of their affairs to tax authorities in order to reduce their tax liability, and includes, in particular, dishonest tax reporting (such as declaring less income, profits or gains than actually earned; or overstating deductions, etc.).

Within the last few days, National People's Action issued a report which was prepared for them by Public Accountability Initiative, a non-profit and non-partisan watchdog organization that focuses on corporate and government accountability. This report affirms the tax avoidance and evasion practices of the banking industry in general, and six banks in particular, over the last few reported tax years. It's a glaring and indicting exposé of how Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo used foreign subsidiaries to offshore and understate their revenues, in addition to incorporating offshore tax havens to further reduce their tax liability to the country that issued their corporate charter and where they base their corporate headquarters.

With all the talk of austerity programs, particularly from the Republican Party and other conservative outlets, the question I always have is why? Why are they always leading the charge to cut not only discretionary items, but also non-discretionary items? As I mentioned in my previous post, from March 6th, they're always looking at just one side of the ledger sheet -- the "austerity side". They never consider making corporations pay their fair share (not to mention, but I will anyway, making cuts in the biggest wasters of tax dollars, also intimately tied to and backed by international banking and multinational corporate interests, the Department of Defense).

Read Big Bank Tax Drain. Read it and get even more angry than you are now. Then, make copies and send it to your U.S. representative and both senators. Ask them why; why do We the People have to continue paying for the sins of corporate America -- first during the financial meltdown and subsequent raid on our treasury, and now because corporations refuse to pay taxes like you and I do, every year, year-in-and-year-out, and we have to suffer the burden of less government services so they, corporate America, can amass great profits without paying their fair share. Ask them today.

Big Bank Tax Drain

How Big Bank Speculation and Tax Avoidance are Starving Public Revenues and Sticking American Taxpayers with the Bill

Executive Summary

Wall Street banks caused the economic crisis that has left millions unemployed, foreclosed on, and without prospects in the worst economy since the Great Depression. This crisis has, in turn, caused massive tax revenue shortfalls for the federal government and for state governments across the country: nearly $300 billion combined for 50 states in the years since the crisis began. To deal with these budget woes, politicians are cutting public spending: laying off teachers, attacking public sector workers, raiding pensions, closing hospitals, and eliminating essential services for children, veterans, and the elderly. Raising revenue from the wealthy, bailed-out banks that caused the crisis would be a far more sensible way to address these budget woes. This report analyzes data from the latest financial filings by the six big banks – Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley – to expose the ways in which they continue to avoid taxes and contribute to tax revenue shortfalls, rather than pay for an economic recovery that will put people to work, keep people in their homes, and preserve the safety net – for people, not corporations.

Key findings:

This year Bank of America is receiving the “income tax refund from hell” – $666 million for 2010, according to its annual report filed in late February 2011. This is following a $3.5 billion refund reported in 2009. Bank of America’s federal income tax benefit this year is roughly two times the Obama administration’s proposed cuts to the Community Development Block Grant program ($299 million).

Six banks – Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley together paid income tax at an approximate rate of 11% of their pre-tax US earnings in 2009 and 2010. Had they paid at 35%, what they are legally mandated to pay, the federal government would have received an additional $13 billion in tax revenue. This would cover more than two years of salaries for the 132,000 teacher jobs lost since the economic crisis began in 2008.

Wells Fargo reportedly received a $4 billion federal income tax refund on $18 billion in pre-tax income in 2009, and paid 7.5% of its pre-tax income of $19 billion in 2010 in federal taxes. Its net federal income tax benefit for 2009 and 2010 combined, $2.5 billion, is equal to the Obama administration’s proposed cuts of 50% to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Banks use a variety of mechanisms to avoid corporate income taxes, including offshore tax shelters. 50% of the six banks’ 1871 foreign subsidiaries are incorporated in jurisdictions that have been identified as offshore tax havens, such as the Cayman Islands.

Bank of America operates 371 tax-sheltered subsidiaries, more than any other big bank studied, and 204 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands alone, according to its latest regulatory filings. 75% of Goldman Sachs’s foreign subsidiaries are incorporated in offshore tax havens.

The banks’ private banking arms also protect the wealth of rich clients from taxation through offshore investment strategies. Bank of America’s wealth management arm encourages clients to register their yachts in foreign jurisdictions for tax reasons.

Closing special tax loopholes on the financial sector and implementing sensible revenue-raising initiatives such as the Financial Speculation Tax could generate over $150 billion in federal tax revenue each year.

I. Big Bank Speculation & Budget Shortfalls

The federal government and state governments across the country are facing significant budget shortfalls due to lost tax revenue and increased relief spending during the recession. The breadth and depth of the recession owes to a decade of reckless speculation, fraudulent lending, lax regulation, and low interest rates pursued by the largest banks and compliant politicians, culminating in an unprecedented housing bubble.

The bubble economy rewarded Wall Street with record profits and executive bonuses, but its collapse wiped out $9 trillion in property value nationwide, destroyed the construction industry, bankrupted millions of homeowners, and plunged the entire US economy into its sharpest downturn since the Great Depression. The direct impact of this collapse on local and state tax revenues and relief spending has been disastrous and accounts for most of the states' current funding troubles.

Collectively, states lost approximately $297 billion in tax revenues from late 2008 to 2010 due to the housing bubble collapse. Unlike cities and the federal government, states cannot borrow money to finance operating costs and must choose between tax increases, spending cuts, or a combination of the two to plug budget holes.

As a result of lost tax revenues and projected losses, states face a combined budget deficit of $125 billion for fiscal year 2012, and have already dealt with deficits of $423 billion for 2009, 2010, and 2011 combined.

(View and download the full report here...)

Corporate America -- Causing Austerity Cuts by Evading Taxes

2011-03-06T12:30:00.001-05:00

As protests by public employees, and their friends and supporters, enters its fourth week, newly-elected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker continues his attempt to ramrod through his state's legislature a very controversial bill that limits collective bargaining for most state and local employees to only wage negotiations. It seems to me that Wisconsin, like other states facing real or anticipated budget shortfalls, is only looking at one side of the ledger sheet -- the "austerity side".

The same with the current budget battle going on in Washington. The Republican plan, passed by the Tea Party-influenced caucus, wants to cut spending about $61 billion below last year's level. A second vote on what's now sort of the Democratic alternative, would be about $10.5 billion less than was spent last year. Both of those budgets are expected to fail. That would essentially throw out the extremes and tell everyone, okay, it's time to get to the bargaining table and strike a compromise. But why are massive cuts in government spending even being considered, given the stimulus effect they provide in an economy that's barely limping along? Why is the complete focus on the right-hand side of the balance sheet, the expense side, and nobody is even looking at the left side -- the revenue side? There is a more sensible option, but don't count on your corporatist government to even give it a thought, or the mainstream corporate media to throw you a hint as to what it might be. Neither will, simply, because both are part of the problem.

But the solution is simple: Make the tax dodgers pay their fair share. More specifically, demand that the corporate tax dodgers pony-up their mandated tax obligations. Make these corporate "tax avoiders" accountable, and make their acts punishable -- instead of permissible and tolerable. Overseas tax havens enable companies, the vast majority being multinational corporations headquartered in this country, to pretend their profits are earned in other countries, like the Cayman Islands, for example, or in Switzerland, or in any of dozens of tax havens around the world. Simply making that gimmick illegal would add an estimated $100 billion a year to the U.S. Treasury. That's not small potatoes. Coincidently, similar to the tax breaks Scott Walker extended to his corporate benefactors and now wants to recoup from public employees in Wisconsin, that's also the amount our simple-minded brethren from the Tea Party initially wanted to cut from the federal budget.

Who are the guilty parties...exactly? Well, if they're a large corporation operating around the globe, with offices and manufacturing plants worldwide, it's a safe bet they're not paying their fair share. The list is as diverse as the industries they're in and the products and services they make and provide: Bank of America, Boeing, Cisco, Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil, FedEx, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Mattel, News Corp, Pfizer and Proctor and Gamble. Their accounting departments ferret out as many loopholes as their hired lobbyists planted in the tax code in the first place. "These corporations are heavy users of our taxpayer funded public infrastructure and property rights protection systems. They use our regulated marketplace, call upon our law enforcement system and judiciary to remedy disputes. They're protected by U.S. police forces and firefighters. They enjoy all the privileges and benefits of tax-paying citizens. They just don't pay their fair share for them."

An anti-corporate tax avoidance group that originated in the United Kingdom last October, called UK Uncut, is taking this discourse to the streets and demanding an explanation as to why their targeted companies are avoiding their fair share of the tax burden. Not unlike this country, corporatism has taken firm root in their governmental processes and has relegated the people to second-class citizenry. Last December, right before the busiest shopping day prior to Christmas, protesters against corporate tax avoidance carried out their biggest day of action to date by targeting businesses in fifty towns and cities across the UK. It was very successful in pointing out the criminal and overt tax avoidance of some of the largest retailers. Protesters were adamant in their demands in wanting to know why they had to suffer and pay for the austerity programs instituted by their government, while corporations continued reeling in profits while avoiding payment of taxes.

An American off-shoot, US Uncut, debuted as a serious, mobilized effort to fight corporate tax dodging. On February 26th, the group’s big national Day Of Action, commenced their first coordinated effort by the organization to educate the public and foster support for the movement. Their selected target: Bank of America. At the rally in New York City, around ninety people ultimately showed up, handing out flyers and shouting to passing pedestrians: “Do you pay your taxes? Bank of America doesn’t!” According to Alisa Harris, one of the New York rally organizers, “Bank of America is a corporation that got a $45 billion bailout from US taxpayers, and yet they paid absolutely no income tax [in 2009],” she said, “And so this is just a great example of the problem of taxpayers pouring resources into these corporations, and the corporations are using our infrastructure, and yet they’re not giving back to the community.”

And according to an article in The Huffington Post, "A rally in San Francisco drew scores of protesters to a branch of Bank of America at Union Square; dressed in ordinary street clothes, they filed into the bank one by one, getting in line to speak with the tellers. Each of them carried a fake check from Bank of America made out to "The United States c/o Tax Paying Citizens," for $1.5 billion. The sum would cover all the bank's unpaid taxes on its 2009 earned income of $4.4 billion, demonstrators said. Only a few people had presented their fake checks to the tellers before the bank temporarily closed for business; protesters were peacefully escorted out of the building by the police. Once on the street, however, they stayed put and kept handing out fake checks, which had facts about corporate tax avoidance written in fine print on the back, as fliers. 'Two-thirds of all U.S. corporations do not pay federal income tax,' the fliers said. 'BofA is the largest bank and the 5th largest corporation in America.' "

The solution is obvious and apparent, although the Koch whores and other puppets of the corporatocracy would never remind you of this. Why is this? Because they'd have to step on the toes of their wealthy, and even more powerful, benefactors -- the ones who fund their sleazy campaigns and prop them into office. The ones who really call the shots and write the laws, delegating our elected officials as nothing more than their chosen and personal scribes. Let's call a spade a spade; our government has been overtaken by corporatists, from both major parties, and our Constitution was nullified and voided a long time ago. Check into US Uncut and support what they're doing. And don't forget, they're doing it for you -- an American taxpayer. See whether there's a rally you can participate in, or send them a check. Unlike the corporations they're exposing as tax frauds, they're suffering through the same economic inequities as you. Give 'em a hand.

Corporate New Deal

2011-02-28T14:40:00.014-05:00

"For economic shock therapy to be applied without restraint -- as it was in Chile in the seventies, China in the late eighties, Russia in the nineties and the U.S. after September 11, 2001 -- some sort of additional major collective trauma has always been required, one that either temporarily suspended democratic practices or blocked them entirely. This ideological crusade was born in the authoritarian regimes of South America, and in its largest newly conquered territories -- Russia and China -- it coexists most comfortably, and most profitable, with an iron-fisted leadership to this day." ---- The Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein

Just four years ago, Naomi Klein's best selling book, The Shock Doctrine, accurately and vividly described what's going on in America today. It was four years ago, but she was able to predict the future; she saw the writing on the wall. What we've been witnessing in Wisconsin the last couple of weeks is the Shock Doctrine -- "disaster capitalism" -- occurring on a smaller scale.

It's not a coincidence that last week's revelation that the U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war in Afghanistan. The program for CIA psychological torture techniques originally developed after the Second World War and extended into the 1960s. In the U.S., at least two lines of thought converged; one was about how to alter people's minds without leaving marks and scars, and the other was about what was the best way of organizing a given economy. The first grew out of experiments in psychological torture (electroshock therapy). The second came from the mind of Milton Friedman. Both embrace working from a "blank slate" and starting all over again.

The premise of Ms. Klein's book, brilliant and fascinating, and at the same time painfully simple in its argument and revelation, argues that free market fundamentalism has risen to distinction in some countries because it was pushed through while the citizens were reacting to disasters or upheavals; that some crises may have been created with the intention of being able to push through unpopular reforms in their wake. In other words, taking advantage of a major disaster -- natural, as in the case of Hurricane Katrina, or manmade, as with the invasion and occupation of Iraq -- to adopt radical economic policies that the population would be less likely to accept under normal circumstances. The well-rehearsed and carefully arranged attacks on the public domain in the aftermath of catastrophic events, combined with the "treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities", Ms. Klein coined as "disaster capitalism".

Milton Friedman, an economist and professor at the University of Chicago, and economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan, observed that "only a crisis -- actual or perceived -- produces real change. When the crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable." This is exactly what has been happening in Wisconsin.

Public union employees, their friends, families, and students sympathetic to their cause, have been demonstrating for weeks because the newly installed governor, Scott Walker, claimed he needed to deny them their collective bargaining rights in order to balance the state budget -- despite the fact the workers expressed their willingness to concede completely to the governor's wage and benefit concessions. With several budget crises consuming the country, and Governor Walker's own state budget in arrears due to giant corporate give-aways just weeks before, this planted the seeds for the quintessential rock 'em sock 'em, kick 'em while they're down, corporate-government forcible takeover that's so quintessential disaster capitalism. As economist Paul Krugman observed, "What’s happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside." Let's take a peek.

Aside massive cuts in health coverage for low-income families, there's this: “Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).” In other words, the bill would allow for the selling of state-owned power plants without bids and without concern for the legally-defined public interest. Privatize what's owned by the state...the people...and sell it off.

In other words, Governor Walker took Professor Friedman's legacy to heart, acted swiftly and decisively, and attempted to ramrod a bill through the state legislature that would eliminate public unions in the state and, at the same time, impose by law rapid and irreversible change. It's a microeconomic version of what occurred in the aftermath of the U.S. Iraqi invasion, essentially no different than what happened in the soggy remains of New Orleans after Katrina, and so similar to the predatory capitalist racketeering that devoured the former Soviet Union after its collapse in the early '90s.

The conservative trademark priorities to eliminate collective bargaining, privatize public-owned infrastructure and commons, and the slashing of social spending to the detriment of those who need it most, is all here. This is how the Shock Doctrine takes control, and unless it's stopped in its tracks and prevented from spreading beyond the boundaries of Wisconsin, you can bet it's coming to a town near you.

Fed's Backdoor Giveaway

2011-02-12T09:35:00.012-05:00

If you've been reading this blog for any time at all, you undoubtedly realize the passion I feel when it comes to our disappearing democracy. I've pretty much summed up the fundamental reason for most, if not all, of the problems that paralyze this republic. I've pointed out, adequately I hope, and have inferred that no matter the size of government, the same secretive and underlying manipulators will still control the reins of government.

Two years ago, Bloomberg News dropped a bombshell about how the American taxpayer, through Federal Reserve lending programs and guarantees, was being placed in the unenviable position of being the underwriter for over $9 trillion...yes, that's TRILLION...to the largest banks, investment houses, and multinational corporations in the world. Keep in mind, only the $787 billion stimulus legislation that became law early in 2009, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) signed into law in October of 2008, and the $168 billion in tax cuts and rebates enacted in early 2008 had been voted on by congress to that point.

These trillions of dollars were "off balance sheet" transactions. Where the money went, exactly to whom, for what, and with what assets held as collateral, remains a mystery to this day, at least to the public, and at least to then-U.S. Congressman Allan Grayson. At a hearing early last May, Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman was questioned during testimony to account for the $9 trillion in off-balance sheet transactions (which comes to approximately $30,000 for each man, woman and child in the U.S.). After a lot of dancing and hemming-and-hawing, she answered that no one at the Federal Reserve knows or is keeping track of where the money has gone.

As Senator Bernie Sanders mentioned in an article early in December, "...the $700 billion Wall Street bailout signed into law by President George W. Bush turned out to be pocket change compared to the trillions and trillions of dollars in near-zero interest loans and other financial arrangements the Federal Reserve doled out to every major financial institution in this country. Among those are Goldman Sachs, which received nearly $600 billion; Morgan Stanley, which received nearly $2 trillion; Citigroup, which received $1.8 trillion; Bear Stearns, which received nearly $1 trillion, and Merrill Lynch, which received some $1.5 trillion in short term loans from the Fed."

The great giveaway didn't end there. Prior to January 21, 2009, the day the current administration took over the "official" reigns of government, special loans and dispensation to other non-bank multinational corporations peaked at $348.2 billion. Among the beneficiaries were Toyota Motor Corp. ($4.6 billion), Harley-Davidson Inc. ($2.3 billion) and Verizon Communications Inc. ($1.5 billion). General Electric Company used the Fed as its own revolving charge account, tapping the Fed a dozen times ($16.1 billion). Supposedly, in its scramble to keep the economy from collapsing, the Fed created the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, or CPFF, which tried to ensure that banks and industrial companies had the short-term loans they needed to fund everyday operations. GE was the biggest recipient.

Bloomberg News brought a lawsuit against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to force the Board to reveal the identities of firms for which it has provided guarantees and won at the trial level. The Fed appealed the decision, and on August 27, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals agreed to delay implementation of the ruling until Oct. 19 so that the Fed may appeal to the Supreme Court. Given the composition of the current high court, specifically the Gang of Five right-wing judicial outlaws who gave corporations unlimited influence over our elections just over one year ago, it's almost a sure bet that Bloomberg News will be on the losing end when a decision is handed down. As of today, a court date has not been scheduled.

But the fun didn't end there. Between October 27, 2008 and August 6, 2009 (well into the Obama "watch") the Fed spent $350 billion in taxpayer funds to save thirty-five foreign banks and multinational corporations. The thirty-five were UBS, Dexia SA, BNP Paribas, Barclays PLC, Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Commerzbank AG, Danske Bank A/S, ING Groep NV, WestLB, Handelsbanken, Deutsche Post AG, Erste Group Bank AG, NordLB, Free State of Bavaria, KBC, HSH Nordbank AG, Unicredit, HSBC Holdings PLC, DZ Bank AG, Republic of Korea Rabobank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Banco Espirito Santo SA, Bank of Nova Scotia, Mizuho Corporate Bank, Ltd., Syngenta AG, Mitsui & Co Ltd., Bank of Montreal, Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Shinhan Financial Group Co Ltd., Mitsubishi Corporation, Aegon NV, Royal Bank of Canada, and last, but not least, Sumitomo Corporation. Amazing, huh? Is there something wrong with this picture? The fact that our central bank -- supposedly having the power and chosen role to do so -- doled out billions of dollars to foreign banking institutions, is not only unconstitutional but may also be treasonous.

So the question, the "$9 trillion dollar question" to be exact, remains: Where did the money go, and why? What power, instilled by We the people, gave the Federal Reserve the right to loan and guarantee loans to...well, most of the largest banking institutions worldwide? And finally, the question needs to be asked: Who benefited? It certainly wasn't Main Street, U.S.A., was it? We, the People, ultimately came up the biggest loser.

Why do the American people, time and time again, allow themselves to be taken for the collective fool? Why is it, while tens-of-thousands have taken to the streets of major cities of Greece and France to protest government-imposed austerity programs, the real looters steal away virtually in the daylight, and while the cauldrons of revolution boil over in places such as Tunisia and Egypt, the American people continue to sit on their hands and hope...and pray...that a better day will be just down the road? Is our mindset so colonized, so propagandized, that we can't discern what is happening right in front of us?

Matt Taibbi explained it best in a piece about our peasant mentality: "You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish . . . can’t be mad at AIG, can’t be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs. The real villains have to be the anti-AIG protesters!" Mr. Taibbi's right.

Today, during the 202nd birthday celebration of probably this country's finest president, we're reminded of just how great a leader Abraham Lincoln was. He warned us about the reign of corporate power and the corruption in high places that would follow, and he correctly saw that the moneyed interests would perpetuate its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, fleecing our treasure and stealing our republic. Chris Hedges, in last Sunday's column articulating the way empire thrives and prospers, said "All centralized power, once restraints and regulations are abolished, once it is no longer accountable to citizens, knows no limit to internal and external plunder. The corporate state, which has emasculated our government, is creating a new form of feudalism, a world of masters and serfs. It speaks to those who remain in a state of self-delusion in the comforting and familiar language of liberty, freedom, prosperity and electoral democracy."

Mr. Lincoln foretold all this, and it's my opinion that's the true reason he lost his life to a "lone assassin's" bullet. Those in position, who stand for We the People, who speak out against corporate power and domination, all too frequently do.

Justices Thomas and Scalia Should Have Recused Themselves...But Didn't

2011-01-31T18:22:00.005-05:00

This past weekend, at the exclusive Rancho Las Palmas resort near Palm Springs, California, the infamous Koch brothers hosted a gala for some of the largest titans of industry and government; the influential and the moneyed. It wasn't necessarily a celebratory gathering to praise and applaud those who participated in a hard-fought election, but rather a secretive planning and strategizing session for the prominent conservative elected (and un-elected) officials, donors and strategists that have been shaping American political thought and policy the last few years. The twice-a-year gathering has been framed as a session "to review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it."

It's not known whether two Supreme Court justices, namely Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, were attending the Rancho Las Palmas festivities, but it is known that both have had dealings with David and Charles Koch in the past and have been guests of the notorious pair at similar occasions. This has raised red-flags, appropriately so, by legal ethicists and other groups who want to see more disclosure. Although supreme court justices are not barred, like federal judges, from appearing at partisan events, they are ethically-bound from attending overt political planning functions. Obviously, their presence at these conferences greatly raises questions of transparency and, for some, broader concerns about judicial independence.

Last spring, in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and signed by Common Cause President & CEO Bob Edgar and Vice President Arn Pearson, they asked that the Justice Department promptly investigate whether Justices Thomas and Scalia should have recused themselves from the Citizens United case. If the Department finds sufficient grounds for disqualification of either Justice, they have requested that the Solicitor General file a motion with the full Supreme Court seeking to vacate the judgment.

Although sufficient evidence may be unattainable, questions included in the petition include: (1) Would a reasonable person question the impartiality of Justices Thomas and Scalia based on their attendance at secretive Koch Industries retreats?, and (2) Does attendance of a closed-door Koch Industries retreat constitute political activity? Common Cause argues, “We believe it is inappropriate for a Supreme Court judge to be ‘featured’ at or attend closed-door strategy meetings with political donors, corporate CEOs, candidates and political officials, and thereby lend the prestige of their position to the political goals of that event” and “A reasonable person would question the impartiality of Justices Thomas and Scalia in the Citizens United case based on their attendance at political strategy meetings sponsored by a corporation that raises and spends millions to defeat Democrats and elect Republicans”.

And there's another fly in the ointment that may add credence to Common Cause's request: As you can probably imagine (simply because you undoubtedly consider yourself a "reasonable person"), federal judges -- and justices -- are required by law to disclose their spouse's income. This prohibits unsavory organizations and individuals from influencing the judiciary by channeling money (i.e., "influence") through their wife or husband. Yet, Justice Thomas has not complied with this requirement for years. Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, Justice Thomas' wife, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation’s IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled “none” where “spousal noninvestment income” would be disclosed. It's also known that Virginia Thomas has been active in the political group, Liberty Central, an organization of her founding, that's predominately guided by the Tea Party's vague philosophies of limited government, free enterprise, national security, and personal responsibility, and is also funded charitably by Koch Industries, the second largest private corporation in America.

Thus, the Common Cause petition to the Department of Justice also asked a third very critical question: Did Justice Thomas have a conflict of interest based on his wife’s interest in the subject matter of the Citizens United case? If so, and this is an equally important question to ask (again, assuming you're a "reasonable person"): Does Koch Industries' ties to Virginia Thomas' organization, Liberty Central, create an additional appearance of bias for Justice Thomas?

Knowing what we know now -- that Koch Industries, a major beneficiary of the Citizens United decision, and benefiting from the ruling to expand its multi-million dollar investment in political campaigns and causes -- should the Citizens United ruling be vacated? If there were a such thing as justice, and rule of law, it would be. But given the American mainstream media, and its refusal to report this, the vast majority of Americans will never even be aware of this blatant and obvious conflict of interest. And not being aware creates no pressure by We the People to force and elicit change through the Obama Administration. If the Common Cause petition ever sees the light of day, I'll be surprised. In just about all areas, this administration has shown it's more concerned with the welfare of corporate America than with the rights of We the People. I'm sure this will be no exception.

The First Year -- Only a Preview

2011-01-22T09:11:00.007-05:00

Yesterday's arctic blast didn't dissuade about one-hundred, We the People, from attending the rally marking the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's monumental and disastrous decision, Citizens United v. FEC. The wind blew furiously out of the north, but We the People held fast to the concept of true democracy, while holding up, equally tight, a giant (20’ x 210’) replica of the original Preamble to the Constitution. It was a celebration of our inalienable rights, as they were intended, for actual blood-in-our-veins persons (not the corporate variety), who also happen to have this unending capacity to breathe unpolluted air, drink clean water, along with other human qualities that make it impossible to compete on even ground with corporate entities and their unlimited "speech" and interminable lives.

The turnout was low, disappointingly small to me, but the recognition and understanding has to start somewhere. The movement has to begin within our conscience body, that almost unrecognizable part of ourselves that comes to the forefront when we see wrongs that need to be righted and injustices made whole. It's that portion that realizes our busy lives, with all the routine and trivial minutia, finally takes a backseat. That's why I chose, and will continue to choose, to stand-up for democracy; why I stand against oppression, no matter the oppressor. I've recognized the real enemy, and as Pogo famously said, it is us.

Read John Nichols' excellent article from yesterday. He talks about the numerous community events that took place yesterday, including the one I attended on the Capitol lawn. Grassroots movements: it's where every extraordinary and mighty truth-against-power and power-to-the-people action had its beginning. It has to start somewhere.

P.S. I'll never listen to A Day in the Life in the same way again. If you're a child of the '60s, or even a Beatles aficionado, you'll know what I mean. Special thanks, and kudos, to The Coffee Party U.S.A.

The Dismantling of Democracy

2011-01-17T19:44:00.009-05:00

Just as today, Monday, January 17th, we commemorate and memorialize Martin Luther King for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, this Friday we'll denounce the landmark Supreme Court decision of last January 21st -- Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission -- for taking, as Thom Hartmann condemningly expresses, the "radical step of overturning more than a hundred years of laws passed by elected legislatures and signed by elected presidents and declared that not only are corporations 'persons' but that they have constitutional rights such as the First Amendment right to free speech."

The following article appeared in today's Truthout. Mr. Hartmann, a historical researcher and writer concerning the legal fiction of corporate personhood and its devastating affects on our democratic processes, presents another penetrating analysis of this subject, and how Citizens United has effectively allowed corporations, domestic and foreign, to leapfrog over our democratic ideals and to the forefront of our constitutional protections.

Mr. Hartmann is totally correct in his historical analysis of the history of corporate personhood. Even prior to his work, scholars and other writers investigated and engaged in understanding this legal fiction; others, since, have corroborated his research. This is the single biggest issue confronting our democracy and our future. With last January's errant Supreme Court decision, the stakes got even higher. To dismiss Mr. Hartmann's work, as one commenter mentioned, "hypocritical", or to throw in the towel and see the cause as being too futile, does nothing to help stem the tide of this horrific neo-feudalism.

If you're in Washington D.C this coming Friday, January 21st, join us for a rally condemning last year's dreadful decision. We'll be in front of the Supreme Court building at 11:00 a.m. See www.movementforthepeople.org for more information.

Wal-Mart Is Not a Person by Thom Hartmann

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

—John Stuart Mill

In 2003, after my book Unequal Protection was first published, I gave a talk at one of the larger law schools in Vermont. Around 300 people showed up, mostly students, with a few dozen faculty and some local lawyers. I started by asking, “Please raise your hand if you know that in 1886, in the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad case, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons and therefore entitled to rights under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”

Almost everyone in the room raised their hand, and the few who didn’t probably were new enough to the law that they hadn’t gotten to study that case yet. Nobody questioned the basic premise of the statement.

And all of them were wrong.

We the People are the first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution; and from its adoption until the Robber Baron Era in the late nineteenth century, people meant human beings. In the 1886 Santa Clara case, however, the court reporter of the Supreme Court proclaimed in a “headnote”—a summary or statement added at the top of the court decision, which is separate from the decision and has no legal force whatsoever—that the word person in law and, particularly, in the Constitution, meant both humans and corporations.

Thus began in a big way (it actually started a half century earlier in a much smaller way with a case involving Dartmouth University) the corruption of American democracy and the shift, over the 125 years since then, to our modern corporate oligarchy.

Most recently, in a January 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John G. Roberts, took the radical step of overturning more than a hundred years of laws passed by elected legislatures and signed by elected presidents and declared that not only are corporations “persons” but that they have constitutional rights such as the First Amendment right to free speech.

This decision is clear evidence of how far we have drifted away as a nation from our foundational principles and values. Particularly since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, over the past three decades our country and its democratic ideals have been hijacked by what Joseph Pulitzer a hundred years ago famously called “predatory plutocracy.”

The Citizens United decision, which empowers and elevates corporations above citizens, is not just a symbolic but a real threat to our democracy, and only the will of We the People, exercised through a constitutional amendment to deny personhood to corporations, can slay the dragon the Court has unleashed.

Read the rest at Truthout.

The Mindless Menace Of Violence

2011-01-10T14:39:00.005-05:00

As a supposedly lone assassin attempted to kill Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) this past Saturday morning, wounding a total of twenty -- six fatally -- at a political event in northwest Tucson, let us be reminded of the assassinations that filled our political landscape not that very long ago. Violence, especially that committed with handguns, seems to be accepted within American society, for reasons I've never been able to understand and comprehend.

Violence is marketed shamelessly within our culture; sold and unwittingly accepted, and held unabashedly virtuous by many. The Mills River Progressive posted an excellent article this past weekend, decrying "the hate speech, and violent rhetoric", perpetrated by those who have the most to gain through their cultivation of violence as a means to political ends. Not only those who actually pull the trigger, but the violence must end with those who galvanize and condone the metaphoric language of killing, which has become sanctioned and too common. Unequivocally, "enough is enough".

The following is a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Little did he realize that he, himself, would be the fatal victim of an assassin's bullet exactly two months from that day. As you read, or listen to, Senator Kennedy's words, recall the mass hysteria of that dreadful early morning in Los Angeles on June 5th of 1968, when he and five others were wounded in a crazy and chaotic atmosphere of flying bullets, screams, and terror. Remind yourself that the situation in Arizona, this past weekend, was not unlike that horrible day.

Robert F. Kennedy - On The Mindless Menace Of Violence

This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It's not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily, whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, whenever we do this, the whole nation is degraded.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of other human beings, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression breeds retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our souls.

When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your home or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and to be mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, alien men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in a common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.

Our lives on this planet are too short, the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in this land of ours. Of course we cannot banish it with a program.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment that they can.

Surely, this bond of common fate, surely this bond of common goals, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look around at those of us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

Unpleasant Truths

2010-12-29T14:15:00.004-05:00

The following essay really needs no introduction, simply because Chris Hedges rarely, if ever, requires an introduction. His writing, like that of Joe Bageant, is always on the side of reality and veracity. Brave New World author Aldous Huxley's biologist grandfather, Thomas H. Huxley, observed, "veracity is the heart of morality". Truth can only be hidden and denied for so long before time and truth seekers reveal its oft times ugly scars and aftermath, yet they search for the truth despite the consequences. Why? Because it's their moral imperative to do so. Read Mr. Hedges' latest. It's really powerful; astute, and full of so much unwelcome truth -- yet the truth it is.

2011: A Brave New Dystopia

By Chris Hedges

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.” The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.

Orwell warned of a world where books were banned. Huxley warned of a world where no one wanted to read books. Orwell warned of a state of permanent war and fear. Huxley warned of a culture diverted by mindless pleasure. Orwell warned of a state where every conversation and thought was monitored and dissent was brutally punished. Huxley warned of a state where a population, preoccupied by trivia and gossip, no longer cared about truth or information. Orwell saw us frightened into submission. Huxley saw us seduced into submission. But Huxley, we are discovering, was merely the prelude to Orwell. Huxley understood the process by which we would be complicit in our own enslavement. Orwell understood the enslavement. Now that the corporate coup is over, we stand naked and defenseless. We are beginning to understand, as Karl Marx knew, that unfettered and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse.

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake,” Orwell wrote in “1984.” “We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin uses the term “inverted totalitarianism” in his book “Democracy Incorporated” to describe our political system. It is a term that would make sense to Huxley. In inverted totalitarianism, the sophisticated technologies of corporate control, intimidation and mass manipulation, which far surpass those employed by previous totalitarian states, are effectively masked by the glitter, noise and abundance of a consumer society. Political participation and civil liberties are gradually surrendered. The corporation state, hiding behind the smokescreen of the public relations industry, the entertainment industry and the tawdry materialism of a consumer society, devours us from the inside out. It owes no allegiance to us or the nation. It feasts upon our carcass.

Read the entire article at Truthdig.

Hail to the Corporatocracy!

2010-12-19T12:32:00.011-05:00

Mr. Obama's "negotiation" made it very apparent whose side he's on -- and it "ain't" ours. A few years from now -- which could be as early as the next election cycle or as far off as...well, it really doesn't matter -- Social Security will be derided by pundits and opponents alike, as being in default (which they already do, but is a total lie) and in need of elimination. Any proponent seeking to shore up the program due to the 33% funding decrease, cumulative over the years, will be debased as being a tax hiker. Remember this year...this month, because this is the date Social Security took a fatal hit from its detractors. The bleeding starts in earnest now. The pronouncement of death is imminent.

Besides adding over $850 billion to the deficit over the next two years, the extended Bush era tax-cut package will include and divert $112 billion from the Social Security Trust Fund, with a reduction in the FICA tax under the pretense of providing economic stimulus and creating jobs. Horrific enough on its own, the new law also mandates that the government borrow $112 billion, much of it probably coming from China, to repay the Trust Fund. This sets a dangerous precedent that opens up Social Security to attacks from those seeking to dismantle or privatize it, and is not the type of investment that will create jobs or put people back to work. Hearkening back to an earlier time when a similar scenario was proposed and the American public was browbeaten by the obsolete idea of supply-side economics (trickle-down economics, or "Reaganomics"), it would appear that our president is firmly in charge of holding the hose as we're showered with the most up to date version, called "piss-on-omics".

Mr. Obama is a turncoat; he's a traitor to the American people. He's a Trojan Horse of extraordinary proportion. He's selling out We the People, and the vast majority of Democrats seemingly don't see this, or refuse to acknowledge it. The heretofore, behind-the-scenes, coup d'etat has taken on a new reality. It's coming out into the open and becoming more visible by the day. But one has to look in order to see, and right now America's citizens are truly diverted by the proverbial bread and circuses. Naomi Klein's "Chicago Boys" are in town (ironic...or is it?) and the push to privatize every social safety-net, and what remains of the commons, has accelerated.

The Bilderberg Group (and, who knows, the CIA?) must be extremely happy with their "plant-of-choice", don't you think? My goodness, he's on the verge of accomplishing in two short years what the conservative caucus has attempted to do in over sixty-five -- bring Social Security to its knees. Undoubtedly, case upon case of Dom Pérignon had been ordered and the corks must have been flying high! Final victory is at their threshold, and Mr. Obama, code name: "the socialist" -- the crown prince of their creation, was their guest of honor. Mr. Obama, the son of the oligopoly, the chieftain of the corporatocracy, reigns high and sits at the right-hand of his makers now. He's accomplished what Messrs. Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush couldn't do (but they certainly paved the way).

Just the threat of austerity programs brought tens-of-thousands of protesters into the streets of Greece, France, and Ireland. What's going to happen here, next year, when the threats become reality? When cuts in programs affect the lives of millions in this country, will we see the same reaction? Or will people even notice?

The hammer is poised and ready to come down -- while the vast majority of Americans are right underneath. How long will it be before they see the shadow and turn to look up? Unfortunately, it'll be too late by then.

(The embedded video was recorded June 6, 2008 on Obama's chartered campaign plane. Apparently, the press-corps following the "presumptive nominee" was boarded and awaiting Mr. Obama's arrival. It's assumed, and I believe the assumption is correct, that Mr. Obama went from his campaign kick-off at Nissan Pavilion in Manassas, VA, directly to Dulles International Airport, and then after the press was securely locked away, diverted to where the Bilderberg Group was having their annual conference in Chantilly. Coincidence? I hardly think so.)

The Most Dangerous Man in the World?...Huh?

2010-12-11T10:20:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned to a good friend a few days ago, Assange scares the living shit out of our gov-corp. I told her they'll track him down to the ends of the earth, and then wondered aloud why they couldn't do the same with Osama bin Laden. Well, as we know, Mr. Assange surrendered to London police last Tuesday as a response to a warrant issued as part of a Swedish sex-crimes investigation, trumped-up and surely as hollow as a dead oak tree. They've got him where they want him; in jail, without the provision of bail, and tied to a short leash. Mr. Assange is being held in solitary confinement in London with restricted access to a phone and only his lawyers.

Amazingly, he is being vilified as someone who is a terrorist for releasing diplomatic cables to the world, and even more astonishingly, he has been accused of treason against America -- even though he is not an American. The U.S. government is investigating whether Mr. Assange can be prosecuted for spying against the U.S. government under the 1917 Espionage Act, or other offenses still being conceived and conjured up, and not surprisingly, to me anyway, several Republicans have even called for his death.

According to Jennifer Robinson, one of Mr. Assange's lawyers, she did not believe the Espionage Act applied to Assange, adding: "In any event he's entitled to first amendment protection as publisher of WikiLeaks and any prosecution under the Espionage Act would in my view be unconstitutional and puts at risk all media organisations in the US."

But I wonder if those embarrassing cables were really what staged undoubtedly one of the largest manhunts in modern history? Or was it something else? (No, I'm not referring to the mockingly insane "having-sex-without-a-condom" sexual assault charge.) Was it something beyond even the previously released "Collateral Murder" video, which must have been so embarrassing to the Pentagon and was published by WikiLeaks earlier this year? Is it the yet-to-be "megaleak", promising to disclose unethical behavior at a major American bank? Early next year, Mr. Assange said, WikiLeaks plans to expose tens of thousands of documents that "could take down a bank or two" and promises to "give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms". So is the real barnburner -- the reason Mr. Assange is now considered by many to be the "most dangerous man in the world" (Mr. bin Laden, you've been upstaged), because WikiLeaks is now taking aim at corporate America?

This is the process and underlying treachery indicative of totalitarian regimes, and obviously the tactics shared by government that bows and serves the elite, the wealthy, the corporatocracy. This isn't what Jefferson and Madison, Washington and Franklin, and countless others thought, or laid their lives and fortunes on-the-line for. All these men believed, and their signatures on either the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution prove it, that first and foremost the unparalleled freedom of a press (i.e., "unrestricted journalism") is paramount to the health and vibrancy of a functioning democracy. As Mr. Scheer cites in his column, "[i]t is outrageous for any journalist, or respecter of what every American president has claimed is our inalienable, God-given right to a free press, not to join in Assange’s defense." I agree, but I know our corporatist president thinks otherwise.

(In the below embedded video of an interview of Mr. Assange by Stephen Colbert last April, could Mr. Colbert's shenanigan about face pictulating and voice-altering technology be more prophetic? Enjoy.)

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Exclusive - Julian Assange Extended Interview

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

March to Keep Fear Alive

Quo Warranto

2010-12-04T08:20:00.008-05:00

The following essay ends by asking a fundamental question: Why not make the result worth the effort? Indeed, if equal effort is required to nibble around the edges of an issue, why not just go right to the root of the problem? If your body has been invaded by cancer, do you leave the malignant cells, if removable, and only treat the symptoms? Isn't treating or masking the symptoms only allowing the cancer to continue to grow...and isn't this tactic tantamount to giving up?

The first step in solving a problem is learning more about the problem, and how and why it became a problem. As I've commented countless times on other blogs, corporate personhood is the disease; the vast majority of our economic, social and cultural problems are only symptoms of that disease. It's due time that we concentrate on removing the malady that afflicts us all.

Why Abolish All Corporate Constitutional Rights (November 2010)

The Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD, www.poclad.org) has educated, advocated and organized for the past 15 years against the rights of corporations to govern. Through historical and legal research, writings, speaking, workshops and strategic discussions, we helped build widespread awareness of what we called "corporate personhood" - the corporate acquisition of constitutional rights intended solely for natural persons that have usurped the rights of We the People to govern ourselves. We worked on this issue before it was popular, fashionable or newsworthy.

Corporations are creations of the state. As we documented in many resources over many years, they couldn't exist in any form without the legal sanctioning of government. Since citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any representative democracy, We the People have the power to define corporations any way we see fit. We the People have rights and authority. Originally, corporations only possessed privileges bestowed by the state.

The appointed-for-life US Supreme Court "found" corporations in numerous places in the US Constitution over the past 124 years. These "findings" gave rights to corporations, including many of those in the Bill of Rights. In other words, illegitimate corporate power didn't begin in 2010. The corporate perversion of rights and the Constitution have resulted in the destruction of our communities, economy, politics and natural world in many ways for a very long time.

POCLAD believes ALL corporate constitutional rights should be abolished. These include at least the following:

1st Amendment Free Speech rights. Corporations use these rights, meant to protect human beings from the power of the state, to influence elections through political "contributions" (more like "investments"); to advertise for guns, tobacco and other dangerous products over the objections of communities; to avoid having to label genetically modified foods.

4th Amendment Search and Seizure rights. Corporations have used these rights to avoid subpoenas for unlawful trade and price fixing, and to prevent citizens, communities and regulatory agencies from stopping corporate pollution and other assaults on people or the commons.

5th Amendment Takings, Double Jeopardy and Due Process corporate rights. Corporations must be compensated for property value lost (e.g. future profits) when regulations are established to protect homeowners or communities. Corporations cannot be retried after a judgment of acquittal in court. The granting of property to a corporation by a public official cannot be unilaterally revoked by a subsequent public official or Act of Congress.

14th Amendment Due Process and Equal Protection corporate rights. These rights, originally enacted to free slaves from oppression, were gradually extended to corporations by the courts. Corporations have used these rights to build chain stores and erect cell towers against the will of communities; oppose tax and other public policies favoring local businesses over multinational corporations; and resist democratic efforts to prevent corporate mergers and revoke corporate charters through citizen initiatives.

Commerce Clause-related corporate rights. Corporations have used this section of the Constitution (Art 1, Sec 8), for example, to ship toxic waste from one state to another over the "health, safety, and welfare" objections of communities - claiming the waste isn't actually "waste" but "commerce."

Contracts Clause-related corporate rights. The Supreme Court ruled in Dartmouth vs. Woodward (1819) that a corporation is as a party in a private contract based on the Contracts Clause (Art 1, Sec 10) rather than being a creature of public law. Even though the state creates a corporation when it issues a charter, that state is not sovereign over the charter, merely a party to the contract. Thus, corporations became "private contracts" with the state and, therefore, shielded from many forms of control by We the People.

Since the problem of corporate constitutional rights is multidimensional, the solution must be comprehensive.

The threat to authentic democratic self-governance comes from the fact that corporations have been defined as legal persons. As we see it, corporations have exercised this illegitimate status in many ways. Addressing only one or two of those ways won't reverse the profound corporate threat to We the People having ultimate power to govern.

One hundred and sixty years ago, those who believed the section of the Constitution (Art 4, Sec 2) defining people as property (slavery) was fundamentally immoral didn't call for ending one or two dimensions of slavery. They didn't organize to establish a Slavery Protection Agency, nor ask slaveholders to sign a voluntary code of conduct to treat slaves a little less harshly. They called for abolition of the institution of slavery.

As a reflection of that thinking, POCLAD and others who hold that defining property as people ("corporate personhood") is fundamentally immoral and a threat to real people and the planet, believe that we should not limit our vision and actions. Let's set out to amend the constitution in a way that abolishes all rights wrongly granted to the corporate form during the last two centuries. Let's put an end to the institution of corporate personhood itself. Nothing less is worth the considerable time and learning, grit and energy required to amend the Constitution.

Why not make the result worth the effort?

By What Authority is a publication of the PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY, P.O. Box 246, South Yarmouth, MA 02664-0246 Phone: 508-398-1145

By What Authority (ISSN: 524-1106) is published by the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy. The title is English for quo warranto; a legal phrase that questions illegitimate exercise of privilege and power. We the people and our federal and state officials have long been giving giant business corporations illegitimate authority. Today, a minority directing giant corporations and backed by police, courts, and the military, define our culture, govern our nation, and plunder the earth. By What Authority reflects an unabashed assertion of the right of the sovereign people to govern themselves.