Corporate Personhood

[ruckman101]

The sheer gall of the insanity of legally defining a corporation with the same constitutional rights as an actual vested flesh and blood citizen/person led me down this path of what the hell are you going to do about it, ergo, politics.

Citizen's United. What to do?

Let me testify now I have found the path. A man named Paul Cienfuegos has shown me this path and I have been following it. To the best of my ability, attempting to share the message with others, thus the threads pulled together and drew me in further this past weekend.

Now it's no secret I run progressive with my politics. With that sentence I framed the argument of my politics with the word I chose as a label to describe my politics. My platform. "Progressive" then becomes the hot button label that spawns the similes of divisive political framing. Now I'm liberal, tree-hugger, occupier, marxist, socialist, free-loader, libtard, unemployed, sheeple, sycophant at the teat of all that is good and holy.

And then I toss the word "sustainability" into the mix. Whooee, look at the fur and feathers fly. The politics of division.

I'm certainly not the one to be casting stones, however, harboring my own equally as ludicrous stereotypical assumptions that leap to mind when I hear the label "conservative".

Progressives have their issues. Conservatives have theirs. In the grand scheme of things, the core intents of those two camps coincide more than they diverge.

So it's a rights issue. Who has more? Want to ban fracking in your town, city, county, state? Wave that protest sign. How about every stereotypical occupier cliche? Ban nukes, clear cutting, save the whales, climate change, and believe you me, my concerns also. But pick an issue. Sorry, the rights of a corporate conceptual person/citizen are better. By law. Environmental impact statement complies with the legal parameters of definition of scientifically agreed upon standards so the permit for permission to disperse pig farming waste only 3 inches in depth rather than 12 on food growing acreage is granted. Despite what the town wants. How many small towns fought tooth and nail to keep a WalMart out? Any of them succeed? Or frakking, Coca Cola bottling your best water, or the Keystone pipeline?

Ever get the feeling the system is against you? You're right. It is. And has been. Since our Constitution was drafted. Property is King.

The web, where to begin to explain the intricacies of the elements in context that provide the base for the insights that give me encouragement.

Done tonight, no hope, still roiling with the experience and grappling myself with the details. I will attempt to elucidate further when I regain lucidity. Time for Gilligan.



neal

[Bleyseng]

and here I thought you were just a "tree hugger"

[ruckman101]

Paul Cienfuegos is a community educator/organizer. He was a leader in at least one panel discussion of the Event.

http://www.pielc.org/pages/about.html

The keynote speaker this year is from this outfit.

http://www.celdf.org

I know, quite a wade. I've just been in the closet with all this.

That was Saturday. Sunday we attended the Willamette Farm and Food Rights Summit in Albany.

I would be remiss to not include Paul Cienfuegos' website.

http://paulcienfuegos.com

It's all his fault. He essentially introduced me to a model capable of stripping corporations of legal "personhood" and all the boot on the neck implications of that status.


neal

[ruckman101]

and here I thought you were just a "tree hugger"

Well it was difficult to pry my arms off of the tree I love to hug here at home, but folks were asking us to go and we relented, brought the video gear and shot what we could for the cause. It was great. Bertha ran solid, except for popping out of fourth gear twice on the freeway back from Albany, had a great night hanging with our gracious host for the night Skin Daddio with DJeep. Good times.

neal

[Spezialist]

I will be curious to see how your friend tackles Goliath.
To sum up my understanding, this fight would be bigger than the civil war.
It is after all us against them.

[ruckman101]

The premise, of course, is that no, the constitutional rights of the corporate "person" do not "trump" those of any other citizen person. States also have constitutions. And within those constitutions are generally the right of citizens to be involved democratically in the decisions involving their communities. Oregon's begins with a state "Bill of Rights" and here's the very first one:


Section 1. Natural rights inherent in people. We declare that all men, when they form a social compact are equal in right: that all power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their peace, safety, and happiness; and they have at all times a right to alter, reform, or abolish the government in such manner as they may think proper.—

Here's the first of Washington state's constitution's Declaration of Rights:

SECTION 1 POLITICAL POWER. All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights.

How about Texas?

Sec.A1.AAFREEDOM AND SOVEREIGNTY OF STATE. Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States.

Let's look at Wisconsin.

Equality; inherent rights. Section 1. [As amended Nov. 1982 and April 1986] All people are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; to secure these rights, governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. [1979 J.R. 36, 1981 J.R. 29, vote Nov. 1982; 1983 J.R. 40, 1985 J.R. 21, vote April 1986]

Wow, looks like Wisconsin's has undergone some heavy rewrites and amending.

The citizen's of Detroit, Michigan, lost their voices recently, with decision for the community lying solely with the recently appointed fiscal manager. How does their state constitution start?

All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their equal benefit, security and protection.

Weaker, but the same premise. Pick a state constitution. Ooo, how about Florida?

SECTION 1. Political power.—All political power is inherent in the people. The enunciation herein of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or impair others retained by the people.


So that's the ground floor to empower citizen's to enact local and county declarations of their community's bill of rights. What do you want for your community?


neal

[ruckman101]

Say you don't want in your community a Walmart, or sludge from the corporate model pig farm spread over the farmlands as "fertilizer", or a corporate model pig farm, or frakking, or water rights given to Coca Cola so they can sell it to you in a plastic bottle, or coal trains, or nuclear waste transported through, or GMO farming, or or or. Single issues it would seem, but underlying them all is the thread of corporate power with Citizen's United as the poster child of the success of their efforts.

What has been the model of efforts to ban that kinda stuff? Regulatory boards. Your congressman. Protests. Signature gathering. Think you have a prayer in hell? You don't. Regulatory boards are entirely a construct of the corporations they are purported to keep in check. Send the protesters to EPA. Bring in the corporate lawyers. You got one? Set up for a dead end and the corporations, maybe with minor setbacks, finish off the Keystone XL pipeline, or the nuclear dump, or or or.

You can't ban anything. The system is rigged to funnel you to shake your fist at the regulatory agency who's hands are legally tied to enable the corporate interest. Because the rights of a corporate "person" are better than yours.

But you can propose a local "bill of rights" that, by application, does ban all those single issue concerns.


neal

[Ryno]

Say you don't want in your community a Walmart, or sludge from the corporate model pig farm spread over the farmlands as "fertilizer", or a corporate model pig farm, or frakking, or water rights given to Coca Cola so they can sell it to you in a plastic bottle, or coal trains, or nuclear waste transported through, or GMO farming, or or or. Single issues it would seem, but underlying them all is the thread of corporate power with Citizen's United as the poster child of the success of their efforts.

What has been the model of efforts to ban that kinda stuff? Regulatory boards. Your congressman. Protests. Signature gathering. Think you have a prayer in hell? You don't. Regulatory boards are entirely a construct of the corporations they are purported to keep in check. Send the protesters to EPA. Bring in the corporate lawyers. You got one? Set up for a dead end and the corporations, maybe with minor setbacks, finish off the Keystone XL pipeline, or the nuclear dump, or or or.

You can't ban anything. The system is rigged to funnel you to shake your fist at the regulatory agency who's hands are legally tied to enable the corporate interest. Because the rights of a corporate "person" are better than yours.

But you can propose a local "bill of rights" that, by application, does ban all those single issue concerns.


neal

Check out what's happening in Wisconsin right now with the Iron Ore mine near Lake Superior. Talk about being bulldozed.

[JLT]

Al Franken (remember him?) is on the case:

http://www.alfranken.com/index.php/splash/w1210cu/

Now a US Senator, he's calling for an amendment to the constitution to eliminate corporate "personhood."

[glasseye]

I recently watched a BBC documentary on the chaos theory of mathematics. Otherwise known as "the butterfly effect", it says that many systems, both natural and man-made, exhibit a steep collapse from predictability into chaos, usually without apparent cause.

The basic lesson of the film is that the rapid descent into chaos is usually caused by past events, by forces seemingly invisible to the casual observer. The difference today is that the causes of collapse are clear and visible.

This guy explains some of the apparent causes quite well. He bailed. To Mexico.

http://www.alternet.org/print/story/154 ... o_collapse

[ruckman101]

Al Franken (remember him?) is on the case:

http://www.alfranken.com/index.php/splash/w1210cu/

Now a US Senator, he's calling for an amendment to the constitution to eliminate corporate "personhood."

Al Franken has always rocked.


neal

[ruckman101]

Germane.

http://vimeo.com/61778883

Thomas Linzey of Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) delivers the keynote address of the 31rst Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC) held at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, February 28 through March 3, 2013. Linzey points out the folly of the traditional avenues of redress environmental law has pursued, offering a new model to return democracy to the people currently hi-jacked by a corporate friendly legal system.



neal

[Amskeptic]

He bailed. To Mexico.

Let's go! Let's go! Paint the side of Frito with tortilla chips.
I'll stop washing/waxing Chloe, starting now.
Colin

[Elwood]

Colin, you will need a passport. Just sayin'

[Amskeptic]

Colin, you will need a passport. Just sayin'

I know, I know, I KNOW . . .

I have just made a "permanent address". As soon as I synchronize my driver's license, some "official correspondence" to that address, and all other flotsam of modern life, I shall visit the Canadian Consulate and tell them how very sorry I am to have attempted to sneak into their country to take all that Canadian cash from their poor citizens, and I will get a passport, ole!

How's you and Elwood?
Colin