Occupy Everywhere - Sept 17th - Day of Rage Against Wall Street and what it stands for!

[Peter Lemkin]

[Peter Lemkin]

If We End Corporate Personhood We Can Define the Terms of a New Economy
Tuesday 29 November 2011
by: Thom Hartmann,
Berrett-Koehler Publishers

The prevalence of the corporation in America has led men of this generation to act, at times, as if the privilege of doing business in corporate form were inherent in the citizen; and has led them to accept the evils attendant upon the free and unrestricted use of the corporate mechanism as if these evils were the inescapable price of civilized life, and, hence, to be borne with resignation.

Throughout the greater part of our history a different view prevailed.

Although the value of this instrumentality in commerce and industry was fully recognized, incorporation for business was commonly denied long after it had been freely granted for religious, educational, and charitable purposes.

It was denied because of fear. Fear of encroachment upon the liberties and opportunities of the individual. Fear of the subjection of labor to capital. Fear of monopoly. Fear that the absorption of capital by corporations, and their perpetual life, might bring evils similar to those which attended mortmain [immortality]. There was a sense of some insidious menace inherent in large aggregations of capital, particularly when held by corporations.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1931

Although the increasingly unrestrained marketplace that Teddy Roosevelt and Louis Brandeis warn of makes it hard for many companies to emphasize community values, some still do. Others are recognizing the need to respond to human demands for a cleaner, safer, less toxic world.

Additionally, many people are fortunate enough to work in an industry they love, and the love of railroads or automobiles or flying or medicine has motivated the start-up and the ongoing operation of many of what are now the world's best companies.

In my experience in business, it's the people who care about their industry or area of expertise who are the most likely to be successful. And companies with mission statements and standards of behavior that let people ethically live out their passions can be wonderful places to work.

As people take back control of their governments and begin to again regulate how far businesses can go, the vast majority of ethical and appropriately run corporations can begin to operate in ways that are more long-term and more community oriented.

Revoking Corporate Charters Is Not at All New

The process of revoking corporate charters goes back to the very first years of the United States. Beginning in 1784 (four years before the U.S. Constitution was ratified), Pennsylvania demanded that corporations include a revocation clause in corporate charters.2

As the United States grew, laws were passed requiring revocation clauses in the corporate charters (permissions) of insurance companies in 1809 and banks in 1814. From the founding of America to the late 1800s, governments routinely revoked corporate charters, forcing the liquidation and the sale of assets. Banks were shut down for behaving in a "financially unsound" way in Ohio, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania. And when corporations that ran the turnpikes in New York and Massachusetts didn't keep their roads in repair, those states gave the corporations the death sentence.

In 1825 Pennsylvania passed laws making it even easier for that state to "revoke, alter, or annul" corporate charters "whenever in their opinion [the operation of the corporation] may be injurious to citizens of the community," and by the 1870s nineteen states had gone through the long and tedious process of amending their state constitutions expressly to give legislators the power to terminate the existence of corporations that originated in those states.

Watch the video that accompanies this chapter, "Buying Local Is Just a Starter":

Presidents have even run for public office and won on platforms that included the revocation of corporate charters. One of the largest issues of the election of 1832 was Andrew Jackson's demand that the corporate charter of the Second Bank of the United States not be renewed.

Following his lead states across the nation began examining their banks and other corporations; and in just the year 1832 Pennsylvania pulled the charters of ten corporations, sentencing them to corporate death "for operating contrary to the public interest."

Oil corporations, match manufacturers, whiskey trusts, and sugar corporations all received the corporate death penalty in the late 1800s in Michigan, Ohio, Nebraska, and New York. And when, in 1894, the Central Labor Union of New York City campaigned for the New York State Supreme Court to revoke the charter of Standard Oil Trust of New York for "a pattern of abuses," the court agreed and dissolved the company.

It was the beginning of a bandwagon that ended only, for all practical purposes, with the election of President Warren G. Harding in 1921, with his promise to have "less government in business and more business in government."

Legislative Remedies

Whether the threat is one of economic penalty, regulation, or even dissolution, the fact is that laws do change corporate behavior. For example, literally millions of corporate decisions are made daily around the world in response to tax laws. In Germany, where a government-imposed energy tax causes oil and gasoline to cost more than twice what it does in the United States, industry is roughly twice as energy-efficient as American companies and with significantly lower toxic and atmosphere-destabilizing discharges as a result. When the three-martini lunch became no longer deductible under U.S. tax law, most American companies changed their guidelines for employee behaviors and reimbursements.

Thus, if humans were to again decide that they wanted corporations to behave in a way that protected the living environment that sustains all life forms (including humans), we could indeed pass laws making it unprofitable or dangerous for corporations to do otherwise. Taking it a step further, we could even pass laws that give corporations incentives to actively help the environment.

With the end of corporate personhood, it will be possible for the humans of the United States and every nation in the world to define the terms of a new economy. With natural persons once again in charge of government, we can redefine the rules of business so that corporations are profitable when their actions lead to sustainability and a clean environment, respond to values defined by local communities, and promote and develop renewable forms of energy. We can strip out the strings and the harnesses put into regulatory law by corporate lobbyists so that the government agencies charged with protecting us from malefactors and criminals can once again work.

Eliminating Corporate Personhood

Once corporate personhood is eliminated and corporations are again seen as they really arethe fictitious legal creatures of the states that authorized and created themall this can change. The rightful representatives of humans our governmentscan then pass laws like the ones that were once part of this nation and its states, forbidding corporations from attempting to influence the laws and the regulatory agencies that oversee their activities.

As stated in the Wisconsin law that stood until it was finally noticed and struck down in 1953, 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.3

Returning Political Power to the People

When decisions are made locally, their full range of impacts, including all present and future costs, are more likely to be considered. If a community knows that extracting a mineral from its soil will produce environmental damage, it can require the mining corporation to pay for that damage in advance or as product is extractedwithout worrying that, because some other community has chosen not to so tax the corporation, the community is trampling the "rights" of the corporation under the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause.

German historian and author Wolfgang Sachs noted in an interview with former California governor Jerry Brown, "Nature has only been minimally present in the market. The market thrives on the fact that nature doesn't cost anything."4 Except it does cost something to the local communities, who must suffer with the effects of strip mining, toxic waste, loss of topsoil, and the destruction of their ecosystems.

When corporations are changed from natural-person to artificial-person status, the natural persons who live in these regions can begin to legislatively regulate the actions of any corporation that seeks to exploit their nature.

Once again in America, as Thomas Jefferson hoped would always be the case, "the people, being the only safe depository of power, should exercise in person every function which their qualifications enable them to exercise, consistently with the order and security of society."5

Democracy in the Global Marketplace

On January 20, 1949, President Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address committed the United States to helping lift much of the world out of poverty.6 It was the first time a national leader had used the word "development" to describe a national goal outside the United States, or "undeveloped" to describe what we now call the third world or the developing world. Truman was quite clear and specific about his vision:

We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas.

Pointing out that the United States had the resources and the knowledge to help lift people around the world out of poverty and misery, Truman demanded that corporations that had an eye to exploiting the developing world be restrained. He said, "The old imperialismexploitation for foreign profithas no place in our plans."

Instead, he added, the poorer people of the world must have the ability to determine their own fates and control for themselves the extent of our companies' participation in their nations as well as the extent of their own development. "Democracy alone can supply the vitalizing force to stir the peoples of the world into triumphant action," Truman said, "not only against their human oppressors, but also against their ancient enemieshunger, misery, and despair."

The role of government is to protect, defend, and represent the interests of its own people, he said. "Democracy maintains that government is established for the benefit of the individual, and is charged with the responsibility of protecting the rights of the individual and his freedom in the exercise of his abilities." Citing Locke's concept of natural rights, he added, "Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice."

Truman's vision was a challenge to corporate personhood, but NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and fast-track authority have sidetracked it. Ending corporate personhood would allow communities to correct this situation and empower them to enforce ethical and socially responsible corporate behavior.

Notes:

1. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brandeis in his dissenting opinion on the 1933 Liggett v. Lee case thatbased on the Santa Clara headnotegave chain stores equal tax rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to "compete" against small, locally owned retailers, and led in part to the loss by local communities of their abilities and rights to regulate chain stores and to have a say in the size of businesses operating in their communities.

2. The information in this section comes from Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce (New York: HarperCollins, 1994).
352 Unequal Protection

3. Wisconsin law, Section 4489a (Sec. 1, ch. 492, 1905).

4. Jerry Brown, Dialogues (Albany, CA: Berkeley Hills Books, 1998).

5. Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Walter Jones, January 2, 1814, http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/tj3/ writings/brf/jefl226.htm.

6. Harry S. Truman, inaugural address, January 20, 1949, http://www.bartleby.com/124/ pres53.html.

Copyright Thom Hartmann and Mythical Research, Inc.

[Albert Doyle]

There's obviously a direct relationship between establishing corporate personhood and then following with the fascist domestic security laws that naturally protect those "personages".


Time to bring them down using a very special and poetically just means - representational Constitutional democracy.

[Peter Lemkin]

Occupy Congress on Jan. 17: Largest Occupy protest ever'
By Elizabeth Flock

In the two weeks since the New York Police Department cleared New York's Zuccotti Park of its camping protesters, the Occupy Wall Street movement has increasingly turned its attention to Washington. Last week, some 50 marchers arrived at McPherson Square from New York and then marched on the Capitol. Yesterday, Occupy DC targeted congressional Democrats at a campaign fundraiser. Now, protesters say they plan to Occupy Congress on Jan. 17, in the "largest Occupy protest ever!"


(Facebook) The protest is being timed with the start of the 2012 legislative session for Congress. Protesters say they hope to set up 1 million tents in front of the Capitol. "We're taking the movement straight to their doorstep," the protest's Facebook page wrote.

A Puerto Rican student wrote on Twitter that she hoped they could Occupy the Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Supreme Court, too.

When organizers asked on Facebook what "unified message" they should all bring to Congress, commenter Donna Hebert wrote:"End corporate personhood. Term limits in congress (3 in house, 1 in senate)... End salary or health insurance tenure. Reform campaign finance to end corporate/pac donations." Within minutes, the comment had nearly a dozen likes.

Although branded by some as a liberal movement, Occupy has repeatedly stated that it does not ally with any political party, and will take aim at the Democrats as well as Republicans when it Occupies Congress in January.

[Albert Doyle]

That nose-ring soundtrack will repel some people.

[Peter Lemkin]

[Peter Lemkin]

[Peter Lemkin]

Cleveland City Council Endorses Occupy Movement,' Calls On Congress To Prosecute Banks
The 99 Percent scored a huge victory in Cleveland, as the city council voted 18-1 last night to endorse the "occupy movement" and called on Congress to prosecute the big banks for financial fraud and related crimes. Access the full resolution as passed here. :pinkelephant:[URL="http://www.scribd.com/doc/74835245/R-1720-11-Cleveland-City-Council-Occupy-Movement"]
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[Peter Lemkin]

The Future of the Occupy Movement
by JULES LOBEL

The Occupy Movement, which has already been hugely successful in thrusting issues of inequality and corporate power into the public discourse, faces a critical juncture. As many of the larger encampments in New York, Oakland, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles are shut down by the police, activists have been searching for the tactics to move beyond Occupation to Phase 2 of the movement. Some say that the movement now should evolve into the political arena, supporting policy ideas, running candidates for office, and putting pressure on politicians and corporations. Similarly, others argue that the next step is to develop a specific list of demands, which presumably could further policy initiatives and protests.

A different tactical response is to create what essentially would be a non-violent guerrilla movement in American cities. For example, Kalle Lasn, the Adbuster magazine publisher and originator of the Wall Street encampment idea, reportedly urged a new "swarming strategy of surprise attacks against business as usual." The Chicago occupiers have resolved to have an event a day throughout the winter, such as defending foreclosed homes, sit-ins, banner drops, building parks, providing supplies to the homeless, or guerrilla theater and art. In the same vein, longtime social movement scholar and activist Francis Fox Piven foresaw some time ago that the movement would develop new phases, utilizing "other forms of disruptive protests that are punchier than occupying a square," or "rolling occupations of public space."

While determining the tactics of the next phase is critical to keeping the movement alive over the next weeks and months, the broader strategic goal is that of developing a truly long-term movement to transform society measured not in seasons, but years or even decades. That task is one of sustainability. How can the Occupy Movement (OWS) develop the organizational, cultural and institutional forms to sustain a long term movement, yet also maintain its dynamism, horizontalism, direct democracy, creativity, militancy and transformative vision? No American social or political movement of the 20th century has been able to do so.

The 1960s Civil Rights and 30s CIO trade union movements initially had much of the militancy, creativity and direct democracy now exhibited by OWS. They utilized street protests, sit-ins, factory occupations, and boycotts. SNCC and some of the radical CIO unions practiced direct, participatory democracy. Their movements changed American society and resulted in lasting, meaningful reforms which if OWS succeeds in emulating would be a remarkable achievement.

But those movements failed to achieve many activists' goal of an egalitarian society. Perhaps more importantly, they were unsuccessful in sustaining their creativity, dynamism, militancy and vision in some non-bureaucratic forms or institutions that could continue the long-term fight to transform an unjust society into a just one. They seized the radical moment and achieved important reforms, but failed to sustain their transformative vision. Can OWS avoid that fate over the long haul?

There is no road map or magic formula for success in that project. Indeed, OWS's spirit of creative experimentation and of an openness to new ideas must be at the heart of any effort to move beyond what has been accomplished in the past. As Naomi Klein put it in her speech to OWS, being horizontal and deeply democratic "are compatible with the hard work of building structures and institutions that are sturdy enough to weather the storms ahead." But what lessons have we learned to help us in the long term task?

LESSONS OF OWS

Five main attributes of OWS have contributed to its massive success and provide the basis for its continuation as a radical alternative in the future.

1. Presenting a Narrative, World View or Declaration Not Specific Demands

Until OWS, the left had not set forth an alternative narrative to that of the right or democratic party liberals. Such a narrative explains to people why we are in our present mess, who and what is responsible for our predicament, and offers a broad solution. The right has such a narrative: the evil is big government and the solution is to cut taxes and government spending. The liberal narrative tends to be that the lack of government oversight and a rigid adherence to free market capitalism is the problem and that more government regulation is the answer. The left has all too often simply presented a mélange of programmatic demands and a defense of government programs.

OWS presented a competing narrative that resonated with millions of people: corporate power and greed got us into this mess, the only way out is for the 99% to stand together to demand equality, justice and fairness. It is that broad perspective, narrative or worldview as opposed to a laundry list of demands that helped change the political debate. People see the world through a broad lens or framework to convince or move them is not primarily a logical or factual process, but one of providing a lens or framework with which to view reality. OWS did just that.

OWS was able to connect equality to liberty in a manner that allowed people to see gross inequality as morally unjust. As others have observed, since the 1970s, both conservatives and liberals have focused on individual liberty, privacy and autonomy (albeit in different areas, guns versus reproductive freedom), while paying little or no attention to equality. Indeed, the original 1787 Constitution omitted any mention of equality, focusing solely on liberty, and requiring a bloody Civil War and the post-war 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to include equal rights in our basic governing document. OWS focused the nation's attention on the fact that for most folks (the 99%), individual liberty is incomplete or even a hollow shell without social and economic equality and justice, as international human rights principles now recognize. Thus, OWS' narrative refocused the national debate on equality.

Finally, that OWS's basic document was a declaration which seemingly tracked the July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence substituting corporate power for King George, issuing a list of grievances against corporate power instead of the King, and announcing occupation of the illegitimate power and not independence from it emphasized that the goal was to set forth a narrative which would shift and galvanize the public debate and not simply present demands to the government. Neither the OWS nor the 1776 declarations demanded a list of reforms; rather they both highlighted the illegitimacy of the ruling regime, as did OWS's not seeking a permit to occupy the square.

Some have argued that while the broad critique was appropriate at the outset, now the movement needs more specific programmatic demands. While OWS has and should continue to involve itself in particular struggles around particular issues for example stopping foreclosures its uniqueness and vitality is contained in its ability to present an indictment of current reality and a broad, amorphous perspective on what should be done. The Occupy Movement can be thus be viewed as a prophetic movement, invoking basic values. As an OWS activist Katie Davison pointed out in the Nation, "We need a movement of solidarity that is about values first…" These values are not foreign to the left, or for that matter to most Americans. OWS has recalled them to us, and any adequate movement forward will have to keep them before people's minds.

2. Political Independence

OWS, unlike many unions and progressive coalitions, chose not to focus on elections, the legislative process or lobbying. While engaging in the electoral arena or having an impact on legislation are important, OWS's contribution and vitality would be undermined by running candidates or engaging in lobbying. Rather OWS started in the streets (or parks) and ought to remain there as a beacon of hope for the future and a means of putting pressure on corporations and politicians from outside the political system.

As a constitutional and human rights lawyer, I recognize the value of specific reforms that can sometimes be won in the electoral arena, in legislative forums or in courts. But I also have seen that often the most important reforms are achieved by pressure from outside of the system, by people acting independently of political parties or lobbying efforts and that entering such established arenas can often hamstring social and political movements. OWS has already had an effect on specific issues such as the Keystone XL pipeline issue, as Naomi Klein recently pointed out. But even more importantly, OWS has stirred for many the desire to move beyond specific reforms, to act on our aspirations for a fundamentally different type of society that is democratic and egalitarian. Only by maintaining its independence from parties and traditional institutions can OWS continue to inspire those hopes and dreams.

3. Non-Violence, Creativity, Experimentation and Inclusiveness

I include these attributes as one because they are all related. The occupation encampments encompassed a diverse group of very creative activists who debated various issues and a range of solutions without dogmatic, fixed preconceptions. Many of us were captivated by the energy, creativity and ability to reach consensus exhibited at the numerous occupations around the country.

4. Visible, Not Transitory Presence

The occupations, unlike a one-shot demonstration, had continual visible staying power. As Naomi Klein and Francis Fox Piven have pointed out, the occupiers put no end date to their presence, and said they were staying put. That made them an ongoing real presence which could not be ignored, neither by the media nor by public opinion. This is in contrast to recent demonstrations that have been easily forgotten, when they reached public consciousness at all. Moreover, OWS has been able to bridge the gap that often separates virtual from actual politics. It utilized media technology, but because it was a constant presence, there was a continual feedback loop between the images that were transmitted across various media and the ongoing presence of the occupation itself.

The first definition of the term "occupy" in Webster's dictionary is "to engage the attention or energies of," and the occupy movement succeeded by its continual visual presence in engaging the public's attention. Even without the space in those cities in which the encampments have been shut down, the occupy movement must find ways to continue to visually occupy the attention of millions of Americans, the media, and the elite.

5. Creating Alternative Models of What a Democratic Egalitarian Society Might Look Like

Perhaps the most critical component of OWS is its creation of alternative communities which reflect the egalitarian, democratic world that its activists seek for the future. Sometimes referred to as "pre-figurative politics," this perspective seeks to create in microcosm the alternative models that reflect the future world that the activists support, while at the same time using those institutions to engage in direct action to change the current reality. By creating a community dedicated to solidarity, consensus decision-making, everyone's participation, respect for everyone's opinion, and equality, OWS attempted to demonstrate that another world is possible, not in theory but in practice. That effort creates hope for a radically different future, which in many respects is more or equally important than winning particular demands. As Matthias Schwartz pointed out in a recent New Yorker article, "In the end, the point of Occupy Wall Street is not its platform so much as its form, people sit down and hash things out instead of passing their complaints on to Washington." As the slogan around the encampment went, "We are our demands."

Future

When I went to the Occupy Pittsburgh encampment which is still ongoing I asked several people there what they saw as its future. A young English graduate student's answer lay in the community, in developing a concrete alternative rooted in equality, solidarity and democracy. For her, the OWS was a way of her expressing her vision of the future. To me, the long term viability of the OWS movement as a transformative movement lies in the creation of these communities, which not only directly practice what they believe, but seek to reach out and effect the public consciousness through direct action. Perhaps Noam Chomsky said it best in his speech to Occupy Boston:

"The Occupy outposts are trying to create cooperative communities that just might be the basis for the kinds of lasting organizations necessary to overcome the barriers ahead and the backlash that's already coming."

There are many groups which are trying to create alternative models in microcosm: food co-ops, farmer markets, cooperative renewable energy projects. Indeed many of these groups have united in an umbrella formation known as the solidarity economy. But none of these groups have captivated the public as has OWS, and very few combine direct action with community building.

Other movements in the past have attempted to create such democratic, egalitarian institutions. As William Greider has pointed out, the Populist movement of the late 19th century created a series of ingenious agricultural and credit cooperatives, which were eventually destroyed by the money classes and bankers. He asks, "what is it we can build that is parallel to that cooperative movement?" But we must also seek to learn why that cooperative movement was unable to survive, and what can be done differently. So too, SNCC and its supporters created community-controlled day care centers, and at least in one prominent case, an agricultural cooperative, but these efforts were also destroyed and we need to understand why the civil rights movement was unable to sustain these radical, democratic structures.

Yet an important accomplishment of the Occupy Movement is to rekindle the hope that these alternative communities of solidarity can grow. There are reasons to be hopeful. The bankruptcy of an economic order which threatens our very existence has led to the growth of co-operative environmentally friendly alternative institutions. Moreover, there currently exist organizations such as the National Lawyers Guild or City Life/Urbana Vida, a Boston anti-foreclosure group, that have for decades sustained a radical vision and practice, as well as an egalitarian democratic internal structure, which OWS and other groups can learn from in building the creative cooperative structures they envision. Lessons can also be gleaned from movements around the world which have created such autonomous communities, whether it be the Zapatistas in Mexico, the Brazilian landless movement, or the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain.

Hopefully OWS can create organizational forms that combine its democratic, egalitarian origins with audacious, ongoing direct action, an overall narrative that continues to express values of solidarity, equality and democracy, and political independence and survive as a model of how a just society would operate. If OWS can do so over the long term, it will have made a major contribution, not simply to transforming the public dialogue, but to birthing a new society.

Jules Lobel is President of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh Law School and is currently working on a book about Transformative Movements.

[Peter Lemkin]

Congressman Jerry Nadler Calls For An Investigation Of NYPD Conduct Towards Protesters
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder "calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate allegations of police misconduct in connection with the treatment of Occupy Wall Street protesters and journalists covering the demonstrations in New York City." Nader said that "possible unlawful surveillance" of demonstrators must be investigated.