So I repeat my original question.  Or are we waiting for someone to do it
for us?

John Lee


At 05:02 AM 12/14/02 -0600, Jerry Leslie wrote:
> John Lee ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
>: When are we going to take back ownership of our country and our money?
>
>When the 1886 Supreme Court decision that deemed a corporation is
>a natural person, entitled to the protection of the Bill of Rights, is
>overturned either by a court challenge or an amendment to the Constitution.
>
>   http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/28/usa.html
>   Adbusters: USA (TM)
>
>  "...Then came a legal event that would not be understood for decades
>   (and remains baffling even today), an event that would change the course
>   of American history. In Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad,
>   a dispute over a railbed route, the US Supreme Court deemed that a
>   private corporation was a "natural person" under the US Constitution
>   and therefore entitled to protection under the Bill of Rights.
>   Suddenly, corporations enjoyed all the rights and sovereignty
>   previously enjoyed only by the people, including the right to free
>   speech.
>
>   This 1886 decision ostensibly gave corporations the same powers as
>   private citizens. But considering their vast financial resources,
>   corporations thereafter actually had far more power than any private
>   citizen. They could defend and exploit their rights and freedoms more
>   vigorously than any individual and therefore they were more free. In a
>   single legal stroke, the whole intent of the American Constitution --
>   that all citizens have one vote, and exercise an equal voice in public
>   debates -- had been undermined. Sixty years after it was inked,
>   Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas concluded of Santa Clara that
>   it "could not be supported by history, logic or reason." One of the
>   great legal blunders of the nineteenth century changed the whole idea
>   of democratic government.
>
>   [snip]
>
>   In boardrooms in all the major global capitals, CEOs of the world's
>   biggest corporations imagine a world where they are protected by what
>   is effectively their own global charter of rights and freedoms -- the
>   Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI). They are supported in
>   this vision by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, the
>   International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Chamber of
>   Commerce (ICC), the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), the
>   Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and
>   other organizations representing twenty-nine of the world's richest
>   economies. The MAI would effectively create a single global economy
>   allowing corporations the unrestricted right to buy, sell and move
>   their businesses, resources and other assets wherever and whenever
>   they want. It's a corporate bill of rights designed to override all
>   "nonconforming" local, state and national laws and regulations and
>   allow them to sue cities, states and national governments for alleged
>   noncompliance. Sold to the world's citizens as inevitable and
>   necessary in an age of free trade, these MAI negotiations met with
>   considerable grassroots opposition and were temporarily suspended in
>   April 1998. Nevertheless, no one believes this initiative will remain
>   suspended for long.
>
>   We, the people, have lost control. Corporations, these legal fictions
>   that we ourselves created two centuries ago, now have more rights,
>   freedoms and powers than we do. And we accept this as the normal state
>   of affairs. We go to corporations on our knees. Please do the right
>   thing, we plead. Please don't cut down any more ancient forests.
>   Please don't pollute any more lakes and rivers (but please don't move
>   your factories and jobs offshore either). Please don't use
>   pornographic images to sell fashion to my kids. Please don't play
>   governments off against each other to get a better deal. We've spent
>   so much time bowed down in deference, we've forgotten how to stand up
>   straight.
>
>   The unofficial history of America(TM), which continues to be written,
>   is not a story of rugged individualism and heroic personal sacrifice
>   in the pursuit of a dream. It is a story of democracy derailed, of a
>   revolutionary spirit suppressed, and of a once-proud people reduced to
>   servitude."
>
>There's an active discussion on corporate personhood on Michael Moore's
>forums, which includes links to other articles on the subject:
>
>   http://www.michaelmoore.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=5430
>   michaelmoore.com :: View topic -
>   Why Corporate Personhood Matters And What It Means
>
>The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom has a  campaign
>to abolish corporate personhood - see www.wilpf.org.
>
>:
>: Or are we all following each other off the cliff?
>:
>
>Eventually, enough of the citizens will become outraged at the behavior
>of the "anything corporations want" attitude of the government, which
>is owned and operated by corporations:
>
>   http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/1115/1/152/
>   OMB Watch - Report Links Environmental Rollbacks to Industry Contributions
>
>   http://www.nwi.org/EndangeredSpecies/TWT19June02.html
>   EPA says toxic sludge is good for fish
>
>   http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/842/1/39/
>   OMB Watch - OSHA a Monster?
>
>   http://money.cnn.com/2002/10/21/news/sec/index.htm
>   The toothless SEC - Oct. 21, 2002
>
>   (Bush wants to slash the SEC's funding deemed necessary to enforce
>    the Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate Reform Act)
>
>   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58419-2002Nov30.html
>   At Justice, Freedom Not to Release Information (washingtonpost.com)
>
>The outrage isn't close to being at a level that will see people
>demonstrating in public, signing petitions, and faxing or mailing
>Congress (don't bother with email).
>
>Bush may have had demonstrations in mind when he asked a review of
>the Posse Comitatus Act:
>
>   http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/2002/05/30/3721640.htm
>   Ledger-Enquirer | 07/24/2002 |
>   Analysts urge caution with review of Posse Comitatus
>
>   A few weeks before the 1876 general election, President Ulysses S.
>   Grant, a Republican, ordered federal troops into the South with the
>   stated mission of civil law enforcement. The deployment was viewed by
>   Democrats as a means to bolster Grant's weakening party.
>
>   Two years after Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the most contested
>   election of his time, Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act, making
>   it a crime to deploy federal troops as enforcers of civilian law.
>
>   More than a century later, President George W. Bush has asked for a
>   review of that post-Reconstruction law.
>
>   [snip]
>
>   Citing recent unconstitutional uses of the military by the presidents
>   of Peru and Argentina to maintain power, LePlante said Congress should
>   take considerable care in weighing how much military authority it
>   gives the executive office."
>
>
>--Jerry Leslie   (my opinions are strictly my own)
>  Note: [log in to unmask] is invalid for email
>
> "We don't have a democracy, we have an auction." - anon
>
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