[GPSCC-chat] SOPA and PROTECT IP
Spencer Graves
spencer.graves at prodsyse.com
Fri Dec 9 20:54:43 PST 2011
Hi, John:
On 12/9/2011 6:09 PM, John Thielking wrote:
> Sigh. I can see that we will continue to be at loggerheads over this
> issue of what is a paper entity and when does it lose all of its
> rights under this Move To Amend amendment. For instance, I don't plan
> on keeping www.peacemovies.com <http://www.peacemovies.com> as a one
> man operation forever. Eventually I may have dvd dispensing kiosks in
> shopping malls that will be serviced by employees and I will likely
> have partnerships either with volunteers or employees/paid partners
> running a retail dvd rental outfit and/or partnerships with people who
> produce their own content. I may at some point dump Hollywood entirely
> and go with content from web sites such as
> http://www.awkwardblackgirl.com/episodes for my movies to review and
> rent/sell. That tiny little web site gets 60,000 views per week,
> believe it or not. Another example is that I used to work for Dacara,
> Inc, which is a mini corporation that runs two Foster's Freeze stores,
> one in Santa Cruz and one in Salinas. They helped put me through
> college, so I'm not about to screw them over. If that attitude counts
> as "revolving door politics", then so be it. People form artificial
> entities for all sorts of reasons and in all shapes and sizes. I don't
> think that a reasonable court would hold that complete loss of
> personhood only applies to mega corps under this amendment. I should
> probably study up on what laws currently exist in the US that enhance
> the EQUAL rights of artificial entities and see if those laws would
> still be just as valid if this amendment passes. Equal rights, at
> least between artificial entities, if not between artificial entities
> and real people, is the main defense that we can use to keep a level
> playing field between the big fish and the little fish. If we try to
> pass laws or principles that tilt the playing field one way or the
> other in an unfair way, we will likely wake up one day and find those
> laws and principles used to drive the little fish out of business.
> Any ideas about laws that currently exist Drew, since you seem to be
> well informed on this sub-topic?
Drew seems better informed on this than I am, but according to
David Cobb of Move to Amend, only two countries on earth have corporate
personhood: The US and Iraq -- and Iraq only got it recently while US
guns were pointed at the heads of the replacements for Saddam Hussein.
From what I've heard, Iraq was among the leaders in national
socioeconomic development in the Arab world -- perhaps the leader if you
consider the status of the bottom half of the population -- under Saddam
Hussein in the 1980s -- without corporate personhood. Europe and Japan
rebuilt after World War II without corporate personhood -- but with a
reasonable distribution of businesses of all sizes. The US today has
lower social mobility than most other countries studied (Canada,
Scandinavia, France, Germany, but only slightly better than the UK;
www.economicmobility.org <http://www.economicmobility.org/>), i.e. the
children or rich or poor parents are more likely here to have the same
socioeconomic status as their parents than in the other major advanced
industrialized countries studied except the UK. I think the media
biases and the general excessive dominance of US politics by major
corporations have also destroyed the reality that once existed behind
the image of the US as a "land of opportunity".
Destroying corporate personhood won't fix all those problems, but
it should make it easier to fix them. Anything we can do to require
multinational corporations to actually pay taxes and live within the law
(rather than write laws for their benefit) will likely make things
easier for small businesses.
Of course, I could be mistaken, and you could be correct.
However, that's inconsistent with the experience of the rest of the
world without corporate personhood.
Spencer
> John Thielking
> *From:* Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at prodsyse.com>
> *To:* John Thielking <pagesincolor at yahoo.com>
> *Cc:* "sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org" <sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org>
> *Sent:* Friday, December 9, 2011 10:25 AM
> *Subject:* Re: SOPA and PROTECT IP
>
> On 12/9/2011 10:13 AM, John Thielking wrote:
>> If you have any doubts about big businesses' desires to run small
>> businesses out of town, this should erase them. See below:
>
>
> I never had any doubts about that: That's precisely why we need
> a constitutional amendment that corporations are not people (but
> single proprietors are, as are individuals who own LLCs, etc.) Spencer
>> Friends,
>> Amazing! On the eve of the House Judiciary Committee vote, the head
>> of the Motion Picture Assocation of America admitted that he's
>> pushing a censorship regime just like China's. According to Variety,
>> he said:
>> / "When the Chinese told Google that they had to block sites or they
>> couldn't do [business] in their country, they managed to figure out
>> how to block sites."/
>> *Please urge your lawmakers to oppose Internet censorship -- the vote
>> is coming up next week! *
>> <http://act.demandprogress.org/go/374?akid=1077.298162.jYxTJx&t=5>
>> The Stop Online Piracy Act would require sites to censor their users'
>> posts (or shut down), let the government block your access to
>> websites, and put people in jail for uploading unlicensed content
>> (ie, cover band performances).
>> The House Judiciary Committee is expected to vote NEXT WEEK. This
>> isn't China -- it's America, where the First Amendment is supposed to
>> rule the day.
>> *Please click here to ask your lawmakers to oppose a China-like
>> Internet regime in America.*
>> <http://act.demandprogress.org/go/374?akid=1077.298162.jYxTJx&t=6>
>> Thanks.
>> *From:* Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at prodsyse.com>
>> <mailto:spencer.graves at prodsyse.com>
>> *To:* John Thielking <pagesincolor at yahoo.com>
>> <mailto:pagesincolor at yahoo.com>
>> *Cc:* "sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org"
>> <mailto:sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org> <sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org>
>> <mailto:sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, December 8, 2011 9:51 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [GPSCC-chat] Amendment Name/Feedback
>>
>> I'm with Drew on this: If this amendment passes, nothing will
>> change immediately. They major corporations will still fight tooth
>> and claw to minimize the impact of the changes. The difference is
>> that rather than them working with our current reactionary courts to
>> give them even more power over natural persons, they will be on the
>> defensive. Even then, it could take massive amounts of money from
>> private citizens to pay for the litigation required to enforce the
>> changes.
>>
>>
>> You are doubtless correct about one point in this, however,
>> namely that the large corporations will eagerly use their powers to
>> try to limit the power of small businesses while not limiting the
>> large ones. With the wording of this amendment, it will be hard for
>> them to find ways to do that, but they doubtless will try -- and the
>> commercial media (especially broadcasting) will support them at every
>> turn.
>>
>>
>> Best Wishes,
>> Spencer
>> p.s. A cousin is an engineer and a private pilot. He sometimes
>> asks, "What makes an airplane fly?" Answer: Money.
>>
>>
>> On 12/8/2011 9:42 PM, John Thielking wrote:
>>> The only other option that I can see that won't result in a dark age
>>> (not counting the one we are already in) is to pass Section 2 and 3
>>> first and then try for section 1 about 10 years later. No delay
>>> clauses required. Still required is a populace that won't just go
>>> back to sleep at the smell of the first victory.
>>>
>>> John Thielking
>>> The rest of this message was deleted because the system blocked
>>> sending the message since it was over the limit of 80k.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> sosfbay-discuss mailing list
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>>> http://lists.cagreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss
>>
--
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Technology Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San José, CA 95126
ph: 408-655-4567
web: www.structuremonitoring.com
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