[GPSCC-chat] SOPA and PROTECT IP

Sun Dec 11 11:50:10 PST 2011

Drew and Spencer,

Thanks for the links to more information on how corporate personhood is reflected in existing law. However, I have had discussions with other people about this and while most remain nuetral/have no specific comment, my room mate and a woman I met at the WILPF Human Rights Day meeting yesterday both agree with me that opening up the constitution to amendment in this way could result in a constitutional convention where the bill of rights that applies to people is abolished. I have always been against having a constitutional convention for precisely this reason. We, as proponents of the Move To Amend movement, just don't have the resources or collective political will to sustain and win a fight at the level of a constitutional convention. An article located here: http://glynholton.com/2011/10/abolishing-corporate-personhood-be-careful-what-you-ask-for/  suggests two things:

1) The abolition of corporate personhood is already at the top of the agenda at many law schools.  New lawyers are being schooled in the "Nexus Of Contracts" theory.  That is, in the future, corporations will no longer be "persons" in any sense of the word. Under Nexus Of Contracts theory, corporations will have wiped away the last few strings that tie them to any kind of responsibility. Most notably, the shareholders will no longer own the corporation because there is no longer a body of any substance to own. Then the corporations will no longer even be responsible to their shareholders, nevermind the public at large.  This brings to complete fruition the Terms of Use contract nightmare that I discussed in reference to copyright violations in a previous e-mail on this subject. Only now TRON has escaped from the video game world and has his hand around my throat in the real world.  Lawyers seriously think that they can write just any old contract,
 with clauses as insane as "by shopping here you agree that the ashes of your dead cat will become the property of xyz corp" and have that stuff stick.

2) The author suggests a rather complex way to solve this or avoid this emerging trend: rewrite the bill of rights to make clear distinctions between the rights and responsibilities of artificial entities vs natural persons. Again, I have little faith in our ability to carry forward a constitutional convention that will have the bill of rights for humans emerge in a recognizable form.  As the woman at WILPF said, "people in general are anti-liberal". 

The only way forward that I can see that won't automatically result in the eventual loss of all of our rights as humans (in comparison to the UBER rights of corporations) is to pass just part 2 and 3 of the proposed amendment and hope that soon after such an amendment is passed the common people gain real traction in electing representatives that truly represent them and that can be held to account in the next election if they don't measure up.   If the vast majority of people who don't currently vote have their faith restored and are willing to work hard to get what they want, then we may be able to get somewhere. 

And finally, I found the above article while searching for any statement that Ralph Nader has made about Move To Amend. While the article above claims that Nader supports Move To Amend, I have yet to read what he actually said about it.  Do you have any leads on that?  Thanks.

Sincerely,

John Thielking

PS Move To Amend is having their next meeting on Monday Dec 12 at 6pm (buy your own food) and at 7pm (meeting) in the casita at Casa Vicky's at 17th and Julian in San Jose.  I will be there pushing what I said here, but I will also acknowledge our dissagreements here.  I will also be asking the question "Is there a major donor behind Move To Amend/where is the $ coming from?"

From: Drew <rainbeaufriend at yahoo.com>
To: "pagesincolor at yahoo.com" <pagesincolor at yahoo.com>; "spencer.graves at prodsyse.com" <spencer.graves at prodsyse.com> 
Cc: "sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org" <sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org> 
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2011 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: [GPSCC-chat] SOPA and PROTECT IP

I think what David Cobb was saying was that only in the U.S. and Iraq are corporate "persons" accorded constitutional / "inalienable" / nonlegislatable/ natural rights.
On the other hand nonconstitutional "personhood" of corporation's itself with a lighter form of "rights" is common in legal systems worldwide following the UK's adoption of the concept. This occurred after the U.S. war of independence so the U.S. missed out on this lighter-handed version of corporate "personhood" that first the U.K., then the British Commonwealth, then other industrial countries adopted. The U.S. didn't codify this concept until 50-100 years later than the U.K. and had the clumsy / lazy unique distinction of conferring "inalienable " human rights directly upon them rigidly via constitution instead of building a doctrine and body of laws specifically regarding corporate "persons".
FOR MORE SEE:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_personality
http://ask.metafilter.com/143941/corporate-personhood-around-the-world
Bring Democracy to America - people over profits!
http://JillStein.org
Drew
Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android
From: Spencer Graves ; 
To: John Thielking ; 
Cc: sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org ; 
Subject: Re: [GPSCC-chat] SOPA and PROTECT IP 
Sent: Sat, Dec 10, 2011 4:54:43 AM 
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 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), 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 
>To: John Thielking 
>Cc: "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!  
>>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.
>>Thanks.
>>From: Spencer Graves 
>>To: John Thielking 
>>Cc: "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 sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org 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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