[GPSCC-chat] Discussion Migration

Mon Jan 9 22:07:24 PST 2012

Oops.  Let's try posting that to the right list.  The MTA list.

From: John Thielking <pagesincolor at yahoo.com>
To: Wes Rolley <wrolley at charter.net>; Post South SF Bay discuss <sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org> 
Sent: Monday, January 9, 2012 9:55 PM
Subject: Re: [GPSCC-chat] Discussion Migration

Wes and All,

With all due respect, I think it is necessary for me to say my piece, especially since OWS NY passed a resolution that essentially codifies MTA Section 1, but also goes further than even the Green Party discussion in opposition to my position did by implying that under no circumstances should artificial entities have personhood type rights.  As Drew Johnson on the Green Party discussion list pointed out, in many countries corporations have limited personhood codified in statutes, not in their constitutions. According to him, only Iraq and the US have corporate personhood that springs from their constitutions.  In my view some kind of rights for corporations are needed if only to insure fair treatment of corporations by each other in contract law and so on. The 14th amendment may be helpfull in this regard under current law and I can cite a specific example of how this principle affects my own small business on the Internet if you like. In my view, at
 least some of these rights must be inalienable to insure that legislatures don't just arbitrarily pass any old law that is fundamnetally unjust, regardless of what the statutes, in say the UK for example, say about "softer rights" for corporations.  Rather than taking rights away, we should add resposibilities and obligations that corporations have to live up to to the Constitution and make the effect of that part of the Constitution be unavoidable by any argument that attempts to invoke the other parts of the Constitution.  See below for a specific example of how to do this.

I will try to keep this as short as possible, to make sure it makes the rounds without going over the message size limit of 80k.

OWS in NY passed the following resolution according to the video about the 99% that Wes pointed me to:

"...to firmly establish that money is not speech, that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights, and that the rights of human beings will never again be granted to fictitious entities or property."

Below is the text from the flier that I have been circulating a little bit here and there in downtown San Jose:

But Wait! Small Businesses Are People Too! (and deserve their currently existing, limited 4thamendment and 14thamendment protections) Or do they?

Occupy San Jose and Move To Amend currently have a feel good and no-specific-language-endorsed rally planned for Friday, Jan 20th from 12pm to 1:30PM at St James Park in downtown San Jose, CA to kick off their campaign to overturn the recent Supreme Court decision commonly referred to as Citizens United that allows Super PACS to spend unlimited amounts of corporate donated money on behalf of or against candidates for political office and for or against ballot measures. That part is fine. 

What I have a problem with is that without endorsing specific language for a constitutional amendment, their feel good rally will also be endorsing the idea of “abolishing corporate personhood”. Indeed, the rally itself is located across from the very courthouse where a decision was handed down in the late 1800's that was misquoted in the court records and haphazardly established that corporations are people under the constitution of the US, at least in a fairly limited sense. The problem arises when you examine the specific language of the proposed amendment to abolish corporate personhood and think carefully about how this might impact your life as a small business owner. If you run your business out of your house, will the cops be able to break into your house without a warrant and have that search stand up in court later if they were “only” searching for business related items? Can your property, of which only your LLC has title to, be taken
 arbitrarily without just compensation? These concerns are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to explaining the potential problems with the proposed amendment, which is listed in full below and which can be accessed in its current form by visiting: http://movetoamend.org/amendment 

Move to Amend 28th Amendment
Section 1 [A corporation is not a person and can be regulated]

The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only. 

Artificial entities, such as corporations, limited liability companies, and other entities, established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.

The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.

Section 2 [Money is not speech and can be regulated]

Federal, State and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate’s own contributions and expenditures, for the purpose of influencing in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure. 

Federal, State and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.

The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.

Section 3 

Nothing contained in this amendment shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.

As an alternative to the MTA proposed amendment, I have come up with the following language, which in the spirit of the Occupy movement targets only the top 2% of corporations, which often pay fewer taxes than the bottom 98% of corporations, and which also issue stock to members of the public. Note that some people object to letting privately held corporations off the hook, so if you take out the parts [enclosed in brackets] the amendment language can be modified to make all corporations equally accountable to the people regardless of weather or not they issue stock to the public. Having additional responsibilities imposed, instead of taking rights away, is a better approach because responsibilities necessarily increase with the scale/size of the corporation being regulated and hence the very smallest businesses will escape from the additional burden of this amendment largely unscathed, while the excesses of the big boys will be effectively reigned in.
 Most importantly, the current 4th and 14th amendment protections and precedents established for businesses of all sizes under the current form of the US Constitution are not overturned by this amendment language. 

Section 1: Artificial entities [that sell shares of themselves and/or their subsidiaries to the public] shall be accountable to and serve the people in a manner to be determined by the people and/or by the federal, state or local legislatures. No part of the constitution can be used by artificial entities[that sell shares to the public] to argue against such entities' being held collectively and individually accountable to the people or against the requirements of their service to the people. In no event shall an artificial entity [that sells shares to the public] be exempt from disclosing information to the people that is mandated to be disclosed by legislation enacted by the people and/or the federal, state or local legislatures.

Section 2 [Money is not speech and can be regulated]

Federal, State and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate’s own contributions and expenditures, for the purpose of influencing in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure. 

Federal, State and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.

The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.

Section 3 

Nothing contained in this amendment shall be construed to abridge the positive freedom of the press, though the freedom to not speak is limited by Section 1 and Section 2. 

Further discussion of these issues may be had be e-mailing John Thielking at pagesincolor at yahoo.comor by visiting John's Community Page on Facebook, titled: “Small Businesses Are People Too”.

John also has a second Community Page on Facebook called Peacemovies.com, that discusses where you can find reviews of the latest nonviolent movies in theaters and where you can find out how to legally stream non-Hollywood and mostly nonviolent content over the web for free. Or you can find out about this directly by visiting http://www.peacemovies.com/offhollywood.html.

Flier paid for by Peacemovies.com and distributed by a volunteer.
From: Wes Rolley <wrolley at charter.net>
To: John Thielking <pagesincolor at yahoo.com>; Post South SF Bay discuss <sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org> 
Sent: Monday, January 9, 2012 3:14 PM
Subject: Re: [GPSCC-chat] Discussion Migration

John, 
There are many things happening regarding getting money out of politics and especially the Citizen United challenge.  Bernie Saunders, MTA, an OWS specific position that was, just this week,  agreed to by consensus with the original OWS general assembly in Zucotti Park.  

Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC interviewed Marge Baker from People for the American Way who talked about Citizens United and mentioned a coalition of grassroots organizations working on this including MTA.    It may be very beneficial to understand how this all fits together rather than just pushing MTA to change something now. 

Check the clip at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37560195/#45933205 
It is headlined Overturning Citizens United. 

Check also Next Step for the 99% on the same page... it is also about the amendment. 

On 1/9/2012 7:29 AM, John Thielking wrote: 
Hello All,
>
>I have been having a discussion with the Green Party on their e-mail list about my concerns about MTA Section 1 of the proposed constitutional amendment and my alternate proposal. It was suggested that I move the conversation over to the scc-mta-general list.  For those of you on the GP list who have not signed up for the MTA group, I will give you until 9PM Monday Jan 9th, 2012 to get approved by the moderator before I start the discussion on the MTA list. To sign up to be a member of the MTA list, send an e-mail to 
>scc-mta-general-subscribe at yahoogroups.com .  I also signed up for the Education Committee list, but that list only has 3 people on it so it seems that it would be better to have the discussion happen on the general list that has 36 people on it.  If there are any concerns about my using this course of action, please let me know by 9pm tonight. Thank you.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>John Thielking
>pagesincolor at yahoo.com 
> 
>
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