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ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.BY WHAT AUTHORITY
By What Authority is published by the POCLAD. The title is English for quo warranto, a legal phrase that questions illegitimate exercise of privilege and power. DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM POCLAD has prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest. If you wish a hard copy packet, the cost is $10 (including postage). To order, contact POCLAD at people@poclad.org or call 508-398-1145. SUPREME AUTHORITY: THE GROWING POWER OF THE US SUPREMESEE MORE ONPOCLAD.ORG
THE CASE AGAINST JUDICIAL REVIEW REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. 125 YEARS OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD IS ENOUGH! May 2011 By What Authority 125 Years of Corporate Personhood is Enough! 125 years, 125,000 signatures. by POCLAD signatories. Dear friend, In May 1886 United States Supreme Court clerk J.C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, inserted a headnote to the United States Reports pertaining to the Court's decision in Santa Clara County v. REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD GROSSMAN Reflections on Richard Grossman By Members of POCLAD. The following reflections are from Richard's POCLAD colleagues. Though he left POCLAD a number of years ago to pursue other interests, his influence on the formation and nurturing of our collective was profound duringhis tenure.
WHY ABOLISH ALL CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Why Abolish All Corporate Constitutional Rights. Corporations are creations of the state. As we documented in many resources over many years, they couldn't exist in any form without the legal sanctioning of government. Since citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any representative democracy, We the People have the power todefine
PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY 1962 – Birth of David Cobb, national Outreach Director for Move to Amend and principal of the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) Cobb debated James Bopp in September, 2014 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN on “Citizens Divided: Corporate Money, Speech, and Politics.”. Bopp is General Counsel for the JamesMadison
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.BY WHAT AUTHORITY
By What Authority is published by the POCLAD. The title is English for quo warranto, a legal phrase that questions illegitimate exercise of privilege and power. DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM POCLAD has prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest. If you wish a hard copy packet, the cost is $10 (including postage). To order, contact POCLAD at people@poclad.org or call 508-398-1145. SUPREME AUTHORITY: THE GROWING POWER OF THE US SUPREMESEE MORE ONPOCLAD.ORG
THE CASE AGAINST JUDICIAL REVIEW REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. 125 YEARS OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD IS ENOUGH! May 2011 By What Authority 125 Years of Corporate Personhood is Enough! 125 years, 125,000 signatures. by POCLAD signatories. Dear friend, In May 1886 United States Supreme Court clerk J.C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, inserted a headnote to the United States Reports pertaining to the Court's decision in Santa Clara County v. REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD GROSSMAN Reflections on Richard Grossman By Members of POCLAD. The following reflections are from Richard's POCLAD colleagues. Though he left POCLAD a number of years ago to pursue other interests, his influence on the formation and nurturing of our collective was profound duringhis tenure.
WHY ABOLISH ALL CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Why Abolish All Corporate Constitutional Rights. Corporations are creations of the state. As we documented in many resources over many years, they couldn't exist in any form without the legal sanctioning of government. Since citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any representative democracy, We the People have the power todefine
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests. DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM POCLAD has prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest. If you wish a hard copy packet, the cost is $10 (including postage). To order, contact POCLAD at people@poclad.org or call 508-398-1145.ENGAGE US
ENGAGE US. We invite you to engage us in this idea: giant corporations govern. In the Constitution of the United States, they are delegated no authority to make our laws and define our culture. Corporations have no constitutions, no bills of rights. So when corporations govern, democracy flies out the door. This may be a depressing ideabut it
DUEL PLAGUES: CORONAVIRUS AND CORPORATIONS June 2020 POCLAD Article Duel Plagues: Coronavirus and Corporations By Virginia W. Rasmussen. We are inundated with articles and hours of daily commentary on the nature of the coronavirus attack, the locations of largest impact, the heartbreaking news of illness and death, the latest instructions on safe behavior, and status of the search for a vaccine.BWAJUNE2020
Title: BWAJune2020 Author: Greg Coleridge Created Date: 6/12/20201:08:11 PM
RETHINKING THE CORPORATION For more information on the illegitimate power of corporations and the struggle for a people-centered democracy, contact the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) at P.O. Box 246, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts 02664-0246; 508-398-1145 . LAKE WAITS FOR PEOPLE TO WAKE A rare, hybrid environmental campaign is underway to save a great lake – in fact, a Great Lake – Erie. That grand body of water, declared dead in the late 1960’s, experienced a textbook turnaround by the mid-80’s but is once again in critical condition every summer. THE IMPACT OF CORPORATIONS ON THE COMMONS The fundamental impact of corporations on the commons, therefore, is the theft of our right of self-governance, a usurpation that enables the myriad harms and assaults on nature and society — including, as one writer put it, the culture of childhood. So what is a corporation?JANE ANNE MORRIS
It is with sincere sadness, but also deep responsibility that we share the following “In Memoriam” of one-time POCLAD “principal” Jane Anne Morris. Besides being a colleague and friend, Jane Anne taught us all through her writing and speaking different ways to think about and see the world more clearly. HUMAN RIGHTS FOR HUMAN BEINGS, NOT CORPORATIONS April 2011 By What Authority Human Rights for Human Beings, Not Corporations An Interview with POCLAD principal David Cobb, who also serves as spokesperson for Move To Amend PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY 1962 – Birth of David Cobb, national Outreach Director for Move to Amend and principal of the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) Cobb debated James Bopp in September, 2014 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN on “Citizens Divided: Corporate Money, Speech, and Politics.”. Bopp is General Counsel for the JamesMadison
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.BY WHAT AUTHORITY
By What Authority is published by the POCLAD. The title is English for quo warranto, a legal phrase that questions illegitimate exercise of privilege and power. DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM POCLAD has prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest. If you wish a hard copy packet, the cost is $10 (including postage). To order, contact POCLAD at people@poclad.org or call 508-398-1145. SUPREME AUTHORITY: THE GROWING POWER OF THE US SUPREMESEE MORE ONPOCLAD.ORG
RETHINKING THE CORPORATION For more information on the illegitimate power of corporations and the struggle for a people-centered democracy, contact the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) at P.O. Box 246, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts 02664-0246; 508-398-1145 . REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. 125 YEARS OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD IS ENOUGH! May 2011 By What Authority 125 Years of Corporate Personhood is Enough! 125 years, 125,000 signatures. by POCLAD signatories. Dear friend, In May 1886 United States Supreme Court clerk J.C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, inserted a headnote to the United States Reports pertaining to the Court's decision in Santa Clara County v. REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD GROSSMAN Reflections on Richard Grossman By Members of POCLAD. The following reflections are from Richard's POCLAD colleagues. Though he left POCLAD a number of years ago to pursue other interests, his influence on the formation and nurturing of our collective was profound duringhis tenure.
WHY ABOLISH ALL CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Why Abolish All Corporate Constitutional Rights. Corporations are creations of the state. As we documented in many resources over many years, they couldn't exist in any form without the legal sanctioning of government. Since citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any representative democracy, We the People have the power todefine
PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY 1962 – Birth of David Cobb, national Outreach Director for Move to Amend and principal of the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) Cobb debated James Bopp in September, 2014 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN on “Citizens Divided: Corporate Money, Speech, and Politics.”. Bopp is General Counsel for the JamesMadison
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.BY WHAT AUTHORITY
By What Authority is published by the POCLAD. The title is English for quo warranto, a legal phrase that questions illegitimate exercise of privilege and power. DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM POCLAD has prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest. If you wish a hard copy packet, the cost is $10 (including postage). To order, contact POCLAD at people@poclad.org or call 508-398-1145. SUPREME AUTHORITY: THE GROWING POWER OF THE US SUPREMESEE MORE ONPOCLAD.ORG
RETHINKING THE CORPORATION For more information on the illegitimate power of corporations and the struggle for a people-centered democracy, contact the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) at P.O. Box 246, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts 02664-0246; 508-398-1145 . REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. 125 YEARS OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD IS ENOUGH! May 2011 By What Authority 125 Years of Corporate Personhood is Enough! 125 years, 125,000 signatures. by POCLAD signatories. Dear friend, In May 1886 United States Supreme Court clerk J.C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, inserted a headnote to the United States Reports pertaining to the Court's decision in Santa Clara County v. REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD GROSSMAN Reflections on Richard Grossman By Members of POCLAD. The following reflections are from Richard's POCLAD colleagues. Though he left POCLAD a number of years ago to pursue other interests, his influence on the formation and nurturing of our collective was profound duringhis tenure.
WHY ABOLISH ALL CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Why Abolish All Corporate Constitutional Rights. Corporations are creations of the state. As we documented in many resources over many years, they couldn't exist in any form without the legal sanctioning of government. Since citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any representative democracy, We the People have the power todefine
ENGAGE US - POCLAD
ENGAGE US. We invite you to engage us in this idea: giant corporations govern. In the Constitution of the United States, they are delegated no authority to make our laws and define our culture. Corporations have no constitutions, no bills of rights. So when corporations govern, democracy flies out the door. This may be a depressing ideabut it
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE The Declaration of Independence In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God FACTORY FARMING FOR FOOD AND PROFIT Factory farms yield relatively small amounts of meat, dairy, and eggs for this input, and in return produce staggering quantities of waste and greenhouse gases, polluting our land, air and water - and contribute to climate change. The demand for livestock pasture is a major driver of deforestation. Between watering the crops that farmanimals
THE DEMOCRATIC ARTS: ATTITUDES AND SKILLS FOR THE DEMOCRATIC ARTSAttitudes and Skills for Participatory Democracy. An organization, institution or society is democratic to the degree that its members share leadership and responsibility, and individually and collectively have the skills needed to do so. While there is training for most human endeavors, until relatively recently group RETHINKING THE CORPORATION For more information on the illegitimate power of corporations and the struggle for a people-centered democracy, contact the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) at P.O. Box 246, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts 02664-0246; 508-398-1145 . LAKE WAITS FOR PEOPLE TO WAKE A rare, hybrid environmental campaign is underway to save a great lake – in fact, a Great Lake – Erie. That grand body of water, declared dead in the late 1960’s, experienced a textbook turnaround by the mid-80’s but is once again in critical condition every summer. THE CASE AGAINST JUDICIAL REVIEW The Court first exercised the power of judicial review in the 1803 case of Marbury vs. Madison. The decision caused an uproar, leading Thomas Jefferson to express his deep reservations about the principle. He wrote: "To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and onewhich
THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY June 2002 By What Authority The Struggle for Democracy: Activists Take the Offense. By Virginia Rasmussen. Remarks at the Empowering Democracy Conference, New York City, April 13, 2002 by Virginia Rasmussen, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) THE IMPACT OF CORPORATIONS ON THE COMMONS The fundamental impact of corporations on the commons, therefore, is the theft of our right of self-governance, a usurpation that enables the myriad harms and assaults on nature and society — including, as one writer put it, the culture of childhood. So what is a corporation?JANE ANNE MORRIS
It is with sincere sadness, but also deep responsibility that we share the following “In Memoriam” of one-time POCLAD “principal” Jane Anne Morris. Besides being a colleague and friend, Jane Anne taught us all through her writing and speaking different ways to think about and see the world more clearly. PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY 1962 – Birth of David Cobb, national Outreach Director for Move to Amend and principal of the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) Cobb debated James Bopp in September, 2014 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN on “Citizens Divided: Corporate Money, Speech, and Politics.”. Bopp is General Counsel for the JamesMadison
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.BY WHAT AUTHORITY
By What Authority is published by the POCLAD. The title is English for quo warranto, a legal phrase that questions illegitimate exercise of privilege and power. DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM POCLAD has prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest. If you wish a hard copy packet, the cost is $10 (including postage). To order, contact POCLAD at people@poclad.org or call 508-398-1145. SUPREME AUTHORITY: THE GROWING POWER OF THE US SUPREMESEE MORE ONPOCLAD.ORG
RETHINKING THE CORPORATION For more information on the illegitimate power of corporations and the struggle for a people-centered democracy, contact the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) at P.O. Box 246, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts 02664-0246; 508-398-1145 . REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. 125 YEARS OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD IS ENOUGH! May 2011 By What Authority 125 Years of Corporate Personhood is Enough! 125 years, 125,000 signatures. by POCLAD signatories. Dear friend, In May 1886 United States Supreme Court clerk J.C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, inserted a headnote to the United States Reports pertaining to the Court's decision in Santa Clara County v. REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD GROSSMAN Reflections on Richard Grossman By Members of POCLAD. The following reflections are from Richard's POCLAD colleagues. Though he left POCLAD a number of years ago to pursue other interests, his influence on the formation and nurturing of our collective was profound duringhis tenure.
WHY ABOLISH ALL CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Why Abolish All Corporate Constitutional Rights. Corporations are creations of the state. As we documented in many resources over many years, they couldn't exist in any form without the legal sanctioning of government. Since citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any representative democracy, We the People have the power todefine
PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY 1962 – Birth of David Cobb, national Outreach Director for Move to Amend and principal of the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) Cobb debated James Bopp in September, 2014 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN on “Citizens Divided: Corporate Money, Speech, and Politics.”. Bopp is General Counsel for the JamesMadison
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.BY WHAT AUTHORITY
By What Authority is published by the POCLAD. The title is English for quo warranto, a legal phrase that questions illegitimate exercise of privilege and power. DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM POCLAD has prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest. If you wish a hard copy packet, the cost is $10 (including postage). To order, contact POCLAD at people@poclad.org or call 508-398-1145. SUPREME AUTHORITY: THE GROWING POWER OF THE US SUPREMESEE MORE ONPOCLAD.ORG
RETHINKING THE CORPORATION For more information on the illegitimate power of corporations and the struggle for a people-centered democracy, contact the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) at P.O. Box 246, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts 02664-0246; 508-398-1145 . REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. 125 YEARS OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD IS ENOUGH! May 2011 By What Authority 125 Years of Corporate Personhood is Enough! 125 years, 125,000 signatures. by POCLAD signatories. Dear friend, In May 1886 United States Supreme Court clerk J.C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, inserted a headnote to the United States Reports pertaining to the Court's decision in Santa Clara County v. REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD GROSSMAN Reflections on Richard Grossman By Members of POCLAD. The following reflections are from Richard's POCLAD colleagues. Though he left POCLAD a number of years ago to pursue other interests, his influence on the formation and nurturing of our collective was profound duringhis tenure.
WHY ABOLISH ALL CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Why Abolish All Corporate Constitutional Rights. Corporations are creations of the state. As we documented in many resources over many years, they couldn't exist in any form without the legal sanctioning of government. Since citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any representative democracy, We the People have the power todefine
ENGAGE US - POCLAD
ENGAGE US. We invite you to engage us in this idea: giant corporations govern. In the Constitution of the United States, they are delegated no authority to make our laws and define our culture. Corporations have no constitutions, no bills of rights. So when corporations govern, democracy flies out the door. This may be a depressing ideabut it
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE The Declaration of Independence In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God FACTORY FARMING FOR FOOD AND PROFIT Factory farms yield relatively small amounts of meat, dairy, and eggs for this input, and in return produce staggering quantities of waste and greenhouse gases, polluting our land, air and water - and contribute to climate change. The demand for livestock pasture is a major driver of deforestation. Between watering the crops that farmanimals
THE DEMOCRATIC ARTS: ATTITUDES AND SKILLS FOR THE DEMOCRATIC ARTSAttitudes and Skills for Participatory Democracy. An organization, institution or society is democratic to the degree that its members share leadership and responsibility, and individually and collectively have the skills needed to do so. While there is training for most human endeavors, until relatively recently group RETHINKING THE CORPORATION For more information on the illegitimate power of corporations and the struggle for a people-centered democracy, contact the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) at P.O. Box 246, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts 02664-0246; 508-398-1145 . LAKE WAITS FOR PEOPLE TO WAKE A rare, hybrid environmental campaign is underway to save a great lake – in fact, a Great Lake – Erie. That grand body of water, declared dead in the late 1960’s, experienced a textbook turnaround by the mid-80’s but is once again in critical condition every summer. THE CASE AGAINST JUDICIAL REVIEW The Court first exercised the power of judicial review in the 1803 case of Marbury vs. Madison. The decision caused an uproar, leading Thomas Jefferson to express his deep reservations about the principle. He wrote: "To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and onewhich
THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY June 2002 By What Authority The Struggle for Democracy: Activists Take the Offense. By Virginia Rasmussen. Remarks at the Empowering Democracy Conference, New York City, April 13, 2002 by Virginia Rasmussen, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) THE IMPACT OF CORPORATIONS ON THE COMMONS The fundamental impact of corporations on the commons, therefore, is the theft of our right of self-governance, a usurpation that enables the myriad harms and assaults on nature and society — including, as one writer put it, the culture of childhood. So what is a corporation?JANE ANNE MORRIS
It is with sincere sadness, but also deep responsibility that we share the following “In Memoriam” of one-time POCLAD “principal” Jane Anne Morris. Besides being a colleague and friend, Jane Anne taught us all through her writing and speaking different ways to think about and see the world more clearly. PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY 1962 – Birth of David Cobb, national Outreach Director for Move to Amend and principal of the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) Cobb debated James Bopp in September, 2014 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN on “Citizens Divided: Corporate Money, Speech, and Politics.”. Bopp is General Counsel for the JamesMadison
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.BY WHAT AUTHORITY
By What Authority is published by the POCLAD. The title is English for quo warranto, a legal phrase that questions illegitimate exercise of privilege and power. DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM POCLAD has prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest. If you wish a hard copy packet, the cost is $10 (including postage). To order, contact POCLAD at people@poclad.org or call 508-398-1145. FACTORY FARMING FOR FOOD AND PROFIT Factory farms yield relatively small amounts of meat, dairy, and eggs for this input, and in return produce staggering quantities of waste and greenhouse gases, polluting our land, air and water - and contribute to climate change. The demand for livestock pasture is a major driver of deforestation. Between watering the crops that farmanimals
THE CASE AGAINST JUDICIAL REVIEW REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. 125 YEARS OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD IS ENOUGH! May 2011 By What Authority 125 Years of Corporate Personhood is Enough! 125 years, 125,000 signatures. by POCLAD signatories. Dear friend, In May 1886 United States Supreme Court clerk J.C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, inserted a headnote to the United States Reports pertaining to the Court's decision in Santa Clara County v. WHY ABOLISH ALL CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Why Abolish All Corporate Constitutional Rights. Corporations are creations of the state. As we documented in many resources over many years, they couldn't exist in any form without the legal sanctioning of government. Since citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any representative democracy, We the People have the power todefine
REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD GROSSMAN Reflections on Richard Grossman By Members of POCLAD. The following reflections are from Richard's POCLAD colleagues. Though he left POCLAD a number of years ago to pursue other interests, his influence on the formation and nurturing of our collective was profound duringhis tenure.
PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY 1962 – Birth of David Cobb, national Outreach Director for Move to Amend and principal of the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) Cobb debated James Bopp in September, 2014 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN on “Citizens Divided: Corporate Money, Speech, and Politics.”. Bopp is General Counsel for the JamesMadison
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.BY WHAT AUTHORITY
By What Authority is published by the POCLAD. The title is English for quo warranto, a legal phrase that questions illegitimate exercise of privilege and power. DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM POCLAD has prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest. If you wish a hard copy packet, the cost is $10 (including postage). To order, contact POCLAD at people@poclad.org or call 508-398-1145. FACTORY FARMING FOR FOOD AND PROFIT Factory farms yield relatively small amounts of meat, dairy, and eggs for this input, and in return produce staggering quantities of waste and greenhouse gases, polluting our land, air and water - and contribute to climate change. The demand for livestock pasture is a major driver of deforestation. Between watering the crops that farmanimals
THE CASE AGAINST JUDICIAL REVIEW REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. 125 YEARS OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD IS ENOUGH! May 2011 By What Authority 125 Years of Corporate Personhood is Enough! 125 years, 125,000 signatures. by POCLAD signatories. Dear friend, In May 1886 United States Supreme Court clerk J.C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, inserted a headnote to the United States Reports pertaining to the Court's decision in Santa Clara County v. WHY ABOLISH ALL CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Why Abolish All Corporate Constitutional Rights. Corporations are creations of the state. As we documented in many resources over many years, they couldn't exist in any form without the legal sanctioning of government. Since citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any representative democracy, We the People have the power todefine
REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD GROSSMAN Reflections on Richard Grossman By Members of POCLAD. The following reflections are from Richard's POCLAD colleagues. Though he left POCLAD a number of years ago to pursue other interests, his influence on the formation and nurturing of our collective was profound duringhis tenure.
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.ENGAGE US - POCLAD
ENGAGE US. We invite you to engage us in this idea: giant corporations govern. In the Constitution of the United States, they are delegated no authority to make our laws and define our culture. Corporations have no constitutions, no bills of rights. So when corporations govern, democracy flies out the door. This may be a depressing ideabut it
DUEL PLAGUES: CORONAVIRUS AND CORPORATIONS June 2020 POCLAD Article Duel Plagues: Coronavirus and Corporations By Virginia W. Rasmussen. We are inundated with articles and hours of daily commentary on the nature of the coronavirus attack, the locations of largest impact, the heartbreaking news of illness and death, the latest instructions on safe behavior, and status of the search for a vaccine.RIGHTS FOR NATURE
The Rights for Nature concept would create an ethical and legal system, which is necessary to counter capitalist or corporate exploitation of Nature. The aim of converting Nature into commodities without reference to ecological limits fails to account for losses of life sources and potentially irreparable harm to life support systems. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE The Declaration of Independence In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God FACTORY FARMING FOR FOOD AND PROFIT Factory farms yield relatively small amounts of meat, dairy, and eggs for this input, and in return produce staggering quantities of waste and greenhouse gases, polluting our land, air and water - and contribute to climate change. The demand for livestock pasture is a major driver of deforestation. Between watering the crops that farmanimals
THE DEMOCRATIC ARTS: ATTITUDES AND SKILLS FOR THE DEMOCRATIC ARTSAttitudes and Skills for Participatory Democracy. An organization, institution or society is democratic to the degree that its members share leadership and responsibility, and individually and collectively have the skills needed to do so. While there is training for most human endeavors, until relatively recently group REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. RETHINKING THE CORPORATION For more information on the illegitimate power of corporations and the struggle for a people-centered democracy, contact the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) at P.O. Box 246, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts 02664-0246; 508-398-1145 . THE IMPACT OF CORPORATIONS ON THE COMMONS The fundamental impact of corporations on the commons, therefore, is the theft of our right of self-governance, a usurpation that enables the myriad harms and assaults on nature and society — including, as one writer put it, the culture of childhood. So what is a corporation? PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY 1962 – Birth of David Cobb, national Outreach Director for Move to Amend and principal of the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) Cobb debated James Bopp in September, 2014 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN on “Citizens Divided: Corporate Money, Speech, and Politics.”. Bopp is General Counsel for the JamesMadison
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.BY WHAT AUTHORITY
By What Authority is published by the POCLAD. The title is English for quo warranto, a legal phrase that questions illegitimate exercise of privilege and power. DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM POCLAD has prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest. If you wish a hard copy packet, the cost is $10 (including postage). To order, contact POCLAD at people@poclad.org or call 508-398-1145. FACTORY FARMING FOR FOOD AND PROFIT Factory farms yield relatively small amounts of meat, dairy, and eggs for this input, and in return produce staggering quantities of waste and greenhouse gases, polluting our land, air and water - and contribute to climate change. The demand for livestock pasture is a major driver of deforestation. Between watering the crops that farmanimals
THE CASE AGAINST JUDICIAL REVIEW REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. 125 YEARS OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD IS ENOUGH! May 2011 By What Authority 125 Years of Corporate Personhood is Enough! 125 years, 125,000 signatures. by POCLAD signatories. Dear friend, In May 1886 United States Supreme Court clerk J.C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, inserted a headnote to the United States Reports pertaining to the Court's decision in Santa Clara County v. WHY ABOLISH ALL CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Why Abolish All Corporate Constitutional Rights. Corporations are creations of the state. As we documented in many resources over many years, they couldn't exist in any form without the legal sanctioning of government. Since citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any representative democracy, We the People have the power todefine
REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD GROSSMAN Reflections on Richard Grossman By Members of POCLAD. The following reflections are from Richard's POCLAD colleagues. Though he left POCLAD a number of years ago to pursue other interests, his influence on the formation and nurturing of our collective was profound duringhis tenure.
PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY 1962 – Birth of David Cobb, national Outreach Director for Move to Amend and principal of the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) Cobb debated James Bopp in September, 2014 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN on “Citizens Divided: Corporate Money, Speech, and Politics.”. Bopp is General Counsel for the JamesMadison
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.BY WHAT AUTHORITY
By What Authority is published by the POCLAD. The title is English for quo warranto, a legal phrase that questions illegitimate exercise of privilege and power. DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM POCLAD has prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest. If you wish a hard copy packet, the cost is $10 (including postage). To order, contact POCLAD at people@poclad.org or call 508-398-1145. FACTORY FARMING FOR FOOD AND PROFIT Factory farms yield relatively small amounts of meat, dairy, and eggs for this input, and in return produce staggering quantities of waste and greenhouse gases, polluting our land, air and water - and contribute to climate change. The demand for livestock pasture is a major driver of deforestation. Between watering the crops that farmanimals
THE CASE AGAINST JUDICIAL REVIEW REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. 125 YEARS OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD IS ENOUGH! May 2011 By What Authority 125 Years of Corporate Personhood is Enough! 125 years, 125,000 signatures. by POCLAD signatories. Dear friend, In May 1886 United States Supreme Court clerk J.C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, inserted a headnote to the United States Reports pertaining to the Court's decision in Santa Clara County v. WHY ABOLISH ALL CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Why Abolish All Corporate Constitutional Rights. Corporations are creations of the state. As we documented in many resources over many years, they couldn't exist in any form without the legal sanctioning of government. Since citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any representative democracy, We the People have the power todefine
REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD GROSSMAN Reflections on Richard Grossman By Members of POCLAD. The following reflections are from Richard's POCLAD colleagues. Though he left POCLAD a number of years ago to pursue other interests, his influence on the formation and nurturing of our collective was profound duringhis tenure.
ABOUT POCLAD
POCLAD is a group of 11 people instigating democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Our analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking, and working with organizations to develop new strategies that assert people's rights over property interests.ENGAGE US - POCLAD
ENGAGE US. We invite you to engage us in this idea: giant corporations govern. In the Constitution of the United States, they are delegated no authority to make our laws and define our culture. Corporations have no constitutions, no bills of rights. So when corporations govern, democracy flies out the door. This may be a depressing ideabut it
DUEL PLAGUES: CORONAVIRUS AND CORPORATIONS June 2020 POCLAD Article Duel Plagues: Coronavirus and Corporations By Virginia W. Rasmussen. We are inundated with articles and hours of daily commentary on the nature of the coronavirus attack, the locations of largest impact, the heartbreaking news of illness and death, the latest instructions on safe behavior, and status of the search for a vaccine.RIGHTS FOR NATURE
The Rights for Nature concept would create an ethical and legal system, which is necessary to counter capitalist or corporate exploitation of Nature. The aim of converting Nature into commodities without reference to ecological limits fails to account for losses of life sources and potentially irreparable harm to life support systems. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE The Declaration of Independence In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God FACTORY FARMING FOR FOOD AND PROFIT Factory farms yield relatively small amounts of meat, dairy, and eggs for this input, and in return produce staggering quantities of waste and greenhouse gases, polluting our land, air and water - and contribute to climate change. The demand for livestock pasture is a major driver of deforestation. Between watering the crops that farmanimals
THE DEMOCRATIC ARTS: ATTITUDES AND SKILLS FOR THE DEMOCRATIC ARTSAttitudes and Skills for Participatory Democracy. An organization, institution or society is democratic to the degree that its members share leadership and responsibility, and individually and collectively have the skills needed to do so. While there is training for most human endeavors, until relatively recently group REFLECTIONS ON WARD MOREHOUSE Ward Morehouse has built houses, coalitions, friendships, his work and his life inseparable. He tookgreat pride in the POCLADISTAS as he called us. But for all his principled activism and accomplishments, my most enduring memory is watching Ward with his beloved dog Buster. Mary Zepernick. I first met Ward Morehouse in 1991. RETHINKING THE CORPORATION For more information on the illegitimate power of corporations and the struggle for a people-centered democracy, contact the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) at P.O. Box 246, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts 02664-0246; 508-398-1145 . THE IMPACT OF CORPORATIONS ON THE COMMONS The fundamental impact of corporations on the commons, therefore, is the theft of our right of self-governance, a usurpation that enables the myriad harms and assaults on nature and society — including, as one writer put it, the culture of childhood. So what is a corporation?* Home
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THIS SITE IS A PUBLICATION OF THE PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY * Reflections on Richard Grossman * Reflections on Ward Morehouse REAL DEMOCRACY HISTORY CALENDAR – SIGN UP! MOVE TO AMEND CAMPAIGN:Read the Amendment
We are pleased to announce the creation of a new resource: the REAL DEMOCRACY HISTORY CALENDAR. You are invited to sign up to this new free weekly email resource – to be sent out beginning January 1, 2016. To sign up, click here.
Corporate entities and individuals of extreme wealth have to a major extent captured our government and economic institutions. Basic political, economic and human rights are in decline. The result is a lack of real democracy — defined as the ability of those who are affected by decisions having an authentic voice in the shaping ofthose decisions.
However, people have always strived for basic rights, resisted oppression, created alternative structures, and sought to control the power and influence of corporate entities and extreme wealth in society through education, advocacy and social movement organizing. To sign up, click here.
The REAL Democracy History Calendar will provide 1-2 listings per day sent by email every Monday morning of activities, events, quotes from prominent individuals and/or other occurrences (both past and recent) on the themes of democracy, human rights, corporate power and rule, and wealth in society (especially in elections). The Calendar is a joint production of the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) and the former Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Much of its base comes from our research and writings on these themes over the last two decades. Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire — and to illuminate the reality that creating real democracy will not happen by changing any one politician, passing/repealing any one law or regulation, or reversing any single Supreme Court decision. It requires, rather, changing our political, economic and social culture - one byproduct of which will be to democratize our legal structures through genuinely inclusive, multi-issue, nonviolent social movements. To sign up, click here.
Below are a listing of postings over the next several weeks – to provide a flavor of the Calendar’s contents that would be sent by email each week beginning January 1.Expand/Contract
If you feel this would be valuable information to you, please sign uphere
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And please spread the word to others! Thank you for your consideration. REAL DEMOCRACY HISTORY CALENDARDECEMBER 14
1799 – DEATH OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – NEED FOR COERCIVE POWER “We probably had too good an opinion of human nature in forming our confederation. Experience has taught us that men will not adopt and carry into execution measures the best calculated for their own good, without the intervention of a coercive power,” said George. According to historian Charles Beard in “An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States,” Washington was probably the richest man in the colonies at the time of the Revolution. 1896 – COVINGTON & L. TURNPIKE ROAD CO. V. SANDFORD (164 U.S. 578) SUPREME COURT DECISION – CORPORATIONS ARE PERSONS The Court declared, “it is now settled that corporations are persons, within the meaning of the constitutional provisions forbidding the deprivation of property without due process of law, as well as a denial of the equal protection of the laws.”DECEMBER 15
1791 – RATIFICATION OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS The first 10 Amendments to the Constitution were adopted to protect We the People from excesses of government and to affirm certain inalienable rights of human beings. At the time, however, We the People were only white males who owned property and were over 21 years old. Each state decided how much property must be owned to qualify to vote or run for office 1986 – JUSTICE WILLIAM BRENNAN DELIVERED OPINION OF SUPREME COURT IN FEDERAL ELECTION COMMITTEE V. MASSACHUSETTS CITIZENS FOR LIFE, INC. (479 U.S. 238) – SPENDING BY CORPORATIONS IN ELECTIONS MAY MAKE THEMFORMIDABLE POWER
“Direct corporate spending on political activity raised the prospect that resources amassed in the economic marketplace may be used to provide an unfair advantage in the political marketplace…The resources in the treasury of a business corporation…are not an indication of popular support for the corporation's political ideas. The availability of these resources may make a corporation a formidable political presence, even though the power of the corporation may be no reflection of the power of its ideas."DECEMBER 16
1773 – COLONISTS STAGE BOSTON TEA PARTY TO PROTEST BRITISH TEA ACT Parliament passed the Tea Act, which provided the East India Trading Company complete access to the colonies and exempted it from paying taxes to the colonies – increasing the profits to company stockholders, which included Parliament members and the King. This undercut colonial tea merchants who were required to pay taxes on tea. Boston Tea Party participants saw themselves as anti-corporate protestors. Their call for “no taxation without representation” was not one against paying taxes, but rather an insistence that every entity – including the East India Company – should pay their fair share and that no entity should be taxed without governmentalrepresentation.
DECEMBER 17
1964 – DEATH OF ALEXANDER MEIKLEJOHN, PHILOSOPHER AND EDUCATOR – ON 1ST AMENDMENT AND FREEDOM THREATENED BY DOMINANT BUSINESSENTERPRISES
The 1st Amendment "does not intend to guarantee men freedom to say what some private interest pays them to say for its own advantage. It intends only to make men free to say what, as citizens, they think.” “nsofar as a society is dominated by the attitudes of competitive business enterprise, freedom in its proper American meaning cannot be known, and hence, cannot be taught. That is the basic reason why the schools and colleges, which are, presumably, commissioned to study and promote the ways of freedom are so weak, so confused, soineffectual.”
DECEMBER 18
1882 – DEATH OF HENRY JAMES, SR. – ON DEMOCRACY "Democracy is not so much a new form of political life as a dissolution and disorganization of the old forms. It is simply a resolution of government into the hands of the people…”DECEMBER 19
2009 – PUBLICATION THIS MONTH OF ARTICLE, “PEOPLE AS PROPERTY: CRIMINALIZING COLOR, DISSENT AND IMPOVERISHMENT THROUGH THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX” BY KAREN COULTER, PRINCIPAL OF THE PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY (POCLAD) “Slavery and involuntary servitude were supposedly abolished by the 13th amendment to the Constitution. However, the amendment reads that slavery and involuntary servitude shall no longer exist in the U.S. ‘except as punishment for crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted’…Then there are the investors in the prison industry: American Express Corporation invested millions in private prison construction in Oklahoma; General Electric Corporation financed prison construction in Tennessee; Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, and other Wall Street investment firms made big profits by underwriting prison construction with the sale of tax-exempt bonds, a 2.3 billion dollar industry as of 1997. Some of the largest Wall Street investment corporations started buying bonds and securities from private prison corporations in the '90's and reselling them for profit to individual investors, mutual funds and others, literally speculating in the growth of locking up more and more people. The rise of the prison industrial complex can be accurately seen as part of a profound transformation restructuring U.S. economic development and its forms of social control. Philip Wood identifies corporate colonization of decision-making structures as a key element of the changes in U.S. public policy supporting the expansion and privatization of the prison industry.” http://www.poclad.org/BWA/2009/BWA_2009_DEC.html REAL DEMOCRACY HISTORY CALENDARDECEMBER 21-27
DECEMBER 21
1885 – CORPORATE LAWYERS CLAIM RAILROAD CORPORATION’S 14TH AMENDMENT RIGHTS VIOLATED In San Mateo v. Southern Pacific R. Co., 13 F. 722 (C.C.D. Cal. 1882), corporate lawyers attacked a provision of the California Constitution that assessed higher property taxes against railroad corporations than against non-corporate properties. The attorneys charged that the state violated the railroad’s “rights” under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The parties settled the case before the Supreme Court announced a decision; however, the argument would be used one year later in what would become the very first time corporations were granted 14th Amendment “rights” by the Supreme Court in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118US 394.
DECEMBER 22
1970 – BIRTH OF SENATOR TED CRUZ (R., TEXAS) – POLITICIANS ARE OPEN TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER “Lobbyists and career politicians today make up what I call the Washington Cartel. … on a daily basis are conspiring against the American people. … areer politicians’ ears and wallets are open to the highest bidder.”DECEMBER 23
1913 – CONGRESS PASSES FEDERAL RESERVE ACT – CREATING FEDERALRESERVE SYSTEM
The Act created a largely corporate controlled national banking and currency system, passed in the House by 298-60 and in the Senate by 43-25 and signed by President Wilson on this day. It was a major coup for banking corporations through the establishment of a private central bank authorized to "monetize" government debt (i.e. to print their own money and exchange it for government securities or I.O.U.'s). The central banking system was composed of 12 regional private/corporate banks owned by participating commercial banks. All national banks were required to join the system. Banking corporations now controlled the issuance and distribution of our national currency. By controlling our national money faucet, they could create inflation and deflation. This corporate monopolization of our currency allowed for public regulation, but not control. It was now banking corporations, not the U.S. government, that controlled the national currency. Congress handed its Constitutional power under Article 1, Section 8 to create our money over to private banking corporations. It’s the ultimate form of “privatization” – more accurately “corporatization” – of what was meant to be, and should be a public function or service.DECEMBER 24
1962 – BIRTH OF DAVID COBB, NATIONAL OUTREACH DIRECTOR FOR MOVE TO AMEND AND PRINCIPAL OF THE PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY(POCLAD)
Cobb debated James Bopp in September, 2014 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN on “Citizens Divided: Corporate Money, Speech, and Politics.” Bopp is General Counsel for the James Madison Center for Free Speech and was lead attorney for Citizens United, the group that argued their corporate 1st Amendment “speech rights were violated when prevented to air a political program just prior to theelection.”
The “debate” turned out to be one-sided – with Cobb presenting a much stronger case for why corporations should not be granted “personhood” rights and money should not be granting “free speech” rights than Bopp arguing the reverse. Watch the debate at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijSsZdCatTMDECEMBER 25
2015 – CHRISTMAS – JESUS ATTACKS “MONEY CHANGERS” Celebrated birth of Jesus Christ in Christian calendar. In his only public act of violence, Jesus drove the “money changers” with a whip of chords out of the sacred Temple in Jerusalem, which he called “my Father’s house.” Modern-day money changers are banking corporations – the most economically and politically dominant of all corporations. They have captured our most sacred democratic “house” – our government. They, too, along with all other corporations, need to be driven out ofour government.
DECEMBER 26
2015 – BOXING DAY - CORPORATE PERSONHOOD, MONEY EQUALS FREE SPEECH AND U.S. CONSTITUTION “BOXES” ACTIVISTS INTO SMALL SPACES OF WHATIS DOABLE
“Boxing Day” is an annual holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth nations. Traditionally, it was when servants or employees would receive gifts from their bosses or employers in “Christmas boxes.” Many Supreme Court decisions anointing corporations as legal “persons” and money as “free speech,” as well as many limitations of the U.S. Constitution (i.e. no direct election of President, no national initiative provision, no definition of economic rights, among many others) have been anything but gifts to individuals striving for real democracy. They have, rather, “boxed” activists into ever-smaller spaces concerning what laws and regulations can be passed. Unable to limit the amount of money in elections from individuals and corporate entities and incapable of preventing corporations from asserting Bill of Rights protections, the super wealthy and corporate entities have captured greater portions of public policies and public spaces and, in turn, shrinking these public arenas for the vast majority of citizens. For background on limitations of and possibilities for a more democratic Constitution, see http://poclad.org/BWA/2007/BWA_2007_DEC.html and http://poclad.org/BWA/2007/BWA_2007_MAR.html#3DECEMBER 27
1907 – DEATH OF JOHN CHANDLER BANCROFT DAVIS – UNILATERAL ACTION YIELDED FIRST SUPREME COURT CORPORATE “PERSONHOOD” DECISION Davis played a historical role in the corporate personhood debate. As the court reporter in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (118 U.S. 394, 1886), his responsibility was to prepare ‘a summary-of-the-case commentary.’ He wrote in the headnote to the decision that Chief Justice Morrison Waite began his oral argument of the court’s opinion by stating, ‘The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that itdoes.”
Davis’ published reports and notes from 1885-1886 contained his views on the Santa Clara case: ‘The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Thom Hartman and other journalists and authors charged Davis with a conflict of interest as previous President of the Newburgh and New York Railway in his role in the Supreme Court ruling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancroft_Davis REAL DEMOCRACY HISTORY CALENDARDECEMBER 28-31
DECEMBER 28
1856 – BIRTH OF WOODROW WILSON, 28TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – ON THE NEED FOR CORPORATIONS AND GOVERNMENT TO WORKTOGETHER
“Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process.“ http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/09/usa-sponsored-terrorism-mid-east-since-least-1948.html 1947 – BIRTH OF SPENCER BACHUS, FORMER REPUBLICAN CHAIR OF THE US HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE – REGULATORS SERVE BANKS "In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve thebanks."
DECEMBER 29
2014 – BIG MONEY BREAKS OUT: TOP 100 DONORS GIVE ALMOST AS MUCH AS 4.75 MILLION SMALL DONORS COMBINED “The 100 biggest campaign donors gave $323 million in 2014 — almost as much as the $356 million given by the estimated 4.75 million people who gave $200 or less,” a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance filings found. ‘When 100 big donors give as much almost 5 million small donors, with whom do we expect candidates to spend their time, and whose interests do we think they will represent?’ McKinnen asked. ‘That’s not democracy. That’s oligarchy.’”Read more:
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/top-political-donors-113833#ixzz3ta7ebjxEDECEMBER 30
2011 – PITTSBURGH CITY COUNCIL PASSES RESOLUTION CALLING FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO ABOLISH CORPORATE PERSONHOOD The resolution also called for returning elections to the Americanpeople.
DECEMBER 31
1945 – BIRTH OF HARVEY WASSERMAN – EXPOSES FRAUDULENT ELECTRONICVOTING MACHINES
Wasserman is an anti-nuclear and safe energy activist, journalist and senior editor of the Columbus Free Press. He has co-authored numerous articles with Bob Fitrakis on election fraud of elections since 2000, with special emphasis on the 2000 and 2004 election results in Ohio. Wasserman and Fritakis have recently written. “The way our electoral process now stands, electronic voting machines guarantee a Republican victory in 2016… “Source codes remain "proprietary," so the public has no control over the private machines on which our allegedly democratic elections are conducted. There is no usable paper trail, transparency oraccountability.
“We are concerned that all voters get fair access to the polls, and all votes are fairly counted, no matter who the candidate. We have no doubt the Democratic Party would be just as willing to flip elections from Republicans as vice versa, and that both have, can and will do the same to the Green Party and other challengers. “So we support universal hand-counted paper ballots, automatic universal voter registration, a four-day national holiday for voting, major restrictions on campaign spending and a wide range of additional reforms meant to guarantee some kind of democracy in the UnitedStates.”
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31511-why-hillary-can-t-win Democracy Insurgency CurriculumMARCH 2020
FEATURED POCLAD ARTICLERIGHTS FOR NATURE
BY KAREN COULTER
WHY RIGHTS FOR NATURE? The Rights for Nature concept would create an ethical and legal system, which is necessary to counter capitalist or corporate exploitation of Nature. The aim of converting Nature into commodities without reference to ecological limits fails to account for losses of life sources and potentially irreparable harm to life support systems. It is necessary to cap the rate of economic increase in the “standard of living” by stabilizing and reducing the total human population and human consumption of Nature. Rights for Nature concepts are necessary to develop an effective body of law fully protecting Nature in order to influence societal ethics and norms needed for a shift from the view that Nature exists for humans. Whether we will be able to bring about the needed institutional and human population and consumption changes depends upon affecting a radical shift in our societal perception of human’s place in Nature. Throughout legal history, each successive extension of rights to a new entity has been at first socially unthinkable, such as extensions of rights in the U.S. to women, children, African Americans, and indigenous peoples. Until the rightless entity receives its (or their) rights, people can’t see it or them except as a thing for the use of those holding rights. Our reliance on property concepts as the basis of our law and societal value system has a stultifying effect on personal growth and satisfaction. Christopher Stone, the author of Should Trees Have Standing, quotes Hegel’s justification of private property as typifying the blindness and egoism of viewing the world through a property ownership lens: “A person has as his substantive end the right of putting his will into any and everything and thereby making it his, because it has no such end in itself and derives its destiny and soul from his will. This is the absolute right of appropriation which man has over all ‘things’.” (G. Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right) This cultural view of the domination of humans over Nature allows for even our environmental protection laws to be grossly biased toward usefulness to humans taking priority over ecological integrity, with functioning ecosystems and biodiversity. For instance, the preamble declaration for the National Environmental Policy Act states goals of “restoring and maintaining environmental quality _to the overall welfare and development of man_” and creating and maintaining “conditions under which man and nature can exist in _productive_ harmony.” (emphasis mine) Moving away from the view that Nature is just a collection of useful non-sentient objects cultivates deepening of our humility, empathy, and love. DISAPPEARING BIODIVERSITY The perils of not developing respect and empathy for Nature as a life supporting system are real. According to the biologist Edward O. Wilson in his 2016 book, Half Earth, Our Planet’s Fight for Life, the rate of human-caused extinction is 100 to 1,000 times higher than before humans entered the scene about 200,000 years ago. Based on a 2015 study, the current diversification of species rate is now 10 times lower in genera, which are groups of closely related species. This data, when translated into extinctions, suggests species extinction rates closer to 1,000 times higher than before the spreadof humans.
Every expansion of human activity reduces the populations of more and more species, raising their vulnerability and rate of extinctions. A 2008 mathematical model by botanists predicts that 37 to 50% of rare tree species in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest will succumb to early extinction caused by contemporary logging, road building, mining, and the conversion of land to agriculture. The sixth mass extinction is underway, with human activity as its driving force, based on theavailable evidence.
A 2010 survey conducted by close to 200 experts on vertebrate land mammals (including birds) analyzed the status of all 27,780 known species. They found that one fifth were confirmed as threatened with extinction, and of those, only one-fifth had populations stabilized by conservation efforts. An independent study found that the extinction of bird species was reduced by 50% as a result of conservation efforts during the last century. Thirty-one bird species still live because of people’s efforts on their behalf. Global conservation so far has lowered extinction rates by about 20%. The Endangered Species Act has resulted in a quarter of the 1,370 U.S. plant and animal species classified earlier as Tthreatened achieving new population growth, with 13% of listed species improved enough to be taken off the Endangered species list. However, meanwhile 40% of threatened species declined. Twenty-two cospecies went extinct while 227 species were saved that would likely otherwise have disappeared. So conservation works, but at the current level of effort falls far short of what is needed to save the natural world. What fraction of wild species now surviving will last until the end of this century? If present conditions persist, perhaps half, but more likely fewer than one fourth will survive, according to E.O. Wilson. Considering the unprecedented rapid escalation in current global warming effects, which have already passed multiple tipping points, E.O. Wilson’s pessimistic prediction is plausible. Loss of 50 to 75% of wild species would likely result in ecosystems unraveling, which threatens human survival as well as the survival of biodiversity. HUMAN-CAUSED DESTRUCTION Considering the climate change-related unraveling of ecological webs across the world that is now appearing in the news (unprecedented droughts and flooding; far more intense storms; dramatic changes in patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperatures; and sea level rise), species occupying niche habitats or depending on forage plants or animals vulnerable to climate change hardly have a chance. Recovery efforts for highly vulnerable species like the Whitebark pine, the polar bear, and the pika will likely be abandoned if their survival in the wild seems impossible. Extinctions of keystone species like the Whitebark pine and the polar bear would further destroy interconnected ecological relationships, with chain reactions throughout the associated food chains. Due to habitat loss alone, the rate of extinction is rising in most parts of the world. The greatest sites of biodiversity loss are tropical forests and coral reefs so far. However the most vulnerable habitats, with the highest rates of extinction include both tropical and temperate rivers, streams, and lakes. The most destructive human activities include habitat destruction, including from climate change; exotic invasive species; pollution; human population growth; and over-hunting or fishing. Demographic projections indicate that the human population will rise to 11 billion or more by the end of the century, then peak and begin to subside. Per capita consumption is also expected to rise, perhaps more steeply thanhuman numbers.
Human-caused agents of extinction are synergistic, causing many sources of species vulnerability at once. For instance, clearing a forest for agriculture reduces habitat, diminishes carbon sequestration, and introduces pollutants to waterways. Based on conservation biology, if 90% of a forest is logged, about half the species will soon disappear that would otherwise have persisted. They may survive for a while, but about half will have populations too small to persist. The clearing of all the rainforest around the Bogor Botanical Gardens of Indonesia resulted in loss of 20 of its 62 breeding bird species in the first 50 years. THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT AS A RIGHTS FOR NATURE ARENA Under existing U.S. law, the most important rights for species arena is the Endangered Species Act. The effect of listing a species as “Endangered” or “Threatened” is akin to providing the species a right that can only be infringed upon with the strongest showing of necessity. The ESA provides a listed species with a right that the government does nothing to jeopardize its existence or destroy its critical habitat. The ESA also creates a government duty to protect the species from third parties and take active measures to ensure the species’ survival, such as preparing a recovery plan for the species. Endangerment of the species can’t be defended on utilitarian grounds, as with the famous Snail darter (fish) case, where a major dam project had to be stopped without any consideration of the economic impact of the decision. The downside of the ESA is that listing of a species is in the hands of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who often take so long to list species that they may go extinct before being listed. The Fish and Wildlife Service issued more “incidental take” permits to allow the loss of threatened-listed Northern Spotted owls to logging on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington state than the number of Spotted owls that actually existed there – even though they were listed as “Threatened” under the ESA. This means that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is allowing the Northern Spotted owl to eventually go extinct. Meanwhile the Trump administration and right wing Congress members are threatening to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act and already pushed through limitations on Polar bear protections to allow for oil drilling in the Arctic. LEGAL STANDING FOR NON-HUMAN SPECIES Consciousness is not only human but within other animal species and possibly plants, based on recent science observations and indigenous people’s knowledge over millennia. Could legal standing for non-humans be expanded to better protect them? There have already been lawsuits in the name of wildlife species, with varying court determinations giving the plaintiff wildlife species their own legal standing to sue for injuries. In the 1988 case of _Palila v. Hawaii Dept. of Land and Natural Resources_, native Hawaiian birds were given standing to sue to remove invasive goats destroying their habitat. Yet in the case of _Marbled Murrelet vs. Babbit_ in 1996, the court unambiguously disowned the expansive language of giving birds standing in the Palila case. The 1998 case of _Loggerhead Turtle vs. County Council of Volusia County_ (FL) remains unchallenged in court, clearly granting the turtles legal standing. The court cited the Palila case and permitted the complaint to be amended to add the Leatherback turtle as a party to the suit. The court even stated that: “Since both the Loggerhead sea turtle and the Green sea turtle are named plaintiffs in this action, the case will proceed regardless of the motivations of the human plaintiffs.” Other countries have also named non-human animals as plaintiffs, including an Israeli Supreme Court decision invoking the Israeli gazelle as co-plaintiff. As of 2016, all the non-human federal cases included a human as co-plaintiff as insurance against the dismissal of the non-human plaintiff. All the U.S. federal non-human plaintiff cases used the Endangered Species Act to get as far as they did in the courts. This leaves out species as plaintiffs that are not listedunder the ESA.
THE NEED TO CONNECT TO THE EARTH Christopher Stone makes the argument that while there are obstacles to species obtaining legal standing, lawsuits on behalf of Nature are better for moral development of society. Animal welfare itself was clearly the motivation for the Animal Welfare Act. The law was inspired by the popular sense that mistreating animals is immoral. Stone points out that the laws can have both an educating function and a spiritualizing role in our society. By returning to earlier stages of civilization and childhood in which we interacted much more directly with Nature and trusted or feared elements of our environment because we lacked the power to master or control it, we free ourselves of illusions of human dominance and alienation from the rest of the world. We need the equivalent of a myth, or guiding story, to fit our growing body of knowledge of physics, biology, and the cosmos that indicates everything is connected and that animals are sentient emotional beings while plants communicate, help each other, and form communities. Returning to more indigenous ways of thinking by seeing other animals as our relations represents knowledge based on a much more intimate connection with Nature over a much longer period of time than the industrial revolution era. Regarding the Earth as an organism, with humans as just one of many functional parts may not only better reflect current science findings but also better guide us in how to support the Earth’s survival in the current global ecologicalcrisis.
THE INTERCONNECTED WEB OF LIFE International scientific studies have shown that the Earth as a whole is an organized system of closely inter-related and interdependent processes and roles. Ecosystems and the many plant and animal species are dependent upon each other for survival in a balanced condition of planet-wide existence. They depend on an environment conditioned by oceanic and atmospheric currents and the protection of the ionosphere and many other cyclical interacting aspects of Nature. Human civilization can’t continue in isolation from Earth systems. People need to take action to reverse their role in destroying planetary balance and Earth’s life support systems. Humans are subsidiary to and dependent on complex interdependent ecological relationships within the planetary organism. We need to stop seeing the Earth as nothing but a mass of material substances moved by mechanical laws and life as nothing but a chance combination of molecules. The value that people in a future time and setting may place on something like songbirds is a function of the legacy we leave them. If we leave them a diversity of songbirds, they will likely appreciate them. If not, they will resort to an artificial source of pleasure like electronic sounds and images, further distancing themselves fromthe real world.
PROGRESS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD There are many species and richly diverse ecosystems in other parts of the world. Fortunately there are other countries far ahead of the U.S. in recognizing the rights of Nature. Bolivia passed national legislation in 2010 and 2012 to institute radical new conservation and social measures, which acknowledge the rights of Nature. The laws recognize the following rights of Nature: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure air and water; the right not to be polluted; and the right not to have cellular structure modified or genetically altered. The laws also enshrined the right of Nature “to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities.” The law is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system and was heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual worldview, which places the environment and the Earth deity known as Pachamama at the center of all life. On March 1, 2019 two United Nations Rights of Nature experts presented a request to the court of Ecuador to suspend the construction of tailing dams for the mega open pit mine project called “Mirador”. David Deme, one of the UN experts, said: “When the Mirador dams fail, they will completely annihilate the life cycles of the Quimi, Tundayme, Zamora and Santiago rivers, which are tributaries of the Amazon….when the Mirador mine dams collapse…the impact on ecosystems and loss of biodiversity will be catastrophic.” An Ecuadorian lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Juan Pablo Saenz, stated that “this action is aimed at suspending the construction of tailings dams until their design is re-evaluated and updated, for which best practices and technologies should be adopted that guarantee the protection of the Rights of Nature, recognized by the Ecuadoran Constitution.” Gabriela Espinoza, an expert in constitutional law, explained: “Since rights of Nature are Constitutional rights, the mining company is constitutionally obligated to respect them.” In January 2019 environmental lawyer Hugo Echeverria presented a legal brief based on the rights of Nature to the Supreme Court of Ecuador, the first case reaching the Supreme Court related to rights of Nature for the Galapagos Islands. This case was in response to a Chinese ship with about 300 tons of marine species and 6,626 dead sharks likely destined for the Asian shark fin market. The ship was discovered in the Galapagos National Park marine sanctuary. Sharks help manage and maintain the health of marine ecosystems, provide food sources for scavengers, and regulate species abundance, distribution, and diversity. About 10,000 sharks an hour are being removed from the oceans. Sharks are declining in population and are in danger of extinction. Without sharks, coral reefs could shift to algae dominated systems, seagrass beds would decline, ecological chain reactions would be activated, and there would be severe loss of habitat in the oceans. Sea Shepherd Australia has stated that sharks “are a critical component in an ecosystem that provides one-third of our world with food, produces more oxygen than all the rainforests combined, removes half of the atmosphere’s anthropogenic carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas), and controls our planet’s temperature and weather.” THE OCEAN AS A COMMONS The ocean is a global commons that crosses national boundaries. The ocean is besieged by chemical pollution; sewage; agricultural run-off; radioactive waste; offshore oil spills; tremendous loss of fish populations to over-fishing; expanding plastic dead zones; major die-offs of marine mammals such as seals, dolphins, and orcas; and now climate change, with induced acidification killing off coral reefs. Every year tens of thousands of marine mammals, turtles, and sea birds die from entanglement with or ingestion of millions of tons of plastic and abandoned fishing nets in the ocean. Ocean guardians are needed to monitor the health of oceans; gather science and evidence relevant to damages; monitor compliance with applicable laws and treaties; serve a legislative advisory function; and represent the ocean before national legislatures to address the impacts to the ocean of proposed actions such as dams, development of wetlands, and fishing practices. Guardians for the ocean need legal staff to appear as intervenor/legal counsel for the ocean victims of bilateral and multilateral disputes. International treaties should be used to give the guardians standing to initiate diplomatic and legal action on behalf of the ocean ecosystem. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is currently the designated trustee for fish, whales, marine mammals, and their supporting ecosystems within the U.S. fisheries zone. NOAA has the authority to institute lawsuits to recover restoration costs against any part that injures its “ward”. The U.S. government used these powers to sue Montrose, a major chemical corporation, for years of dumping DDT and PCBs into the ocean off Los Angeles, damaging the food web. The defendants paid $64 million to the natural resource trustees to restore wetlands and the ocean as much as possible.THE GLOBAL COMMONS
The global commons is currently understood to encompass those parts of the Earth and surrounding atmosphere, outer space, and oceans that exist beyond the territorial claims of any nation. Currently Antarctica falls into this category, but with rapid ice melt under climate change, Russia is now trying to stake claims to the continent, apparently for minerals and shipping lanes. The global commons can also be defined in a broader sense of natural connectivity with no boundaries to achieve aspirational international goals. Problems that cross national borders include acid rain; ozone depletion; climate change; nuclear war; nuclear power plant radioactive contamination fallout; and decline or extinctions of migratory species. There are many far-ranging and migratory species crossing national boundaries, such as whales; dolphins; sea turtles; seals; ocean fish; and far-ranging land species like Gray wolves; Grizzly bears; lynx; wolverine; marten; bison; caribou; and moose. One problem plaguing the global commons is that laws are binding on nations, but international treaties usually only have voluntary compliance or noncompliance. International conventions exist, such as the Montreal Protocol to eliminate the production of ozone depleting substances; the international climate change agreements; a ban on weapons testing in space; the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling; and the London Convention on Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes. However much of the global commons is only weakly protected, if at all. THE ATMOSPHERE AS A COMMONS Extreme climate change is the biggest global crisis in our time, accelerating rapidly to the point of biosphere collapse. Problems with giving the climate itself legal standing include every person being a prospective defendant as well as a prospective plaintiff. Potential remedies to the climate as a defendant with legal standing would be difficult to determine. Climate litigation faces conflicts with national governments’ foreign policy negotiation perogatives. Since the climate is a set of parameters, it is hard to conceive of how the climate itself would be injured, as opposed to climate-dependent species. Climate cases are very high stakes cases for courts to decide regarding status quo energy use and livelihoods versus avoidable ecological catastrophes and systems failure. There are also high stakes involved regarding a court outcome in terms of setting bad legal precedents barring some issues from being re-litigated and potential use of an anti-environmental jurisdiction that forecloses comparable actions elsewhere. However a number of things have changed that now facilitate litigation on damages to climate stability. Scientists have gotten much better at quantifying the links between greenhouse gas emissions and impacts. Evident climate change effects like severe storms; droughts; floods; and sea level rise have led plaintiffs to argue that they don’t need to prove specific disasters were directly caused by climate change because global warming makes future disasters more likely and governments must take steps to adapt now. We can now establish fault that meets the required standard of substantially contributing to a harm by combining actual emissions data with recent revelations that oil corporations knew of the climate dangers of fossil fuels as early as the 1960s but actively worked to undermine the public’s trust inclimate science.
FIGHTING BACK
Richard Heede, Director of the Climate Accountability Institute in Snow Mass, Colorado discovered that just 90 corporations are responsible for two thirds of all the greenhouse gases emitted between 1751 and 2016. More than half those emissions occurred since 1988. Since 2017, eight U.S. cities, including New York and San Francisco; six counties; one state and the West coast’s largest association of fisher people have brought a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil; Royal Dutch Shell; BP (British Petroleum); Chevron; Peabody Energy; and other corporations for selling products that caused the world to warm dangerously while misleading the public about the damage they knew would result. The plaintiffs are demanding compensation for adaptation and damage expenses such as building sea walls; suppressing wildfires; holding back floods; and dealing with pine beetle infestations and agricultural losses. Ralph Regenvann, the foreign minister of the Pacific nation of Vanuatu, expressed the new reality for island peoples under climate change, saying: “My government is now exploring all avenues to utilize the judicial system in various jurisdictions, including under international law, to shift the costs of climate protection back onto the fossil fuel companies, the financial institutions and the governments that actively and knowingly created this existential threat to my country.” PROTECTING FUTURE GENERATIONS As the dire threats from extreme climate change become more and more evident, there is increasing concern that future generations are most at risk and that something needs to be done to protect them. Rights for future generations of people to thrive are inseparable from acting in accordance with rights for Nature. Malta made a proposal for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit that the world community appoint an official guardian to represent the interests of future generations. Although the proposed guardian is limited to representing humans, there also need to be guardians for future generations of other members of the global commons, such as marine mammals, arctic wildlife, and Neotropical migratory songbirds. An example of a legal case representing future generations is Hungary terminating its international obligations to Czechoslovakia to build a joint canal system, based on the need for reforestation and preservation of animal species as a moral obligation to futuregenerations.
There is now a public trust doctrine lawsuit, _Juliana vs. the United States_ filed in 2015 that is being brought by 21 youth plaintiffs against the US and several of its executive branch positions and officers, including former President Barack Obama and President Trump. The youth plaintiffs are suing over the government’s failure to adequately take action to reduce global warming and uphold the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life. The plaintiffs are represented by the non-profit organization Earth Trust Guardians and include Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, the members of Martinez’s organization Earth Guardians, and climatologist James Hansen on behalf of future generations. Despite the Juliana case being accepted by Federal District court, upon an appeal a Ninth Circuit Appeals court panel recently dismissed the case, telling the young appellants it was more appropriate for them to work through the political (electoral) process even though they were explicitly representing youth too young to vote. The attorney representing the youth will be requesting a review of the case by the full Ninth Circuit court. There is also the Climate Strike movement being waged by high school students in various countries through student walk-outs, which was started by now 16 year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg. Thunberg started the student walkouts with Fridays for Future in Sweden. Her climate change campaigning has gained international recognition, with protests in the September 2019 Climate Strike taking place across 4,500 locations in 150 countries as part of the school strike for climate movement. The Climate Strike movement is organizing job actions in cities across 30 countries with a demand to transition to 100% clean energy. Extinction Rebellion is a global environmental movement with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse. Potential objectives for guardians for future generations to accomplish include ensuring the welfare and equality of future generations by equalizing opportunity and putting a minimum floor on basic needs to be provided. Guardians would need to internalize negative costs of human actions that would otherwise be passed on to future generations. They could serve a precautionary activist role to prevent future calamities and protect planetary values for the future. Guardians could act to prevent irreversible harms and to maintain ecological options, such as by not converting forests to agriculture use. This could increase future generations’ flexibility to deal with both known and currently unforeseen risks. LOSING THE BATTLE BUT WINNING THE WAR-- INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES A good example of a lawsuit that was successful despite losing standing to sue is the German _Seehunde v. Bundesrepublik_ 1988 case. This was a global commons guardianship-type case started due to about 15,000 dead seals washing up on the beaches of the North and Baltic seas. A group of German environmental lawyers responded to widespread public concern by initiating litigation, with the North Sea seals named as the lawsuit’s principal plaintiffs. The lawyers acted as guardians for the seals, speaking for them. The German administrative law court rejected the seals’ standing on the grounds that the seals were not “persons” and that there was no special legislation offering standing on their behalf. However just the filing of the case brought about considerable favorable news coverage, with the result that the German government did not renew an ocean dumping permit and committed to reduce or phase out disposal of heavy metals in the North Sea. So the seals lost the battle but won the war. Symbolic and image values of such lawsuits affirm the importance of empathy andprotective action.
Novel legal strategies include 2008 litigation to designate ESA critical habitat for polar bears off Alaska’s coast to stave off offshore oil exploration and drilling. _Kivalina versus Exxon Mobil_ in 2006 is also instructive, where an Inuit village, not individuals, sued 24 oil, coal, and electric corporations, claiming that their emissions are partly responsible for their village becoming uninhabitable due to climate change. Global warming is shortening the season when ice is frozen and making the community more vulnerable to winter storms. Such cutting edge lawsuits have the advantage of a lower standard for establishing “imminence of a threat” for an injury claim and the “irrevocability of harm” for a restrainingorder.
BEYOND LITIGATION ALONE—MULTIFACETED CAMPAIGNS There are also many other means for achieving rights for Nature beyond litigation. The hybrid campaign to save Lake Erie is a great example of groups with different approaches complementing each other and the use of a ballot initiative to obtain the legal rights of people forLake Erie.
Lake Erie is besieged by about 775 hog, poultry, and dairy confined animal feeding operations in the Maumee River watershed upstream from Toledo and Lake Erie. These factory farms generate more than twice the amount of sewage of Los Angeles and Chicago combined. The resulting pollution flowing through the Maumee River into Lake Erie includes antibiotic-resistant bacteria, hormones, viruses, and E. coli. This has caused eutrophication from excess nutrients within the lake’s ecosystem, with nearly 90% of the waste coming from agriculture, especially from the factory farms. Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie used traditional organizing strategies to successfully raise the profile of the pollution problems killing Lake Erie and the corruption of regulatory agencies. Their creative tactics included street protests; picket lines; showing their “Third Battle for Lake Erie” presentation to over 40 groups; generating hundreds of calls and letters to public officials; suing the US EPA; and dumping water choked with toxic algae and dead fish into the fountain at Toledo’s Government Center. Toledoans for Safe Water worked with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) on a complementary approach, collecting 10,000 signatures to place a city charter amendment on Toledo’s ballot establishing that Lake Erie has inherent legal rights. Despite multiple challenges to the measure by the County Board of elections and a $320,000 effort to keep it off the ballot by a cabal of corporate lobbying groups, the Lake Erie Bill of Rights was passed on February 26th, 2019. The lobby groups composing the “Vote No” campaign included the Affiliated Construction Trades unions; the Ohio Chamber of Commerce; American Petroleum Institute; Ohio Oil and Gas Association; the Farm Bureau; and the hog, poultry, and dairy factoryfarms.
Notable outcomes of the overall campaign included public rejection of absurd scare tactic messaging by the industry lobby groups, which included threats that rights for the lake would “raise the cost of food and nearly everything” and that it would negatively affect “even churches.” It was also encouraging that many people readily stated that if corporations have the rights of people, why shouldn’t Lake Erie? This was a result of long-term strategic focus and messaging by the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy and like-minded groups such as the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and Toledoans for Safe Water. However the corporate interest groups launched a federal lawsuit against the Lake Erie Bill of Rights the day after the election, enlisting a farmer to be the plaintiff. When Toledoans for Safe Water filed a motion to intervene as the authors of the city charter amendment, the U.S. District judge, Jack Zouhary, issued his decision on May 7th, claiming that the rights of Nature are not recognized by federal courts and finding that allowing Toledoans for Safe Water to intervene would “unduly delay this lawsuit” even though he allowed the state of Ohio to intervene against the Lake Erie Bill of Rights. The day after Zouhary’s ruling, the Ohio House Finance Committee included a last minute provision in the state’s $69 billion budget bill stating that no one can file a lawsuit in state court on behalf of “nature or any ecosystem,” effectively nullifying the Lake ErieBill of Rights.
It’s important to remember that every challenge to major norms of society involves a “two steps forward, one step back” shuffle toward lasting systemic change across the dance hall of history. By contrast with the local industry and state attacks on rights for Lake Erie, the United Nations invited the lead organizer for Toledoans for Safe Water, Markie Miller, to speak on Earth Day to the UN General Assembly about Toledo’s ballot measure success. Reporters from around the world called to find out more about the rights of Nature. This is what it will take to achieve a major shift from the devastating exploitation of Capitalism and corporate crony governments to biocentric social norms that could save the planet: dedication, creativity, and persistence—the snowball effect. ABOLISHING CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Implicit in the Rights of Nature movement as promoted by the CELDF is the core concept that Supreme Court-anointed constitutional rights for corporate entities should not exist, as they pre-empt the inalienable rights of human persons and the rights of nature. Abolishing corporate constitutional rights (often referred to as “corporate personhood”) has been a core principle of POCLAD’s work for the past quarter century. Corporate entities have not only hijacked a range of constitutional amendments intended for human beings (i.e. First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments), but have used sections of the original constitution, including the Commerce Clause, to trump the ability of local individuals and public officials to protect their communities and the natural world, as thoroughly detailed in Gaveling Down the Rabble by former POCLAD principal JaneAnne Morris.
CELDF’s “rights of nature” and “local Bill of Rights” initiatives are one strategy toward ending corporate constitutional rights. Move to Amend has pursued a different approach – working to pass a constitutional amendment, the We the Amendment (HJR48) to abolish all corporate constitutional rights and political money defined as First Amendment-protected free speech. Abolishing corporate constitutional rights is an essential component toward creating a livable world for human beings and all livingthings.
ADOPTING A BIOCENTRIC VALUE SYSTEM Underlying the concept of Rights for Nature is the necessity of changing the value system of human cultures to respect and honor the rights of other species, natural processes and ecosystems over private property and human consumptive or extractive uses. It’s important not to assign prices to ecological values, which would make violations of Earth rights the invasion of a property interest. Instead we need to collectively lay out the parameters for what society is going to value, rather than relying on “market” evaluations. Not prioritizing the Earth’s life support systems, including the intricate inter-relationships that support ecological processes and biodiversity, over human excesses and greed is tantamount to willfully destroying the viability of the planet and the future of humancivilization.
_KAREN COULTER IS A POCLAD PRINCIPAL AND DIRECTOR OF THE BLUE MOUNTAINS BIODIVERSITY PROJECT_ Make a donation to POCLAD. Funds are needed for speaking, conferences, research, and minimal organizational maintenance. Contribute online at http://poclad.org/donate.html or by sending it to POCLAD, P.O. Box 18465, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118. For a tax deduction, send your check of $50 or more -- earmarked for "POCLAD"-- to the Jane Addams Peace Association, 777 United Nations Plaza, 6th Floor, New York City, NY, 10017. Thank you!Permalink
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