Abolishing Corporate Personhood

author: Brian

Move to Amend is a nationwide movement based on the clear goal of abolishing corporate personhood. We've just begun organizing in Portland. This is a short report from our booth at the Mississippi Street Fair on Saturday.

Through a series of court decisions over the past 150 years, corporations have been given the same rights as human beings despite being a legal creation. Because this occurred via court decisions, neither the legislative nor executive branches of government can do anything to overturn these rulings. Our only hope to limit corporate domination would be a series of Supreme Court reversals (Highly unlikely) or, through a Constitutional Amendment.

We are working on a LT plan to amend the Constitution.

Our shorter-term goal would be a public referendum here in Portland on the issue of corporate personhood. The earliest this would be on the ballot is 2012. For now, we are just beginning to organize, spread the word, and move forward.

You can register your support by signing the Motion to Amend at www.MoveToAmend.org

Saturday we had a booth at the Mississippi Street Fair. It was my first opportunity to do public outreach and the community support was fantastic. I have ample experience gathering signatures and I've never felt so much support. Support ranged from rabid to the newly recruited, but we often had a line at our booth with people patiently waiting a few minutes to sign. We had so much support that we actually ran out of petition sheets and had to get more printed in the late afternoon.

I can't tell you how many signatures we actually got but the number was significant. The Move to Amend Facebook page had 1,850 new "likes" last week.

... Or the U.S. Government can just regulate corporations like under Carter.  [Boy, oh Boy - Reagan would spin and do summersaults in his grave if we do this!]

Corporate personhood

Putting an end to human rights for corporations

author: Brian - From Indymedia PDX

Move to Amend had an activist training this weekend as we gear up to limit the rights of corporations. Corporations are entitled to legal rights, but not human rights.

20 people spent all day Saturday at the First Unitarian Church in downtown Portland training to help the movement to limit corporate personhood. The training was lead by David Cobb, a former practicing attorney and former 2004 Green Party presidential candidate. Cobb has been working on the corporate personhood issue for nearly a dozen years and shared a tremendous amount of knowledge and expertise about both the history that brought us to this point in time and the current state of the campaign.

Because corporations have been given human rights through legal opinions and court cases, the only way for us to strip corporations of their human rights is through a constitutional amendment or, a reversal of a variety of Supreme Court decisions. Amending the constitution will likely take 10-20 years.

In the meantime, an effort is underway to get local initiatives on the ballot across the country asking voters whether they believe corporations should be given human rights as enumerated in the Bill of Rights. This is something we could accomplish in Portland over the next 2-3 years. Polling shows that this measure wins 80/20 or better across all political groups.

We are just in the formative stages and will be developing the beginning of a strategic plan on Wed. night, 7-9pm, at the First Unitarian Church.

In addition to the campaign, one goal mentioned was to have this be a litmus test for political candidates: Do you believe corporations deserve the protections of our Bill of Rights?

You can sign the petition at MovetoAmend.org to get plugged in.

evil corporations and corporate personhood

Corporations are the scum of the earth.  They steal money, flout tax laws and bribe government officials and lawmakers to make laws favoring them.  Corporate personhood should be abolished.