There is a bit of a movement about these days to abolish corporate personhood. The modern version of corporate personhood in the United States is not that old, dating just from 1886. The contemporary movement to abolish corporate personhood can be said to date from 2000. [See Santa Clara Blues: Corporate Personhood versus Democracy, 2000]
Suppose corporate personhood is abolished. What then are corporations? I have argued in the past that they are property: "Slavery is the fiction that a person is property. Corporate Personhood is the fiction that property is a person." [quoting myself circa 2001]
But it is never that simple. What kind of property are corporations? Under the original U.S. constitution, slaves were property, but a peculiar kind of property that could be tried as criminals if they broke the law.
The Constitution does not mention corporations at all. For practical purposes business corporations (as opposed to say a city or non-business organization considered as a corporation) were left to the individual states to create and regulate.
What does the Constitution say about property? One interpretation of the creation of the Constitution is that it was all about protecting private property. Certainly that was an important consideration for the rich white men who wrote the original Constitution, but property is protected mainly by protecting the political power of the colonial elite. Looking to the Constitution itself:
The Preamble does not mention property, but then it was clearly meant as rhetoric.
Congress can give "Authors and Inventors" exclusive rights to their works for a limited period of time. We now call this intellectual property; I don't see corporations as a form of intellectual property.
So not only are corporations left out of the original Constitution; property, specifically as property, was also left out. That people have property and that laws affect property was an assumption so common that no one felt it necessary to make specific reference to property. We must look to the Amendments to see anything about property.
The original Constitution does not mention alcohol either, but it does (in Article I, Section 8) give Congress "Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises." This was soon shown to include the power to lay an excise tax on alcohol.
In the Bill of Rights, in Amendment III, the government is forbidden to house soldiers in private houses without the consent of the owners. Houses, of course, are a particular type of property, usually personal property but sometimes belonging to the government or corporations.
In Amendment IV the government is forbidden to search houses and "effects" without a search warrant, which provides a certain type of protection for property, and makes certain properties, houses, a shield for persons.
In Amendment V the government cannot "deprive" a person of "property" without due process of law. "Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." Of course, taxes (including excise taxes) are assumed to be the exception to this.
That is it. It is assumed that people, including judges and Congress, know what private property is, and what boundaries it may present to federal power.
Alcohol comes up twice in Amendments: in XVIII "intoxicating liquors" are made illegal. That's Prohibition. In Amendment XXI this prohibition is repealed, although individual states may continue with their own Prohibitions.
So why do I want Corporations to be treated as Alcohol? They have many of the attributes of alcohol. They can let people get out of control in a destructive manner, unleashing greed that is destructive to the ethics and economy of the American people. They can do some good in certain situations. I believe, for instance, that the beer (one bottle) I drank last night helped me to relax, and was good for my health. In other words, judgment is involved.
That alcohol is a form of private property that can be regulated and taxed was made really clear, really early under the new Constitution. Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, proposed the first excise tax on alcohol, which Congress passed in 1790. Western farmers (back then western Pennsylvania was the West) produced whiskey from their crops because it retained the value of the crop but was easier to transport and sell to the fun loving early Americans of the east coast. They started protesting the tax in 1791. As is typically case, protest got nothing done, so they essentially rebelled. George Washington road at the head of an army to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion.
Only a handful of rebels were killed, but the ability of the Feds to tax and regulate whiskey was firmly established.
I think that corporations need oversight. They are too important to our society to let them run around willy-nilly like a bunch of anarchists or hippies. Of course some corporations need more oversight than others. Mom & Pop corporations probably need no federal regulation except in extreme circumstance. Goldman Sacks probably needs two federal officials looking over the shoulder of every employee to keep it in line.
If you want to help abolish corporate personhood, check the MoveToAmend site to find an organization you can join. In the meantime, think about my Corporations are Alcohol idea.
Showing posts with label corporate personhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporate personhood. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Monday, December 5, 2011
Richard Grossman, Compost in Peace
Richard Grossman, a noted political activist in the United States of America, died this November 22, 2011. Richard was known for his criticism of for-profit corporate control of the American (and global) political system, economy, and culture. Richard had no issues with criticizing other dissidents who did not agree with him on strategy and tactics. To honor his memory, I will not refrain from criticism (as is typical in a requiem) while I share my personal experiences about Richard.
Richard tried to influence the discourse of American environmental and pro-democracy dissidents, with varying degrees of success. I had never heard of him until my wife, Jan Edwards, began working with Alliance for Democracy and made herself the first modern crusader against the legal doctrine of corporate personhood (c. 1999). I could not say exactly when Richard came into the mix, as I was never "wowed" by him or his organization, POCLAD (Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy).
But at some point, when Jan was determined to get the City of Point Arena to pass a law against corporate personhood, I became aware that she was talking on the telephone to one Richard Grossman, among others. Richard never really adapted to computers (he was born on August 10, 1943), but large packages of xeroxed copies of old articles about corporate power began arriving at our house.
Jan had a fixed idea that corporate personhood was the central evil of the modern era. Richard did not agree with that; he tried to expand her attention to other issues of corporate power. But he did provide us with a lot of material about corporate personhood, notably Personalizing the Impersonal: Corporations and the Bill of Rights by Carl J. Mayer [Hastings Law Journal, Vol. 4, March 1990] and a series of articles from the 1950's by Howard Jay Graham. These were fine, but too much, too fast to serve as introductory material.
No one at POCLAD had written anything substantial about corporate personhood. Jan, assigning duties to our small local team of activists, decided I should write the first modern introduction to the topic. This resulted in Santa Clara Blues: Corporate Personhood versus Democracy.
With a million things going wrong in the world, do-gooders argue among themselves about priorities, strategies and tactics. Richard stated, strongly, that he thought the environmental and social justice movements were taking the wrong approaches. He believed that because of corporate power activists might win an occasional point (the Clean Air Act, or temporarily protecting an individual habitat) but were regularly losing ground on the whole.
Richard Grossman wanted to challenge fundamental legal doctrines that (with money) are the foundations of corporate power. These include, but are not limited to, corporate charters being treated as contracts, the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, limited liability, and the ability of corporate money to influence elections.
The question activists asked, in return, was how was that to be done? What was to be sacrificed (streams, mountaintops, oceans, human beings) in the meantime if activists stopped what they were doing and all ran to law libraries and spent a half-century arguing for legal reform?
Richard's point was not to train more environmental or social justice lawyers. They are plentiful enough, so much so that many can't earn a living, or even end up being employed by corporations. He did not want to fight corporations within the law. He wanted to change the law.
Changing the law really happens in only one of three ways. You can win Supreme Court cases. You can change the law with legislation. Or you can have a revolution and write the law anew.
The Revolution never came in Richard Grossman's lifetime. This is the sad fate of most revolutionaries. I cannot fault Richard for trying, and for thinking outside the usual boxes.
Knowing a little history, however, makes one wonder if Richard ever deserved to be the intellectual leader of American dissidents, as was clearly his wish. Richard moved from being the executive director of Greenpeace in the 1980's to a messenger of the nature of corporate power.
It was not a new message. You probably did not know old-time American Communist Party members, but they talked a lot about corporate power. It tied in well with their strategy of radicalizing labor unions so that the working class (or at least its authoritarian vanguard) could come to power in this bastion of capitalism. Anarchists, too, long pre-dated Grossman in their analysis of the System, but did not care to try to change obscure doctrines like corporate personhood. They wanted, and want, to go straight to building a new society out of the ashes of the old.
Without the legal framework of corporate power we would most likely just have private ownership of large businesses, much as is the case in the Soviet Union today.
How do you de-power the ruling class when they can buy politicians and courts and, yes, can even divert activist organizations simply by strategic donations of money? Richard could never answer that question. Perhaps simply raising taxes on the rich, in particular with estate taxes, would do the trick. Taxes could break up the growing "title of nobility" that the Constitution warns against in Article I, Section 9.
Perhaps with a third party. Perhaps with the tactics being practiced by CELDF or MoveToAmend (both groups spawned by Grossman). Perhaps by anarchists, or communists, or social democrats, or revolutionary environmentalists. Why, it is not absolutely impossible that reforms could come from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
No one knows. Richard Grossman's greatest trait was his willingness to revise his views. He kept revising them until the day he died. Maybe if more people did more thinking outside their usual boxes, we might collectively find a solution that can transition us to an environmentally sound, ecologically sustainable, and culturally rich world.
Richard tried to influence the discourse of American environmental and pro-democracy dissidents, with varying degrees of success. I had never heard of him until my wife, Jan Edwards, began working with Alliance for Democracy and made herself the first modern crusader against the legal doctrine of corporate personhood (c. 1999). I could not say exactly when Richard came into the mix, as I was never "wowed" by him or his organization, POCLAD (Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy).
But at some point, when Jan was determined to get the City of Point Arena to pass a law against corporate personhood, I became aware that she was talking on the telephone to one Richard Grossman, among others. Richard never really adapted to computers (he was born on August 10, 1943), but large packages of xeroxed copies of old articles about corporate power began arriving at our house.
Jan had a fixed idea that corporate personhood was the central evil of the modern era. Richard did not agree with that; he tried to expand her attention to other issues of corporate power. But he did provide us with a lot of material about corporate personhood, notably Personalizing the Impersonal: Corporations and the Bill of Rights by Carl J. Mayer [Hastings Law Journal, Vol. 4, March 1990] and a series of articles from the 1950's by Howard Jay Graham. These were fine, but too much, too fast to serve as introductory material.
No one at POCLAD had written anything substantial about corporate personhood. Jan, assigning duties to our small local team of activists, decided I should write the first modern introduction to the topic. This resulted in Santa Clara Blues: Corporate Personhood versus Democracy.
With a million things going wrong in the world, do-gooders argue among themselves about priorities, strategies and tactics. Richard stated, strongly, that he thought the environmental and social justice movements were taking the wrong approaches. He believed that because of corporate power activists might win an occasional point (the Clean Air Act, or temporarily protecting an individual habitat) but were regularly losing ground on the whole.
Richard Grossman wanted to challenge fundamental legal doctrines that (with money) are the foundations of corporate power. These include, but are not limited to, corporate charters being treated as contracts, the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, limited liability, and the ability of corporate money to influence elections.
The question activists asked, in return, was how was that to be done? What was to be sacrificed (streams, mountaintops, oceans, human beings) in the meantime if activists stopped what they were doing and all ran to law libraries and spent a half-century arguing for legal reform?
Richard's point was not to train more environmental or social justice lawyers. They are plentiful enough, so much so that many can't earn a living, or even end up being employed by corporations. He did not want to fight corporations within the law. He wanted to change the law.
Changing the law really happens in only one of three ways. You can win Supreme Court cases. You can change the law with legislation. Or you can have a revolution and write the law anew.
The Revolution never came in Richard Grossman's lifetime. This is the sad fate of most revolutionaries. I cannot fault Richard for trying, and for thinking outside the usual boxes.
Knowing a little history, however, makes one wonder if Richard ever deserved to be the intellectual leader of American dissidents, as was clearly his wish. Richard moved from being the executive director of Greenpeace in the 1980's to a messenger of the nature of corporate power.
It was not a new message. You probably did not know old-time American Communist Party members, but they talked a lot about corporate power. It tied in well with their strategy of radicalizing labor unions so that the working class (or at least its authoritarian vanguard) could come to power in this bastion of capitalism. Anarchists, too, long pre-dated Grossman in their analysis of the System, but did not care to try to change obscure doctrines like corporate personhood. They wanted, and want, to go straight to building a new society out of the ashes of the old.
Without the legal framework of corporate power we would most likely just have private ownership of large businesses, much as is the case in the Soviet Union today.
How do you de-power the ruling class when they can buy politicians and courts and, yes, can even divert activist organizations simply by strategic donations of money? Richard could never answer that question. Perhaps simply raising taxes on the rich, in particular with estate taxes, would do the trick. Taxes could break up the growing "title of nobility" that the Constitution warns against in Article I, Section 9.
Perhaps with a third party. Perhaps with the tactics being practiced by CELDF or MoveToAmend (both groups spawned by Grossman). Perhaps by anarchists, or communists, or social democrats, or revolutionary environmentalists. Why, it is not absolutely impossible that reforms could come from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
No one knows. Richard Grossman's greatest trait was his willingness to revise his views. He kept revising them until the day he died. Maybe if more people did more thinking outside their usual boxes, we might collectively find a solution that can transition us to an environmentally sound, ecologically sustainable, and culturally rich world.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Corporate Personhood, Islamic Rebellion, and the Philippines Occupation
The Philippine Islands are numerous and cover a large area. Before the Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1521 the islands were not united under a single government. People on the various islands belonged to a number of ethnic groups and spoke a variety of languages.
The Spanish forced their Roman Catholic religion on the conquered, but of course many held to their pagan beliefs. In some of the southern islands Islam had already taken hold. Only a few centuries earlier Spain itself had been mainly Islamic, so getting rid of Islam was a priority. But despite centuries of effort the Catholics were not able to drive the "Moro" (Moors) out of the southern Philippine Islands.
In the 1800's nationalism took hold in the Philippines. Just as a weakened Spain lost its colonies in the Americas, the towards the end of the century Filipinos defeated their Spanish occupiers. Only their timing was bad. U.S. sugar growers wanted the Philippines. Theodore Roosevelt saw to it that a U.S. Fleet attacked the few surviving Spanish armed forces in the Philippines when the Spanish American war began. The Spanish Army in Manila preferred to surrender to white Americans than to the Filipino nationalist army that had them surrounded. In the peace negotiations after the war was over the Filipinos were not invited. Spain sold what she did not own to the United States.
Having an army, the Filipinos set up their own government in opposition to the U.S. By now Theodore Roosevelt was President, and showed himself to be a genocidal maniac [See U.S. Conquest of the Philippines]. The war never really ended, even when the U.S. granted the Philippines nominal independence in 1946. (The Japanese, having kicked the U.S. out, had granted independence on October 14, 1943 [John Toland, The Rising Sun, page 573]).
According to Eliza Griswold in The Tenth Parallel, today's Islamic insurgency in the Philippines is rooted in U.S. conquistador policy. The U.S. failed, for the most part, to convert Catholic Filipinos to Protestantism. But they "employed a policy of shipping Filipino Christians from the Catholic north to the Muslim south." [p. 254]
In a classic example of granting personhood rights to corporations, while denying them to people (especially people who were not wealthy white male protestants), "To further break the Moro ancestral land rights, the United States pushed forward laws stipulating that only individuals and corporations—such as Dole, B. F. Goodrich, Del Monte, Weyerhaeuser, and Goodyear—could own land, not Moro tribes or clans." [Griswold p. 254]
This is a policy that went back to George Washington and his gang of "investors" with claims in the Ohio country. Tribes don't own lands, even if it does take a bit of militia muscle to ensure that corporations can turn those lands into their private property.
The rights of corporate persons is a big deal right now, with the recent ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and a number of new corporate personhood cases on the upcoming United States Supreme Court docket.
It is also another example of the Gruel of Law. Caviar law for the corporate elite, eat bullet lead law for the indigenous people.
The Spanish forced their Roman Catholic religion on the conquered, but of course many held to their pagan beliefs. In some of the southern islands Islam had already taken hold. Only a few centuries earlier Spain itself had been mainly Islamic, so getting rid of Islam was a priority. But despite centuries of effort the Catholics were not able to drive the "Moro" (Moors) out of the southern Philippine Islands.
In the 1800's nationalism took hold in the Philippines. Just as a weakened Spain lost its colonies in the Americas, the towards the end of the century Filipinos defeated their Spanish occupiers. Only their timing was bad. U.S. sugar growers wanted the Philippines. Theodore Roosevelt saw to it that a U.S. Fleet attacked the few surviving Spanish armed forces in the Philippines when the Spanish American war began. The Spanish Army in Manila preferred to surrender to white Americans than to the Filipino nationalist army that had them surrounded. In the peace negotiations after the war was over the Filipinos were not invited. Spain sold what she did not own to the United States.
Having an army, the Filipinos set up their own government in opposition to the U.S. By now Theodore Roosevelt was President, and showed himself to be a genocidal maniac [See U.S. Conquest of the Philippines]. The war never really ended, even when the U.S. granted the Philippines nominal independence in 1946. (The Japanese, having kicked the U.S. out, had granted independence on October 14, 1943 [John Toland, The Rising Sun, page 573]).
According to Eliza Griswold in The Tenth Parallel, today's Islamic insurgency in the Philippines is rooted in U.S. conquistador policy. The U.S. failed, for the most part, to convert Catholic Filipinos to Protestantism. But they "employed a policy of shipping Filipino Christians from the Catholic north to the Muslim south." [p. 254]
In a classic example of granting personhood rights to corporations, while denying them to people (especially people who were not wealthy white male protestants), "To further break the Moro ancestral land rights, the United States pushed forward laws stipulating that only individuals and corporations—such as Dole, B. F. Goodrich, Del Monte, Weyerhaeuser, and Goodyear—could own land, not Moro tribes or clans." [Griswold p. 254]
This is a policy that went back to George Washington and his gang of "investors" with claims in the Ohio country. Tribes don't own lands, even if it does take a bit of militia muscle to ensure that corporations can turn those lands into their private property.
The rights of corporate persons is a big deal right now, with the recent ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and a number of new corporate personhood cases on the upcoming United States Supreme Court docket.
It is also another example of the Gruel of Law. Caviar law for the corporate elite, eat bullet lead law for the indigenous people.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Supreme Court Dictates Corruption
The Supreme Court, not for the first time in its history, reminded us yesterday that in the end, it is Supreme. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 08-205, they ruled that business corporations can spend unlimited money influencing political elections, even though Congress said they couldn't. At times like these American citizens seem to live in an oligarchy, not in a democracy, or even in a republic. [See also America: Republic or Democracy]
Recap: in 1772 the high court in Great Britain ruled, in the Somerset case, that a slave became free simply by stepping on British soil. The slavers of Virginia and their lawyers decided that they really did not want to be part of the British aristocracy in that case. So they united with New England merchants who were unhappy for other reasons, and launched the American Revolution.
During and after the revolution, the thirteen allied states operated under a document called the Articles of Confederation. Under that constitution, the federal aspect of government was weak. This created danger for wealthy Americans, who wanted a federal army available to crush any group of poorer citizens who might get dangerous ideas. Like that every adult male should have the right to vote, as in Pennsylvania. Or that taxes should not ruin a farmer, as in Massachusetts. So they (the infamous they) held a meeting and wrote a new Constitution for the thirteen states. Most people did not like this new Constitution, but mainly by force and fraud it was put into place. (See the Anti-Federalist Papers for the arguments against the Constitution. See any honest and detailed history book about the period for how this document was imposed.) The people who opposed the Constitution at least managed to get it amended with the Bill of Rights. But the new federal government, led by George Washington, showed it could do its duty by crushing the Whiskey Rebellion.
Most people thought the Congress would become the supreme branch of government under the Constitution. Some feared the Presidency would eventually become supreme. They were all wrong. In 1803, in Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court declared that it was supreme. The ruling class took a good look at that idea and liked what it saw. Supreme Court judges are not elected, and they serve into extreme old age.
For instance, the Supreme Court declared (in Dred Scott, 1857) that slaves did not become free when they stepped onto the soil of a free state. In fact, there was no such thing as a free state. The United States were one big slave plantation, according to the Supremes.
Which shows an important point: you can trump the Supremes, but it isn't easy. To get rid of slavery it took more than just an amendment to the Constitution; it took a civil war, then some Amendments that were passed while the slavers lost the right to vote for a while.
In fact, with the Supremes in charge, even amending the Constitution may not get you what you want. Take the Fourteenth Amendment. It was meant to make human citizens equal, regardless of race. But the Supreme Court decided it did not protect black citizens (culminating in Plessy). Even though the word corporation is not in the Amendment, the Supreme Court declared, in Santa Clara in 1886, that business corporations are covered by the Amendment. [See Santa Clara Blues: Corporate Personhood versus Democracy]
So here we are. Business corporations can spend unlimited money on "free speech." They already buy and sell most American politicians, and both the Democratic and Republican Party, but this gives them even more leverage.
But did not candidate Barack Obama offer us hope? It was a five-to-four decision, so maybe one of the majority will die. Then Barack can put in a Supreme who is not owned by the ruling class. Ha, but Barack himself is owned by the ruling class. As he showed by continuing the war in Afghanistan, which only benefits merchants of death.
Recap: in 1772 the high court in Great Britain ruled, in the Somerset case, that a slave became free simply by stepping on British soil. The slavers of Virginia and their lawyers decided that they really did not want to be part of the British aristocracy in that case. So they united with New England merchants who were unhappy for other reasons, and launched the American Revolution.
During and after the revolution, the thirteen allied states operated under a document called the Articles of Confederation. Under that constitution, the federal aspect of government was weak. This created danger for wealthy Americans, who wanted a federal army available to crush any group of poorer citizens who might get dangerous ideas. Like that every adult male should have the right to vote, as in Pennsylvania. Or that taxes should not ruin a farmer, as in Massachusetts. So they (the infamous they) held a meeting and wrote a new Constitution for the thirteen states. Most people did not like this new Constitution, but mainly by force and fraud it was put into place. (See the Anti-Federalist Papers for the arguments against the Constitution. See any honest and detailed history book about the period for how this document was imposed.) The people who opposed the Constitution at least managed to get it amended with the Bill of Rights. But the new federal government, led by George Washington, showed it could do its duty by crushing the Whiskey Rebellion.
Most people thought the Congress would become the supreme branch of government under the Constitution. Some feared the Presidency would eventually become supreme. They were all wrong. In 1803, in Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court declared that it was supreme. The ruling class took a good look at that idea and liked what it saw. Supreme Court judges are not elected, and they serve into extreme old age.
For instance, the Supreme Court declared (in Dred Scott, 1857) that slaves did not become free when they stepped onto the soil of a free state. In fact, there was no such thing as a free state. The United States were one big slave plantation, according to the Supremes.
Which shows an important point: you can trump the Supremes, but it isn't easy. To get rid of slavery it took more than just an amendment to the Constitution; it took a civil war, then some Amendments that were passed while the slavers lost the right to vote for a while.
In fact, with the Supremes in charge, even amending the Constitution may not get you what you want. Take the Fourteenth Amendment. It was meant to make human citizens equal, regardless of race. But the Supreme Court decided it did not protect black citizens (culminating in Plessy). Even though the word corporation is not in the Amendment, the Supreme Court declared, in Santa Clara in 1886, that business corporations are covered by the Amendment. [See Santa Clara Blues: Corporate Personhood versus Democracy]
So here we are. Business corporations can spend unlimited money on "free speech." They already buy and sell most American politicians, and both the Democratic and Republican Party, but this gives them even more leverage.
But did not candidate Barack Obama offer us hope? It was a five-to-four decision, so maybe one of the majority will die. Then Barack can put in a Supreme who is not owned by the ruling class. Ha, but Barack himself is owned by the ruling class. As he showed by continuing the war in Afghanistan, which only benefits merchants of death.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Envision Spokane and the Gruel of Law
Thursday night, November 19th, Chad Nicholson of Envision Spokane spoke to a group of about 25 citizens near the Garcia River and Point Arena, California. The audience came from as far south as Sea Ranch and as far north as Fort Bragg. The event was organized by Jan Edwards and Joel Chaban, and hosted by Anne Kessler.
Chad was a very good speaker, injecting just enough humor into his report on a political subject to keep the audience on its toes. Envision Spokane put together an extensive amendment to the charter of the City of Spokane (Washington State), which was put on the ballot as Proposition 4. The amendment amounts to a bill of rights. People's rights listed include the right to a locally-based economy; to affordable preventative healthcare; to safe and affordable housing; to determine the futures of their neighborhoods; to be paid prevailing wages; to and unionize. In addition "the natural environment has the right to exist and flourish." To ensure the rights of the citizens and of nature, "Corporations and other business entities shall not be deemed to possess any legal rights, privileges, powers, or protections which would enable those entities to avoid the enforcement of these rights, or which would enable them to nullify these rights."
Well, that is a very big dose of reform in one package. The Envision Spokane organization grew largely out of the frustrations of neighborhood groups. In Spokane the city has set up a neighborhood structure. The neighbors are supposed to get together and decide what they think about things like rezoning real estate. If they agree with the schemes of developers and the City Council, it looks very nice and democratic. But if they disagree, the City Council listens politely and does whatever the developers want, probably after extracting political donations if not bribes. This happened enough times that many of the neighborhood council people wanted to try something different. They joined together with a number of other advocacy groups, notably low-cost housing advocates and unions. They spent years getting input from citizens to write Proposition 4.
As you might expect, business interests poured vast sums of money into defeating Prop 4. They also used scare tactics, claiming taxes would rise and the economy would collapse if Proposition 4 passed. It failed, garnering only about a quarter of the vote.
Yet Chad did not seem discouraged. Given that it was new and the array of power attacking it, he felt a quarter of the voters was pretty substantial.
Because there were some pretty sophisticated people in the audience, including former Congressman Dan Hamburg and other local activists, much of the question and answer discussion concerned what I like to call the Gruel of Law [See also The Gruel of Law (September 12, 2009)]. In real life the Rule of Law is that the rich get legal caviar, the poor get legal gruel. At the scale of trying to reform something like a city charter, you see this in the different realities confronting say, the real estate industry trying to amend the charter and ordinary citizens trying to amend the charter.
One of the big arguments against Prop 4 and similar citizen initiatives is that they will simply be knocked down by the courts even if they are passed. I hear this all the time; often it is sufficient to keep good law from even being submitted by the citizens. In Spokane the City Council tried to keep Prop. 4 off the ballot. Feeling the could not, instead they put two bogus Props on the ballot ahead of Prop 4, asking citizens it they would be willing to pay new, higher taxes to finance the measure, even though no new taxes would be required for Prop 4.
We know that the Supreme Court of the United States backs the doctrine of Corporate Personhood and therefore will not allow citizens to take away "rights" of corporations in Spokane or anywhere else. That is a major cornerstone of the Gruel of Law. But the courts seldom need to deal in absolutes. They pick and choose from a large number of variables, including various rights, to get the outcome that (almost always) favors the ruling class, if any ruling class interest is affected by a case. Thus you have the right to private property, and the right to free speech; which one is the trump card in a case involving both? If you give nature rights, can you be explicit when they trump the rights of developers?
Law, in the United States, is a battlefield where the ruling class is eternally strengthening its base areas and trying to mop up little remnants of justice for the "little people." True, we little people win from time to time, often after great effort. The rich lounge in their castles, making no effort except perhaps diverting some money a tiny fraction of their money to pay politicians and lawyers, and let's face it, judges to do their work for them.
On the other hand, as Michael Moore reminds us in Capitalism: A Love Story, the ruling class still allows us to vote. That is their soft underbelly. But as they say in my profession, garbage in, garbage out: as long as they control the information the voters receive (and even the information that elected officials receive), our votes might as well be their votes.
Envision Spokane's efforts impressed me as a way to reclaim the voting power of the ordinary citizen. I hope they keep up their efforts.
Chad was a very good speaker, injecting just enough humor into his report on a political subject to keep the audience on its toes. Envision Spokane put together an extensive amendment to the charter of the City of Spokane (Washington State), which was put on the ballot as Proposition 4. The amendment amounts to a bill of rights. People's rights listed include the right to a locally-based economy; to affordable preventative healthcare; to safe and affordable housing; to determine the futures of their neighborhoods; to be paid prevailing wages; to and unionize. In addition "the natural environment has the right to exist and flourish." To ensure the rights of the citizens and of nature, "Corporations and other business entities shall not be deemed to possess any legal rights, privileges, powers, or protections which would enable those entities to avoid the enforcement of these rights, or which would enable them to nullify these rights."
Well, that is a very big dose of reform in one package. The Envision Spokane organization grew largely out of the frustrations of neighborhood groups. In Spokane the city has set up a neighborhood structure. The neighbors are supposed to get together and decide what they think about things like rezoning real estate. If they agree with the schemes of developers and the City Council, it looks very nice and democratic. But if they disagree, the City Council listens politely and does whatever the developers want, probably after extracting political donations if not bribes. This happened enough times that many of the neighborhood council people wanted to try something different. They joined together with a number of other advocacy groups, notably low-cost housing advocates and unions. They spent years getting input from citizens to write Proposition 4.
As you might expect, business interests poured vast sums of money into defeating Prop 4. They also used scare tactics, claiming taxes would rise and the economy would collapse if Proposition 4 passed. It failed, garnering only about a quarter of the vote.
Yet Chad did not seem discouraged. Given that it was new and the array of power attacking it, he felt a quarter of the voters was pretty substantial.
Because there were some pretty sophisticated people in the audience, including former Congressman Dan Hamburg and other local activists, much of the question and answer discussion concerned what I like to call the Gruel of Law [See also The Gruel of Law (September 12, 2009)]. In real life the Rule of Law is that the rich get legal caviar, the poor get legal gruel. At the scale of trying to reform something like a city charter, you see this in the different realities confronting say, the real estate industry trying to amend the charter and ordinary citizens trying to amend the charter.
One of the big arguments against Prop 4 and similar citizen initiatives is that they will simply be knocked down by the courts even if they are passed. I hear this all the time; often it is sufficient to keep good law from even being submitted by the citizens. In Spokane the City Council tried to keep Prop. 4 off the ballot. Feeling the could not, instead they put two bogus Props on the ballot ahead of Prop 4, asking citizens it they would be willing to pay new, higher taxes to finance the measure, even though no new taxes would be required for Prop 4.
We know that the Supreme Court of the United States backs the doctrine of Corporate Personhood and therefore will not allow citizens to take away "rights" of corporations in Spokane or anywhere else. That is a major cornerstone of the Gruel of Law. But the courts seldom need to deal in absolutes. They pick and choose from a large number of variables, including various rights, to get the outcome that (almost always) favors the ruling class, if any ruling class interest is affected by a case. Thus you have the right to private property, and the right to free speech; which one is the trump card in a case involving both? If you give nature rights, can you be explicit when they trump the rights of developers?
Law, in the United States, is a battlefield where the ruling class is eternally strengthening its base areas and trying to mop up little remnants of justice for the "little people." True, we little people win from time to time, often after great effort. The rich lounge in their castles, making no effort except perhaps diverting some money a tiny fraction of their money to pay politicians and lawyers, and let's face it, judges to do their work for them.
On the other hand, as Michael Moore reminds us in Capitalism: A Love Story, the ruling class still allows us to vote. That is their soft underbelly. But as they say in my profession, garbage in, garbage out: as long as they control the information the voters receive (and even the information that elected officials receive), our votes might as well be their votes.
Envision Spokane's efforts impressed me as a way to reclaim the voting power of the ordinary citizen. I hope they keep up their efforts.
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