We Activists are Taking Down Corporate Personhood One Community at a Time.
Last edited Sat Apr 12, 2014, 03:39 PM - Edit history (1)
For years, here on DU, I have been ranting and raving that the One Big Money Party has sold us out.
Every post that longtime Du member autorank ever made regarding how totally the One Percent is directing our economy, every post that Octafish has ever made regarding the secret cabal of inner workings of our government, to advantage the "Corporate Citizen" AIG, and "Corporate Citizen" Goldman Sachs, excellent posts and OP's by bvar22, and every screed that I have posted with regards to these matters, all these bits and pieces of information have had me type out in frustration so many times, that although many of us are as mad as hell and we just can't take it, there is nothing we can do.
Now I realize I am wrong about that. There is a movement we can join to take back our rights as individuals, and our rights as community participants.
There are over 150 communities in the USA who have banded together to take on Corporate Personhood. By the end of this OP, you will have a lot of clues as to how to start helping do that inside your community.
Now if you have ever been involved in local politics, you find out rather quickly that local citizens must usually "kow to" to the elected supervisors, or city council people, or even to employees, such as city or county engineers and planners etc.
And then there are other disconnects. Your elected Board of Supervisors will never ever sit down with the US Federal Senators from your state, and rarely do city council folks or Board of Supervisors even meet with state legislators.
This furthers the huge disconnect. There are so many separate layers of government. It certainly doesn't seem like there is any way to have a Grand Over View. Nor does there seem like there is much of a way to have any re-arrangement of components that might result if the various layers of government communicated with each other.
For instance, my small, Northern Calif. community recently received "free of charge" a piece of modern military over design, this $ 360,000 MRAP vehicle which was designed to take on the IED's of Iraq warfare. This is all part of the militarization of the local police force. Meanwhile our schools have little monies, the local swimming pool may not be opened as it needs $ 40,000 worth of repairs, etc. To add insult to the injury, the state of Calif. just "awarded" my community twenty two millions of dollars to remodel and re-furbish one hundred local prison cells. Where did this amount of money come from? In part, through the state legislature and the governor knocking one billion dollars out of the state budget for health care-related matters over the next ten years. (At the very time that community clinics will need more money as they are going to be swamped by people who now have health insurance through "CoveredCalifornia.org )
People are connecting the dots, but then, what can they do? When confronted by activists wanting solutions, our elected community leaders say that all the problems are divided up in various departments of various layers of government and that you can't, for instance, transfer the MRAP vehicle's worth over to the schools. But over time, the community rights' movement could end up doing a re-arrangement of the layers so that common sense solutions could occur.
I really truly think that the community based rights movement is being designed to handle all these problems and more, including the complete dismemberment of the Corporate Beast. ((Er, Corporate Personhood.)
Through community activism, connected with real political know how, a small farming community in Pennsylvania tackled the problem of keeping out a 14,000 pig, Corporate Pig Farm. The community succeeded despite the fact that elected officials said, "An American owned business, regardless of what it does, always has the right to come into a community." In other words, if you little farmers do not like the destruction of water and soil, and the ability to breath air that doesn't reek of pig shit, move somewhere else!
Their efforts succeeded. They created a community based, County based piece of legislation that kept the Corporate Pig Farm out.
A small community in New Hampshire, and despite opposition from state and federal elected officials and agencies, took on a huge Quebec -based utility and put sustainable energy in its place.
So what are the particulars of how we go about doing this? First of all, to free up your time, end the worship of individuals. The heroes we are presented with end up in one of two ways:
One) They turn out to be a mere "face" for the One Percent. And although the One Percent may not care for Bruce Springsteen, the elected "face" might, although they certainly don't act on Bruce's real message, once they are in office. The One percent has learned to like presenting us with a fuzzy warm "face." That way we accept what is happening to us all the more willingly.
Two) If the politicians do not sell us out once elected, they're hit with lawsuits about their illegal past behaviors. Google Maxine Waters and see what she has had to endure over the past recent bits of history. Finally she is exonerated, but at a huge expense of time and money. The time she spent on exonerating herself should have been spent on her constituents, but that is what the PTB wanted.
Once you free yourself from the worship of individuals, you will have the time to become educated about how to effectively take back your community.
Here is the first video I would recommend, with an interview by Paul Cienfuegos. I love the quote from the woman writer he cites, Jane Anne Morris, to the effect that environmental regulatory agencies exist to regulate environmentalists!
Paul Cienfuegos
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Here is a second video explaining what can occur, from activists in Mora county New Mexico:
Over the next few days, I will be adding in some other videos on a new OP that further clarify what this movement is about, how people are feeling valued and able to meet the immense challenges that are in front of us, using the resources of this concept.
(This OP dedicated to the memory of Paul Wellstone, a most excellent community activist. And to those who died along with him in Oct 2003.))
= new reply since forum marked as read
We feel powerless since what we usually get is a 'runaround'. I have 4 representatives I call and send e-mails to. I receive 'form letter' replies with the promise that they will get back to me. I reply to the form letter that this all I ever receive & there is not a follow up to my question. Only 1 has replied to my reply 
with the promise to talk to me. Just call his personal cell #. He did not include his cell #.
I look forward to viewing these vids when I have a little more time. Thanks for posting them. I will be watching for the new vids.
