‘Corporations are NOT people! Money is NOT Speech!’

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I have previously posted in Los Angeles: 'corporations are not people' – amend the U.S. Constitution:

As I have explained in several posts over the years, the only way to reverse the damage done by the "Felonious Five" conservative activist judges of the U.S. Supreme Court is by amending the U.S. Constitution. It is a long hard road to amend the Constitution and can take a long time, but this issue enjoys the support of around 75% of persons polled in poll after poll. The only opposition comes from corporations and their bought and paid for think tanks, media echo chamber and politicians.

If you want to end "money is speech," Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and its progeny, and "corporations are people" with superior rights to individuals, Citizens United v. FEC (2010), this is the only way to effectively do it.

So here is an action plan:

1. Contact your town or city council members and ask them to put this resolution on the agenda for discussion. Citizens then lobby your council members to pass the resolution. Failing that, you will need to file for a referendum and to collect enough signatures to refer it to the ballot.

2. Contact your state legislators and ask them to cosponsor this resolution in the Arizona legislature. In fact, I would hope that the Democratic Caucus would have the good sense to all cosponsor this resolution and to demand that it be heard in committee and voted upon in both chambers of the legislature. Failing that, you will need to file for a referendum and to collect enough signatures to refer it to the ballot.

3. The legal fiction of "corporate personhood" should be a litmus test issue for all politicians in 2012. (For the most thorough examination of the fraud perpetrated by the Court in Santa Clara County v. So. Pacific R.R. (1886) in creating the legal fiction of "corporate personhood," read Thom Hartmann's book "Unequal Protection: The rise of corporate dominance and the theft of human rights").

The question that every politician should be required to answer is "Do you support amending the U.S. Constitution to clarify that the rights, privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States under the U.S. Constitution are limited to human beings?" If they answer no, they are unworthy of your vote.

Activists are holding house parties to plan for a “day of action” on Jan. 21, the second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision.

The day before that, a Friday, Move to Amend will help to organize rallies at more than a third of the country’s federal courts, including the Supreme Court, in many cases while they are in session. 

January 20, 2012: Move to Amend Occupies the Courts!

Inspired by our friends at Occupy Wall Street, and Dr. Cornel West, Move To Amend is planning bold action to mark the second anniversary of the infamous Citizens United v. FEC decision!

Occupy the Courts will be a one day occupation of Federal courthouses across the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Friday January 20, 2012.

Move to Amend volunteers across the USA will lead the charge on the judiciary which created — and continues to expand — corporate personhood rights.

Americans across the country are on the march, and they are marching OUR way. They carry signs that say, “Corporations are NOT people! Money is NOT Speech!” And they are chanting those truths at the top of their lungs! The time has come to make these truths evident to the courts.

Join us Friday, January 20, 2012 at a Federal Court building near you!

From People for the American Way:

This month will mark the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which wrongly gave corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.

That ruling by the Court’s right-wing majority paved the way for the massive, undisclosed corporate spending we saw in 2010 and in attacks on workers’ rights last year in Wisconsin and Ohio. And it empowered so-called Super PACs and other front groups to spend millions to flood the airwaves with often misleading attack ads.

Our national movement to restore Government By the PEOPLE by amending the Constitution has exploded, with cities and counties across the country passing resolutions supporting an amendment that would overturn the Citizens United decision. The New York City Council is voting TODAY to pass such a resolution. [UPDATE: NY City Council Calls for End to Corporate Personhood | Move to Amend]

We’ve teamed up with allies including Public Citizen, Move to Amend, Common Cause and many others to educate the country about the dangers of unlimited corporate influence in elections and help foster a groundswell of public support for amending the Constitution to reverse Citizens United. Hundreds of public events will take place on and around the Citizens United anniversary, January 21. And leading up to that, we hope to engage as many Americans as possible in planning events, and equip them with the tools they need to organize anniversary events in their communities.

GET INVOLVED

On January 5, at 8 p.m. Eastern (7 p.m. Central, 6 p.m. Mountain, 5 p.m. Pacific) there will be a telephone training for individuals planning events. To participate in the training, call (209) 647-1600 and enter 458936# when prompted for a passcode.

NEXT WEEK, host an organizing house party. Activists have been hosting organizing parties for the last few months. Our previous parties were joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Jim Hightower. We’re urging people to host parties on January 10, or another time next week if that date is inconvenient. MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan — who has a book coming out called “Greedy Bastards: How We Can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry” — will feature our campaign on his January 9 broadcast and talk about the organizing parties.

If you have not joined our petition to Congress supporting a bill to reverse Citizens United with a constitutional amendment, please do so now. If you have, help build the petition by spreading the word.

Find more information and organizing resources at www.pfaw.org/GovernmentByThePeople.