tagged w/ Corporate Greed
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KB723
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4 months ago
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On the second anniversary of a terrible decision, every proposed solution has a downside.
The movement to overturn the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling and confront the doctrine of “corporate personhood” stands at a perilous crossroads.
Across the country, two distinct strategies are converging on Congress. More than a million people have signed online petitions. State legislators, city and township governments, Democratic Party groups and unions have sponsored and passed measures in 23 states demanding that Congress pass a constitutional amendment to reassert and elevate the political speech of individual citizens and roll back the growing legal privileges of corporations.
The two approaches can be seen in the protest signs and sound bites proclaiming, “Money is Not Speech” and “Overturn Corporate Personhood.” But these slogans are not calling for the same remedy, especially when transformed into legal language in 10 proposals that have been introduced in the current Congress.
The first would address campaign finance setbacks in a 35-year line of Supreme Court rulings, including the Citizens United ruling in 2010, which deregulated campaign spending by corporations and unions. The second would go further and seek to revoke the status of corporations as persons under the Constitution, rolling back more than a century of Supreme Court rulings.
These two approaches expose an emerging split among progressives with deeper problems that go beyond the steep if not improbable political climb required to adopt any constitutional amendment: passage by two-thirds of Congress followed by ratification by three-quarters of state legislatures.
With a few exceptions, the growing movement to overturn Citizens United and revoke corporate personhood is not being taken seriously beyond America’s liberal communities. The guardians of American capitalism—the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republican National Committee—do not even feel a need to attack it, unlike recent barbs aimed at the National Popular Vote campaign to reform the Electoral College.
Corporate America’s assessment that this activity is not yet a serious threat to their power is also shared by another key sector of the progressive spectrum. Many of the country’s top liberal constitutional scholars have been silent, as this bandwagon has gathered momentum. They sympathize with its goals but think its champions are not only overpromising to grassroots supporters but have not thought out what they want Congress to do. Nor do they think the frontline voices have done a good job explaining what is at stake beyond hurling bumper sticker slogans. In other words, they reach the same conclusion as America’s corporate titans: this clamor is not yet poised to upend the law behind America’s political system.
“I am really excited about the fact that there is so much public interest in this stuff and on the right side—the visceral sense that the Supreme Court has got it wrong,” said Dan Tokaji, co-editor of Election Law Journal and an Ohio State University professor of law. “But at the same time I’m uncomfortable with the bumper sticker-like critiques. It’s not like there’s a magic bullet. Every solution has a downside. It’s a matter of weighing costs and benefits. And that is especially true in campaign finance reform.”
“I do think the body of law from Buckley through Citizens United to Bennett needs readjustment, and I helped Rep. Donna Edwards draft one potential constitutional amendment,” said Harvard Law School’s Laurence Tribe, one of the country’s leading constitutional scholars and a man liberals lobbied President Clinton to appoint to the Supreme Court. “But most of the constitutional amendments floating around seem to be seriously misguided; they would do both too much and too little.”
Such skepticism is not what amendment proponents, particularly those favoring the most sweeping ideas, believe or want to hear. They say there is a danger in doing too little; that a populist campaign is needed and working; and that an amendment reserving constitutional rights only for natural persons is on par with the post-Civil War amendments ending slavery and protecting former slaves as citizens.
“We are doing movement building in order to win a constitutional amendment within a decade,” said David Cobb, the 2004 Green Party presidential candidate and board member of the Move To Amend coalition, which has led much of grassroots organizing. “We have a meta-perspective about what is going on, but we also have a sense of movement history; in recognizing what it takes to actually get a lot of people in motion demanding systemic change. Our call is no more radical or will be no more difficult than the abolitionist movement, the women’s suffrage movement, trade union movement or the Civil Rights movement.”
But liberal skeptics also include groups that have been helping local governments adopt laws subordinating corporate rights to community and individual rights in a range of environmental fights. These ordinances are below-the-radar equivalents to the recent Montana Supreme Court decision that upheld its century-old ban on corporate electoral spending. They all make a “compelling” claim, the highest standard in constitutional law, to affirm democratic rights.
“They’re good people and their heart is in the right place, but they’re not being helpful—as a matter of fact, they are doing damage,” said Ben Price, project director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), which has helped 130 municipalities in a half-dozen east-central states–—including the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania–local anti-corporate ordinances in environmental fights. “They won’t bring the outcomes that are needed.”
“We don’t think that is the right strategic move at this time because it will be overturned,” Cobb said, when asked why his coalition’s members do not pursue CELDF-style changes in law, citing his own experience in Humboldt County, California, where a county ordinance was reversed in federal court. “And why will it be overturned; because corporations have constitutional rights, according to the federal district courts and U.S. Supreme Court. The ultimate win has to result in a constitutional amendment.”
This debate—to go narrow or to go big; to focus in Washington or in the states; or what is the relationship between divergent strategies—has not been heard on the airwaves as Americans see the big-spending excesses in the first 2012 presidential contests and as many liberal public interest groups focus on the anniversary of the Citizens United ruling. But it is a vast middle ground that is not esoteric or fruitless.
It is not difficult to understand the substance of the law or the choices before Congress. Do people want to see candidates like Newt Gingrich knocked from the lead in Iowa with millions of dollars in largely negative TV ads from super PACs, which Gingrich decried until a billionaire friend gave $5 million to a pro-Newt super PAC before the upcoming South Carolina primary? Do they want to see public financing as a way that non-wealthy candidates can run for federal office? Do they want to see corporations banned from spending money on ballot measures in states like California? Do they want to see limits imposed on all political donations and expenditures to prevent corruption? Do they want to see all money—above the smallest donations—flowing in and out of campaigns and electioneering reported in a timely way?
Continue reading @ Link..
BY STEVEN ROSENFELDOn the second anniversary of a terrible decision, every proposed solution has a... more
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Babies? Kitty cats? Mentos-soda geysers? This entertaining clip about the most dangerous ruling in America* has it all. Watch:
*This statement is purely our opinion, even though we’re pretty sure it’s true.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10176368
"Lets be serious here, Corporations are Not People!!!!!!!"Babies? Kitty cats? Mentos-soda geysers? This entertaining clip about the most... more
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KB723
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5 months ago
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This, pretty much, tells it like it is with regard to what capitalism is all about and why we need to end it.This, pretty much, tells it like it is with regard to what capitalism is all about and... more
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The verdict as well as closing remarks will be given December 6, 3:30 PM Bangalore India time. That should be around 5AM standard EST here for anyone interested in seeing justice done. I wll report on any other information I get about this.
I hope this is only a first step to bringing accountability to these purveyors of global toxicity and death.The verdict as well as closing remarks will be given December 6, 3:30 PM Bangalore... more
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The largest producer of transgenic seeds in the world is leasing some of the best agricultural lands on the Island with a pattern of questionable legality, while receiving incentives from the Fortuño administration.
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When environmentalist Juan Rosario traveled to an Amish religious community in Iowa, to learn to make compost, he was surprised that they had a laboratory and the services of an expert in chemistry. What was a scientist doing in a place where people live far from technology and practice ecological farming with the simplest of methods?
An Amish dressed in their style, with a wide-brimmed black hat, white shirt, and black pants and black jacket, pointed toward a large cornfield on a nearby farm. "The scientist helps us verify that pollen from genetically modified corn does not contaminate our crops," he told Juan Rosario. "It's the same corn that you develop in Salinas."
Puerto Rico, laboratory for corn, sorghum, cotton and transgenic soybeans.
The island is hosting a reality that the government hides and sponsors: the island is an important center for eight companies, seven of them multinationals, that are developing the first generation of genetically modified seeds for distribution to United States and around the world. The strongholds of these corporations extend into public and private farms, especially in the best farmland along the island's southern coast, which in the last century was under the rule of His Majesty sugarcane, exalted by large landowners that sought to take over the land.
Most of these seed developers occupy more than the 500-acre limit that the Constitution of Puerto Rico allows, while receiving hefty government benefits and advantages under the Law to Promote and Develop Agricultural Biotechnology Companies of 2009, tailored to favor them.
Among them is the world's main transgenic seed developer, Monsanto, which leases about 1,500 acres of land between Juana Díaz, Santa Isabel, Isabela and Aguadilla. Of these acres, 500 are public property administered by the Land Authority, and the rest belongs mostly to the Succession Serrallés in several southern towns, confirmed Juan Santiago, the company's chief operating officer in Puerto Rico.
But having more than 500 acres is an apparent violation to the provisions of the Constitution of Puerto Rico, which prevents an agricultural corporation to own more than 500 acres. The purpose of Section 14 of Article VI was to prevent American landlords to come implement a monopoly and squeeze out the smaller local farmer.
New settlers
Are we facing a new colonization of agriculture? Is it the beginning of a new monopoly? "While Monsanto is leasing those lands, and although many of these lands are private, I believe they may be violating the Constitution because its intention was to prevent a single corporation from having control of more than 500 acres to dominate agriculture," says professor Carlos Ramos, specialist in the field and professor at the at Interamerican University Law School. "If this law no longer makes sense, let's open the debate. The intent of the law is as valid today as in the 1900's. The Justice Secretary is required to enforce the Constitution and must act."
The events of the agricultural history are repeating themselves. As was the case with some sugar corporations over the past century, one of these companies, Monsanto, changes names to access more land than allowed by law, said a source at the Center for Investigative Journalism. So this media outlet went to the corporation registry at State Department to confirm this. Carlos Morales Figueroa, who was the vice president of the company at that time, incorporated Monsanto Caribe LLC in 2004 . Two years later, he incorporated Monsanto AG Products LLC.
What is this scheme about? "It was done to be able to lease more land ... They are both Monsanto. The two entities belong to the parent company," admitted Carlos Morales's successor, Juan Santiago. "I'd have to check the data, but Monsanto AG has not yet been a lease contract." However, a source told this media outlet that the other corporation also rents land in Juana Díaz.
Puerto Rico's Constitution also prohibits any member of an agricultural corporation to have an interest in a corporation of that nature. "That scheme, to create another company under another name makes the situation more dramatic. Now we have to see if the government takes a blind eye to the situation because they believe these people are creating jobs," said Carlos Ramos.
The government itself is putting the best land on a silver platter for the seed producers. A source at the Center for Investigative Journalism said that the Land Authority offers is offering them some 2,518 cuerdas (2,445 acres), about 8% of all publicly owned land in the south of the island. All of them occupy a combined 6,000 acres of public and private land all around the island, according to Juan Carlos Justiniano, who represents the seed producers as chairman of the Association of Agricultural Biotechnology Industry of Puerto Rico.
More at the linkThe largest producer of transgenic seeds in the world is leasing some of the best... more
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Martek Biosciences claims that its Life'sDHA and Life'sARA are non-GMO, but their patents reveal that their DHA and ARA are produced through the use of genetic engineering.
Hundreds of grocery items, including many certified "USDA Organic" infant formulas, baby foods and dairy products, contain Life'sDHA and Life'sARA.
Tell the National Organic Standards Board to Reject Martek's Petition for Life'sDHA and Life'sARA!
Take Action Now!
In 2009, a front page Washington Post article, "Integrity of Federal 'Organic' Label Questioned." explained how Martek Biosciences' synthetic DHA and ARA ended up in organic infant formula. In 2006, National Organic Program staff told Martek that its synthetic DHA and ARA couldn't be used in organic because they were synthetic and not on the National List. But, Martek's lawyer, J. Friedman, was able to get their decision reversed by NOP director Barbara Robinson, with just a call and an email. He told the Washington Post, "I called Robinson up, I wrote an e-mail. It was a simple matter."
This might be how the 1% get things done in Washington, but it sure isn't legal!
The National Organic Program is trying to remedy this situation by requiring Martek to formally ask permission to use its DHA and AHA in organic.
But Martek's products should never have even been considered for use in organic in the first place. According to patents uncovered by the Cornucopia Institute, all of Martek's DHA and ARA products are produced through genetic engineering and processed with solvents like hexane, two things that are expressly banned from USDA Organic.
The Cornucopia Institute also found documents submitted by Martek to the FDA, in which the company claimed their DHA was just like Monsanto's. A Martek representative clarified that its DHA was not developed by Monsanto, but that Monsanto did briefly own the technology before it reverted back to Martek.
Martek's patents for Life'sDHA states: "includes mutant organisms" and "recombinant organisms", (a.k.a. GMOs!) The patents explain that the oil is "extracted readily with an effective amount of solvent … a preferred solvent is hexane."
The patent for Life'sARA states: "genetically-engineering microorganisms to produce increased amounts of arachidonic acid" and "extraction with solvents such as ... hexane."
Martek has many other patents for DHA and ARA. All of them include GMOs. GMOs and volatile synthetic solvents like hexane aren't allowed in USDA Organic products and ingredients. Tragically, Martek's Life'sDHA is already in hundreds of products, many of them certified USDA Organic.
Please demand that the National Organic Standards Board reject Martek's petition, and that the USDA National Organic Program inform the company that the illegal 2006 approval is rescinded and that their GMO, hexane-extracted Life'sDHA and Life'sARA are no longer allowed in organic products.
More at the linkMartek Biosciences claims that its Life'sDHA and Life'sARA are non-GMO, but... more
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Sister Valsa John wanted to go home. Living in self-imposed exile hundreds of kilometres away, she pined for the hut in an aboriginal village where she had built a life. She talked about the people she loved there, and the quiet of the nights. Then she added, in a voice both wistful and matter-of-fact: “If I go home, most probably they will kill me.”
They did kill her. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, a mob of 25 or 30 men carrying spears, clubs and axes burst into her house in Pachuwara, a remote village in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand. They beat and hacked her to death, a week after she went home.
The “they” Sister Valsa feared were “goons” hired by the mining companies she had helped the community of Pachuwara fight. The “coal mafia” told her on more than one occasion to get out of Pachuwara or they would kill her. She had repeatedly appealed to police for protection after threats on her life.
Sister Valsa, 52, was from Kerala in south India, and 24 years ago took her vows as a member of the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary. She was one of the remarkable breed of Indian religious figures who are grassroots social activists, who immerse themselves in the most marginalized and impoverished communities and work on literacy, basic health care and human rights. Sister Valsa said she did Jesus’s work by teaching the aboriginal people – known in India as adivasi or “tribals” – about their rights to their land.
The Santhal community with whom she lived for nearly two decades were pushed off their land seven years ago by a private coal company. It was a familiar story here. Across the tribal heartland of India there are hundreds of these battles being waged, between communities with little education and even fewer resources, and huge mining and industrial corporations whose investments are eagerly sought by India’s state and central governments for the jobs they create, the taxes they pay – and the opportunities for graft they offer.
Sister Valsa helped organize the Santhal to demand compensation for their land; she was arrested at a protest in 2007. The company, Panem Coal Ltd., was eventually forced into a compensation agreement, and began to dig an open-cast coal mine, but didn’t meet all the terms of the deal. So when it moved to expand on to new Santhal land this year, Sister Valsa and her Santhal supporters dug in to stop them – and that is when the threats turned really ugly.
This past summer, Sister Valsa reluctantly left Pachuwara and took refuge with a friend, a fellow activist nun, at a school for low-caste girls in Bihar where I have been spending time on a project for the Globe. She fit easily into life there, gently shepherding the girls through their day, but she spent hours talking to me about “my people” and the war for land and resources going on in the tribal belt.
A few of these stories have attracted considerable attention, in India and beyond its borders, such as efforts by Vedanta Resources to build a bauxite mine on a mountain considered a god by the Dongri tribal people in the state of Orissa. But most of these fights go on, as Sister Valsa’s did, almost entirely unremarked.
snip
Inspector R. K. Mallick, the senior police official in the region, told The Globe and Mail it was too soon to discuss the investigation, but that police would soon have “the clear picture.” No arrests had yet been made. He would not entertain the question of whether police could have done more to protect Sister Valsa while she was alive. Three years ago, she filed a formal notice with police about the death threats.
Sister Sudha, who attended the funeral Thursday, said most who knew Sister Valsa believe it was people from the Santhal community, in the pay of the mining company, who killed her. “This is what the companies do: they divide people. When people are this poor, when someone gives them a little money, they can do anything,” she said. “Valsa knew it, and so many times we asked her to leave. But she said, ‘These are my people and I cannot leave them.’ ”
More at the linkSister Valsa John wanted to go home. Living in self-imposed exile hundreds of... more
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Take Action: http://immigrantsforsale.org
Discuss: http://facebook.com/cuentame
Correction Corporation of America's Stewart facility in Lumpkin, Georgia is the largest private detention center in the nation. Stewart currently profits close to $50 million a year.
CCA charges inmates close to $5 a minute to make a phone call. To pay for this inmates work in the facility and earn a whopping $1 a day. 5 days of work gives them enough for a one minute phone call.
Take action and demand Stewart be shut down: immigrantsforsale.org
CCA's greed knows no boundaries. In the past few years they have spent $14.8 million lobbying for more anti-immigration laws, like HB87 in Georgia, to ensure they have continuous access to fresh inmates and keep this money racket going. It's time to put an end to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81dch5uQs7MTake Action: http://immigrantsforsale.org
Discuss:... more
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green washing with water... same ol same ol
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Washington Water Power, now known as Avista, has been in the Spokane area since the late 1800’s. It has grown a lot since then.
Are you outraged that Washington Water Power, now known as Avista, has been in the Spokane area since the late 1800’s. It has grown a lot since then.
Are you outraged that Avista, which is basically a monopoly, is allowed to pay their executives anywhere near these amounts below. Avista has no risk, run a monopoly, are protected by the state and have little concern with what the rates are doing to a lot of people in their area.
What the heck is wrong with the board of directors?
Why is Avista allowed to be a monopoly!?!?
We have people in Spokane having to make the decision of either paying the Avista bill or food and medicine.
Avista Corp. Chairman and CEO Scott Morris earned $3.25million in total compensation last year.
Executive Salary Compensation
Scott Morris (chairman, CEO) $3,245,967
Mark Thies (senior VP) $854,760
Dennis Vermillion (senior VP) $966,337
Marian Durkin (senior VP) $830,451
Karen Feltes (senior VP) $864,018
We Demand City Hall to un-do the ban on Wind Powered Generators that Avista's monopoly has created. We need freedom of choice and the power to have power!
This is not about the good hard-working people of Avista which is the majority of the working population there what I'm concerned about is how much profit did Avista make last year and how much did they give back to its community directly? this movement is about the greedy corporate CEO in the greedy piggish executives. Not about the hard-working people who are employed by this AND ALL monster monopoly's!
http://youtu.be/XronQdUjsa0Washington Water Power, now known as Avista, has been in the Spokane area since the... more
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The corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 35%, but there aren't many companies that end up paying that amount. According to a study by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the average tax rate of 280 S&P 500 companies investigated was 18.5% between 2008 and 2010.
Over 70 companies paid no taxes at all.
And then there were the 30 companies that paid less than nothing — we have those for you here.
But first, here's how they get away with it (from the report):
1. Accelerated depreciation: "The tax laws generally allow companies to write off their capital investments considerably faster than the assets actually wear out. This “accelerated depreciation” is technically a tax deferral, but so long as a company continues to invest, the tax deferral tends to be indefinite."
2. Stock options: Most big corporations give their executives (and sometimes other employees) options to buy the company’s stock at a favorable price in the future. When those options are exercised, companies can take a tax deduction for the difference between what the employees pay for the stock and what it’s worth (while employees report this difference as taxable wages). Paying executives with options took off in the mid-1990s, in part because this kind of compensation was exempt from a law enacted in 1993 that tried to reduce income inequality by limiting corporate deductions for executive pay to $1 million per executive.
3. Industry-specific tax breaks. The federal tax code also provides tax subsidies to companies that engage in certain activities.
4.Offshore tax sheltering: Over the past decade or so, corporations and their accounting firms have become increasingly aggressive in seeking ways to shift their U.S. profits, on paper, into offshore tax havens, in order to avoid their U.S. tax obligations.
It's also worth pointing out two things: 2008-2009 were strange, anomalous years in corporate history due to the severity of the crisis AND these companies will all counter and say they paid tons of taxes that weren't necessarily income taxes.
So we must ask ourselves; are we going broke because of a spending problem or because of reduced revenue?
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-30-american-companies-that-paid-less-than-zero-income-tax-from-2008-2010-2011-11?op=1The corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 35%, but there aren't many companies that... more
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KB723
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added this
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7 months ago
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Los Angeles Times...
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BP wins approval for new deep-water drilling in Gulf of Mexico
October 26, 2011 | 12:05 pm
BP
BP won approval from the Interior Department to drill its first exploratory oil well in the Gulf of Mexico since the blowout of its Macondo well a year and a half ago touched off the country’s worst offshore environmental disaster.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said that BP met more stringent safety requirements devised by the federal government in the aftermath of the disaster. The company also planned to follow even tougher voluntary standards that exceeded the government’s rules.
“This permit was approved only after thorough well design, blowout preventer, and containment capability reviews,” said bureau director Michael R. Bromwich.
At more than 6,000 feet, the proposed well would be in deeper water than the Macondo well. It is part of the company’s Kaskida prospect located in an area called the Keathley canyon about 250 miles south of Lafayette, La. The company submitted the application to drill in January.
Cleanup of gulf waters continues in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the sea over several months.
Last week, the Interior Department granted approval to a broader exploration plan from BP for the Kaskida prospect based on its adherence to the agency’s new rules.
Environmentalists have said that the new regulatory agency, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, is better than its predecessor, the Minerals Management Service, which had exercised uneven, sometimes lax oversight of offshore energy projects, investigations showed.
But they argue that more work needs to be done to improve offshore drilling safety, including a redesign of blowout preventers and modernization of cleanup procedures.
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Photo: BP corporagte logo. Credit: Oli Scarff / Getty ImagesLos Angeles Times...
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BP wins approval for new deep-water drilling in Gulf of... more
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My home town ain't no town,
it ain't no home....
banker came and took away
everything we never got the chance to own
Sell your soul banker man
but you won't ever rob me of mine,
sell your soul banker man
now I know there's some things worse than dying...
My home town ain't no home,
it ain't no town
my home town is out on loan
every inch of solid ground
Sell your soul banker man
don't look back
now don't you ever look around
sell your soul banker man
in for a penny
you might as well be in for a pound
My home town ain't no town,
it ain't no home
banker came and took away everything
we never got the chance to own
sell your soul banker man
take your place in the great downsize
sell your soul banker man
ain't no face not filled with lies
Sell your soul banker man
but you won't ever rob me of mine
sell your soul banker man
wonder how you can sleep at night
sell your soul banker man
but you won't ever rob me of mine
sell your soul banker man
now I know there's some things
worse than dying
Sell your soul banker man
but you won't ever rob me of mine...
My home town ain't no town,
it ain't no home...My home town ain't no town,
it ain't no home....
banker came and took away... more
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(well... parts of the world). A tale of cloning gone wrong, corporate greed, and the price of non-conformity. And, oh yes...murder.
http://youtu.be/TU2-O4nWdXk(well... parts of the world). A tale of cloning gone wrong, corporate greed, and the... more
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the UN ain't are friend we need a democratic UN that is not run by multi-national corporations like Nestle. The UN is helping these mega monsters to take owner ship of water... what next air?the UN ain't are friend we need a democratic UN that is not run by multi-national... more
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Scientific study confirms what many believe - that a small group of companies have disproportionate power over the global economy.Scientific study confirms what many believe - that a small group of companies have... more
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This article is in support of the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Pictures of these uncomfortable Americans withstanding the elements to support a worthy cause are heartwarming. Most Americans have only respect and admiration for their efforts and sacrifices. We must all fully support them.
Occupy Wall Street protesters have been interviewed and responded with different types of complaints against our government and U S Corporations. Although they each have a different response, they all know something is very wrong with our nation. They are all fighting the same enemy below that is destroying our nation - Corporate Persona Hood Case Law. These laws have given corporations the same rights as citizens. This article is intended to make the intrepid protesters' aware of their common enemy to offer a uniform issue.
Our founder's intent was to form a government to eliminate tyranny and the caste based society of Lords and peasants. Protesters are fully aware that Americans are more like peasants, pleading for a job at any rate of pay. The middle class is being systematically eradicated, creating either the rich or the poor. This is common knowledge and the protesters don't like slavery anymore than our brave founders. This is just the beginning and their intent is to eliminate the U S Constitution and all of our rights, which is getting in the way of their profits.
Admire the wise words of Thomas Jefferson below that predicted our nation could be reduced to tyranny by our own government. Corporate Persona Hood case law is a cancer to our nation that continues to grow. As you look below you will see his words come to life as case law decisions from 1819 thru 2010, have slowly perverted our nation into Tyranny.
"Experience has shown that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."
Thomas Jefferson
Significant U.S. Court Cases in the Evolution of
Corporate Personhood / Commercial Free Speech
•Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)
Corporate charters are ruled to have constitutional protection.
•Munn v. State of Illinois (1876)
Property cannot be used to unduly expropriate wealth from a community (later reversed).
•Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886)
•Noble v. Union River Logging Railroad Company (1893)
A corporation first successfully claims Bill of Rights protection (5th Amendment)
•Lochner v. New York (1905)
•Liggett v. Lee (1933)
Chain store taxes prohibited as violation of corporations' "due process" rights.
•Ross v. Bernhard (1970)
7th Amendment right (jury trial) granted to corporations.
•U.S. v. Martin Linen Supply (1976)
A corporation successfully claims 5th Amendment protection against double jeopardy.
•Marshall v. Barlow (1978)
The Court creates 4th Amendment protection for corporations
•First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978)
•Central Hudson Gas v. Public Service Comm. of NY (1980)
This oft-cited decision concerns a state ban on ads promoting electricity consumption.
•Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990)
Upheld limits on corporate spending in elections.
•Nike v Kasky (2002)
•Randall v Sorrell (2006) While this case dealt with the legality of Vermont's contribution limits, not corporations directly, it carried important implications for corporate political influence,
•Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (2010). In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court overrules Austin and a century of federal legislative precedent to proclaim broad electioneering rights for corporations.
SOURCE
ReclaimingDemocracy.org, (2009), Corporate Personhood,http://reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/
Ironically, and to a great surprise our founding Fathers would have never guessed, our Great Nation and the U S Constitution has been destroyed by the U S Supreme Court of the Judicial Branch and not by the Executive and Legislative Branch, although they are now very much contributing to this end. They achieved this by passing corporate persona hood case law granting corporations the same rights as a citizen. Our founding Fathers stated to preserve the Life Liberty and Property of WE THE PEOPLE and that is what they intended. They fiercely opposed the Tories [Multinational Corporations] because they were a danger to the rights of WE THE PEOPLE. Congressmen and Judges used to be Honorable, unbiased and fiercely guarded the Constitutional rights of the people. However, now that the courts granted corporations so much rights, it has put a split between the Judges where they are either biased for or against the RIGHTS of WE THE PEOPLE - which is in direct contradiction to the intentions of the U S Constitution and our founding Fathers - making this case law Un-Constitutional. It is sad that the court of last resort especially designed to guard the U S Constitution and all of the sacred rights it contains - is the very institution that destroyed our Great Nation.
Powerful Corporations now control our politicians at the federal, state and county level. The rights of the people are being ignored. The statistics below prove it.
One of the problems that alarm me the most is that about 1 of every 300 children born in the U.S. are born autistic. The CDC is investigating this matter now because nobody knows why. I believe it may have to do with chemicals and medication that are filtering down through our genes and chromosomes.
25% of hospitalizations in the U.S. are caused from adverse reactions from medications. The Tories have infiltrated the FDA and pharmaceutical company representatives sit at the same decision making table as the FDA when approving drugs. We have medications that make us see blue, go blind, kill others or ourselves or die of heart attacks.
Our government is allowing companies to kill us. An employee at A&M University came home to find his two beloved birds dead and bleeding. They were located near his kitchen. Turns out they died of cancer from Teflon pans made by Dupont. Dupont has known that this Teflon substance causes harmful odors. The EPA praises itself for phasing out Teflon pans by the year 2015?
The U S Congress eradicated the The Glass-Steagall Act which was enacted during the first Depression primarily due to corporate and government corruption which critically wounded our Nation. These entrusted men effectively destroyed our nation by repealing this Glass-Steagall Act. It led to the largest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind financially devastating our banking system and fleecing the pockets of every American citizen. They repealed this law due to heavy financial persuasion from the corporate giants of Wall Street. This was also caused by the U S Supreme Court passing corporate persona hood case law enabling Congressmen to guard the rights of these corrupt corporations to destroy the rights of We The People.
We have over 10% unemployment, largest national debt ever, immense national trade deficit and the list goes on how our Great Nation is being destroyed. This is all due to corporate persona hood case law. I can continue with many serious problems facing our Nation. Our government is becoming a puppet for American business and the needs and wants of the people are being ignored.
Your enemy is Corporate Persona Hood case law. Congress didn't alter the U S Constitution granting these rights to corporations – our “Honorable” Judges did. Every American should be protesting these laws around every courthouse in the nation. Abide by the law and never give up.
Historically courts respect the Preamble of the U S Constitution and their duty to preserve tranquility. All of the great changes made in our nation such as the civil rights movement were accomplished with protesting. Your voices are being heard and the courts will act thereon if you continue with your legal right to peaceful protests.This article is in support of the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Pictures of these... more
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