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Friday, October 22, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Rigor of Research and Fundamental Monetary Change
Greg Coleridge, Director, Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee
American Monetary Institution Conference, October 1. 2010, Chicago, Illinois
Today is not simply the first full day of this conference. It’s also, October 1, the first full day of our nation’s fiscal year. Our country begins today with a fresh budget, a clean slate, a new plan that seeks to match our fiscal blueprint with our social and economic needs. At least that’s what’s supposed to happen. Many years, including this one, there is no federal budget that Congress and President have agreed to by October 1.
Nevertheless, today is as good a day as any to (re)commit ourselves to view our government and economy with fresh eyes and an inquisitive mind. When it comes to economic matters, this includes not simply looking differently at our federal budget policies and federal tax policies but also our federal monetary policies.
For probably everyone is this room, this makes absolutely perfect sense. Budget, tax and monetary issues go hand in hand. Understanding our nation’s politics and economy are directly linked. Seeing the connections between wars and the power, or lack thereof, to directly create or control money by We the People are a given.
But that’s not true for the majority of people in this country. Monetary issues are foreign, alien, cosmic – on the same level of familiarity as understanding the nebulas of the universe. What exactly is money? How is it created? What purposes does it serve? Who controls the monetary spigot? And how does it profoundly impact virtually every other element of our economy, nation and world?
If aware of monetary issues at all, these are questions people ask.
That’s how it was for me. I’m relatively new to this field. I never learned about monetary issues in school, never heard or read about it in the “mainstream” news, never debated whether or how to organize around it in activist organizations over the 25 years of social change organizing.
But then I discovered it. I read. And read some more – including the Lost Science of Money -- twice. I organized others to study and discuss. I helped organize Steve Zarlenga to come to Cleveland to conduct a workshop. We organized delegations to meet with aides to our two US Senators and three area US Representatives – encouraging them to read, study and co-sponsor the American Monetary Act. We’ve shown and continue to show the film Money as Debt. But it’s only the beginning. We’re all only at the start of what needs to happen to bring fundamental change – to democratize our society, including democratizing our money. This is our quest – part of what needs to be our life’s work.
It all begins at the beginning – with study and research – rigorous study. The Lost Science of Money is the single best example produced on monetary issues.
Rigor is the operative word. It means taking the time to widely, deeply, exactly and precisely examine a topic. It’s what I learned from those who launched the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD), which nearly 20 years ago began as a group of frustrated activists who were tired of constantly reacting and responding to one corporate assault at a time and decided to step back and examine the state of social change organizing. POCLAD instigates democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Their analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking and working with organization to develop new strategies that assert people’s rights over property interests.
POCLAD began focused on historical and legal research and study on the nature of the corporate form. I became involved a few years after its start.
POCLAD was among the first organized groups to deeply examine the issue of corporate rights. What they discovered was the American Revolution was waged against not simply against the King of England and his Army, but also his Crown Corporations – the Massachusetts Bay Co, the Carolina Co, the Plymouth Co, the Virginia Co and others. Corporations were originally subordinate to the public and their elected representatives. Corporate charters were democratic instruments used to define, not regulate, corporate actions. Legislatures and courts controlled by Democrats and Republicans dissolved corporations that acted in ways not defined in their charters, or licenses. The ability of corporations today to do what they want, where they want, when they want was never intended by our nation’s founders. Corporate behavior not a given. It’s not like gravity or some other law of physics. It can be changed.
POCLAD injected the concept of “corporate personhood” into our culture. They cautioned against the distractions of spending too much time reacting to this or that boycott, pleading with corporate executives to sign voluntary codes of conduct, or working legislatively to slightly reduce the amount of poison permitted in our air or water. Changing constitutional and legal governing rules was more important than changing political faces, political parties, or laws regulating corporate harm. The right to decide and the right to rule by human persons were paramount. The Bill of Rights were intended for people, not corporations -- which are no more than a bunch of legal documents.
As it dug deeper and reflected on what it learned, POCLAD realized the core issue was not corporate power, but our lack of power – our disempowerment. It was about overcoming the “colonialization of our own minds” – that is, that our history and culture limited what was considered possible, practical, and achievable. Gaining and retaining real self-governance should be our ultimate quest. Finally, POCLAD believed that rigorous study and research on this issue was the single most important “action” that needed to be taken -- given the lack of understanding of these issues, including among social change activists. Helping activists reframe strategies and campaigns to address core causes could only happen if corporate constitutional rights was first dissected.
POCLAD produced a definitive work, Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy (an equivalent of sorts to the Lost Science of Money on corporate rights) and other books; a newsletter, By What Authority; and held “Rethinking the Corporation, Rethinking Democracy” workshops across the country.
These messages and lessons from my involvement with POCLAD over the last dozen years is the lens I look through when reflecting on the importance of rigorous study and research today on monetary issues as the essential first step of real social change.
Why begin with rigorous research and study? Six reasons.
1. To know history. We must know what’s worked and what hasn’t; who are our past heroes and sheroes; and what lessons can be applied today. We must know what Aristotle said about money existing not by nature but by law. We must know that We the People actually issued our own money (Continental and Greenbacks) – and that they were effective. We must know how the moneymaking powers became privatized or corporatized in our nation and across the world. And we must know how money backed by precious metals in the past have caused recessions/depressions and placed monetary authority in the hands of bankers and those outside our nation.
2. To understand how monetary issues are connected to other issues. The privatization/corporatization of money is not an abstract issue. It’s connected to our national debt and deficit through the interest incurred from having to borrow money that could be publicly created. It’s associated with taxes, as borrowed money must be paid back with interest. It’s linked to wars and occupations as financial interests have encouraged nations to borrow money to wage wars which create economic dependency. It’s related to the environmental crisis, as natural resources must be exploited to generate the income to pay for the exponential debt that corporatized debt money creates. And it’s connected to jobs, education, health care and infrastructure as government issued democratic money could be issued debt and inflation free if spent on meeting real social and economic needs. This is especially timely since tomorrow hundreds of thousands of people will be rallying in DC calling for jobs and education. Nowhere in the list of One Nation Coming Together demands is there a call for the issuance of debt and inflation free government issued democratic money.
3. To learn what’s happening elsewhere. The corporatization of money has caused economic havoc in nations the world over – from Latvia to Brazil to Iceland to Greece to dozens of others. This has resulted in resistance and alternatives – including resistance to the IMF/World Bank in many nations and the recent alliance of Latin American Countries (ALBA), which launched earlier this year a regional electronic currency - the Sucre. Exciting positive developments are occurring in the US as well -- a case in point being the national Green Party’s Monetary Reform Plank.
4. To avoid becoming distracted by “reforms” which fail to address the core problem. Why Lake Erie, a few miles from where I live, is the most dangerous of the Great Lakes because of its shallowness. Lack of depth on any issue makes one highly susceptible to the latest diversionary “reform” winds that can easy lead one off course. The entire debate around congressional banking reform siphoned off tremendous energy for what in the end turned out to be pathetic legislation that will further consolidate financial institutions and permits the continuation of derivatives and other form of casino financial speculation. Critically important campaigns connected to the effects of corporatization of money, such as working to extending unemployment insurance, placing a moratorium on home foreclosures and addressing the climate crisis, are nevertheless campaigns that focus on saving those who are drowning downstream rather than preventing people from being thrown into the water upstream. Those who promote other forms of financial reform, such as auditing the Federal Reserve, state owned banks and local financial alternatives are also diversionary. There, of course, there are elections, the greatest sinkhole of activist time, energy and resources, where changing faces is often presented as the surest approach to changing fundamental structures and rules.
5. To know how to respond to arguments. Any widespread call to democratize money will result in a plutocratic pushback of epic proportions. Arguments against fiat money have gone on for centuries and have been well chronicled in the Lost Science of Money. Only those who are well grounded from research and study will be inoculated to withstand the intellectual germs from those who claim:
- Government is incompetent, corrupt, inefficient, can’t be trusted, all of the above
- There no historical successes of democratic money
- The Federal Reserve is a government institution
- Banks know what they’re doing – let them be in charge
- The only honest money is money backed by gold or silver
- Let the economists and the invisible hand of market take solve our financial problems.
6. To develop a reservoir of knowledge needed to intelligently create campaigns, strategies and tactics. While research and study are a beginning, they aren’t the ends. Our eye on the prize is the democratization of money and by extension the democratization of our society. That can only happen after we have a firm foundation of the theories, experiences, issues and practitioners. When well grounded, we can then be in a better position to explore how one-at-a-time issues, like the current jobs crisis or climate change or the home foreclosure epidemic can be used as stepping stones to build our cause for fundamental change. We can also better consider how efforts to audit the Fed and local currencies might be complementary rather than competitive strategies in the quest to pass the American Monetary Act. Ultimately, we must popularize this issue if it’s ever going to go viral. This can’t happen unless we develop culturally appropriate educational tools and connect what seems to be an abstract issue to everyday problems.
These are then the main reasons why study and action of monetary issues is critical.
In conclusion, when and where social change movements throughout history have been successful have been when and where at last two characteristics have been present. The first is where people engage in what can be called a deliberate “action-reflection” process – where people in community reflect on their condition, where they’ve come from, who they are, who they want to be, what they want to do. This reflection drives their actions, which, in turn, provides experiences to circle back to reflect on what worked and what needs to be tried next. This action-reflection-action-reflection process never stops. The Christian base communities of Central and South America are maybe the most familiar examples to us that led to a number of revolutionary social and political liberation movements.
The second characteristic of successful social movements is the dual strategies of social change and social service organized by the same people and groups. Gandhians understand this concept well. It means to work on changing macro structures, laws, rules and institutions at the same time as working on creating local or parallel structures that show what can be done if people were in charge. Argentineans call this “horizontalism.” These local or parallel structures serve important meeting social needs, recruitment, publicity, and experimentation purposes. Calling for fundamental structural changes gains credibility and constituents if we’re working to address short term needs through grassroots and democratic monetary projects and groups.
I raise these two characteristics because I feel the drive for profound monetary change, for the democratization of money, has plenty of constructive room for macro action strategies and for micro complementary monetary projects that when added together will create a social movement for real change.
Henry David Thoreau wrote: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to every one striking at the root."
May our collective work on monetary issues during this new fiscal year and beyond -- of rigorous study and research, of action, of macro and micro, be focused not on branches, but on roots.
American Monetary Institution Conference, October 1. 2010, Chicago, Illinois
Today is not simply the first full day of this conference. It’s also, October 1, the first full day of our nation’s fiscal year. Our country begins today with a fresh budget, a clean slate, a new plan that seeks to match our fiscal blueprint with our social and economic needs. At least that’s what’s supposed to happen. Many years, including this one, there is no federal budget that Congress and President have agreed to by October 1.
Nevertheless, today is as good a day as any to (re)commit ourselves to view our government and economy with fresh eyes and an inquisitive mind. When it comes to economic matters, this includes not simply looking differently at our federal budget policies and federal tax policies but also our federal monetary policies.
For probably everyone is this room, this makes absolutely perfect sense. Budget, tax and monetary issues go hand in hand. Understanding our nation’s politics and economy are directly linked. Seeing the connections between wars and the power, or lack thereof, to directly create or control money by We the People are a given.
But that’s not true for the majority of people in this country. Monetary issues are foreign, alien, cosmic – on the same level of familiarity as understanding the nebulas of the universe. What exactly is money? How is it created? What purposes does it serve? Who controls the monetary spigot? And how does it profoundly impact virtually every other element of our economy, nation and world?
If aware of monetary issues at all, these are questions people ask.
That’s how it was for me. I’m relatively new to this field. I never learned about monetary issues in school, never heard or read about it in the “mainstream” news, never debated whether or how to organize around it in activist organizations over the 25 years of social change organizing.
But then I discovered it. I read. And read some more – including the Lost Science of Money -- twice. I organized others to study and discuss. I helped organize Steve Zarlenga to come to Cleveland to conduct a workshop. We organized delegations to meet with aides to our two US Senators and three area US Representatives – encouraging them to read, study and co-sponsor the American Monetary Act. We’ve shown and continue to show the film Money as Debt. But it’s only the beginning. We’re all only at the start of what needs to happen to bring fundamental change – to democratize our society, including democratizing our money. This is our quest – part of what needs to be our life’s work.
It all begins at the beginning – with study and research – rigorous study. The Lost Science of Money is the single best example produced on monetary issues.
Rigor is the operative word. It means taking the time to widely, deeply, exactly and precisely examine a topic. It’s what I learned from those who launched the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD), which nearly 20 years ago began as a group of frustrated activists who were tired of constantly reacting and responding to one corporate assault at a time and decided to step back and examine the state of social change organizing. POCLAD instigates democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern. Their analysis evolves through historical and legal research, writing, public speaking and working with organization to develop new strategies that assert people’s rights over property interests.
POCLAD began focused on historical and legal research and study on the nature of the corporate form. I became involved a few years after its start.
POCLAD was among the first organized groups to deeply examine the issue of corporate rights. What they discovered was the American Revolution was waged against not simply against the King of England and his Army, but also his Crown Corporations – the Massachusetts Bay Co, the Carolina Co, the Plymouth Co, the Virginia Co and others. Corporations were originally subordinate to the public and their elected representatives. Corporate charters were democratic instruments used to define, not regulate, corporate actions. Legislatures and courts controlled by Democrats and Republicans dissolved corporations that acted in ways not defined in their charters, or licenses. The ability of corporations today to do what they want, where they want, when they want was never intended by our nation’s founders. Corporate behavior not a given. It’s not like gravity or some other law of physics. It can be changed.
POCLAD injected the concept of “corporate personhood” into our culture. They cautioned against the distractions of spending too much time reacting to this or that boycott, pleading with corporate executives to sign voluntary codes of conduct, or working legislatively to slightly reduce the amount of poison permitted in our air or water. Changing constitutional and legal governing rules was more important than changing political faces, political parties, or laws regulating corporate harm. The right to decide and the right to rule by human persons were paramount. The Bill of Rights were intended for people, not corporations -- which are no more than a bunch of legal documents.
As it dug deeper and reflected on what it learned, POCLAD realized the core issue was not corporate power, but our lack of power – our disempowerment. It was about overcoming the “colonialization of our own minds” – that is, that our history and culture limited what was considered possible, practical, and achievable. Gaining and retaining real self-governance should be our ultimate quest. Finally, POCLAD believed that rigorous study and research on this issue was the single most important “action” that needed to be taken -- given the lack of understanding of these issues, including among social change activists. Helping activists reframe strategies and campaigns to address core causes could only happen if corporate constitutional rights was first dissected.
POCLAD produced a definitive work, Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy (an equivalent of sorts to the Lost Science of Money on corporate rights) and other books; a newsletter, By What Authority; and held “Rethinking the Corporation, Rethinking Democracy” workshops across the country.
These messages and lessons from my involvement with POCLAD over the last dozen years is the lens I look through when reflecting on the importance of rigorous study and research today on monetary issues as the essential first step of real social change.
Why begin with rigorous research and study? Six reasons.
1. To know history. We must know what’s worked and what hasn’t; who are our past heroes and sheroes; and what lessons can be applied today. We must know what Aristotle said about money existing not by nature but by law. We must know that We the People actually issued our own money (Continental and Greenbacks) – and that they were effective. We must know how the moneymaking powers became privatized or corporatized in our nation and across the world. And we must know how money backed by precious metals in the past have caused recessions/depressions and placed monetary authority in the hands of bankers and those outside our nation.
2. To understand how monetary issues are connected to other issues. The privatization/corporatization of money is not an abstract issue. It’s connected to our national debt and deficit through the interest incurred from having to borrow money that could be publicly created. It’s associated with taxes, as borrowed money must be paid back with interest. It’s linked to wars and occupations as financial interests have encouraged nations to borrow money to wage wars which create economic dependency. It’s related to the environmental crisis, as natural resources must be exploited to generate the income to pay for the exponential debt that corporatized debt money creates. And it’s connected to jobs, education, health care and infrastructure as government issued democratic money could be issued debt and inflation free if spent on meeting real social and economic needs. This is especially timely since tomorrow hundreds of thousands of people will be rallying in DC calling for jobs and education. Nowhere in the list of One Nation Coming Together demands is there a call for the issuance of debt and inflation free government issued democratic money.
3. To learn what’s happening elsewhere. The corporatization of money has caused economic havoc in nations the world over – from Latvia to Brazil to Iceland to Greece to dozens of others. This has resulted in resistance and alternatives – including resistance to the IMF/World Bank in many nations and the recent alliance of Latin American Countries (ALBA), which launched earlier this year a regional electronic currency - the Sucre. Exciting positive developments are occurring in the US as well -- a case in point being the national Green Party’s Monetary Reform Plank.
4. To avoid becoming distracted by “reforms” which fail to address the core problem. Why Lake Erie, a few miles from where I live, is the most dangerous of the Great Lakes because of its shallowness. Lack of depth on any issue makes one highly susceptible to the latest diversionary “reform” winds that can easy lead one off course. The entire debate around congressional banking reform siphoned off tremendous energy for what in the end turned out to be pathetic legislation that will further consolidate financial institutions and permits the continuation of derivatives and other form of casino financial speculation. Critically important campaigns connected to the effects of corporatization of money, such as working to extending unemployment insurance, placing a moratorium on home foreclosures and addressing the climate crisis, are nevertheless campaigns that focus on saving those who are drowning downstream rather than preventing people from being thrown into the water upstream. Those who promote other forms of financial reform, such as auditing the Federal Reserve, state owned banks and local financial alternatives are also diversionary. There, of course, there are elections, the greatest sinkhole of activist time, energy and resources, where changing faces is often presented as the surest approach to changing fundamental structures and rules.
5. To know how to respond to arguments. Any widespread call to democratize money will result in a plutocratic pushback of epic proportions. Arguments against fiat money have gone on for centuries and have been well chronicled in the Lost Science of Money. Only those who are well grounded from research and study will be inoculated to withstand the intellectual germs from those who claim:
- Government is incompetent, corrupt, inefficient, can’t be trusted, all of the above
- There no historical successes of democratic money
- The Federal Reserve is a government institution
- Banks know what they’re doing – let them be in charge
- The only honest money is money backed by gold or silver
- Let the economists and the invisible hand of market take solve our financial problems.
6. To develop a reservoir of knowledge needed to intelligently create campaigns, strategies and tactics. While research and study are a beginning, they aren’t the ends. Our eye on the prize is the democratization of money and by extension the democratization of our society. That can only happen after we have a firm foundation of the theories, experiences, issues and practitioners. When well grounded, we can then be in a better position to explore how one-at-a-time issues, like the current jobs crisis or climate change or the home foreclosure epidemic can be used as stepping stones to build our cause for fundamental change. We can also better consider how efforts to audit the Fed and local currencies might be complementary rather than competitive strategies in the quest to pass the American Monetary Act. Ultimately, we must popularize this issue if it’s ever going to go viral. This can’t happen unless we develop culturally appropriate educational tools and connect what seems to be an abstract issue to everyday problems.
These are then the main reasons why study and action of monetary issues is critical.
In conclusion, when and where social change movements throughout history have been successful have been when and where at last two characteristics have been present. The first is where people engage in what can be called a deliberate “action-reflection” process – where people in community reflect on their condition, where they’ve come from, who they are, who they want to be, what they want to do. This reflection drives their actions, which, in turn, provides experiences to circle back to reflect on what worked and what needs to be tried next. This action-reflection-action-reflection process never stops. The Christian base communities of Central and South America are maybe the most familiar examples to us that led to a number of revolutionary social and political liberation movements.
The second characteristic of successful social movements is the dual strategies of social change and social service organized by the same people and groups. Gandhians understand this concept well. It means to work on changing macro structures, laws, rules and institutions at the same time as working on creating local or parallel structures that show what can be done if people were in charge. Argentineans call this “horizontalism.” These local or parallel structures serve important meeting social needs, recruitment, publicity, and experimentation purposes. Calling for fundamental structural changes gains credibility and constituents if we’re working to address short term needs through grassroots and democratic monetary projects and groups.
I raise these two characteristics because I feel the drive for profound monetary change, for the democratization of money, has plenty of constructive room for macro action strategies and for micro complementary monetary projects that when added together will create a social movement for real change.
Henry David Thoreau wrote: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to every one striking at the root."
May our collective work on monetary issues during this new fiscal year and beyond -- of rigorous study and research, of action, of macro and micro, be focused not on branches, but on roots.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Want Real Democracy? Abolish Corporate Personhood.
by Greg Coleridge
OHIO NOW TIMES
Published Yearly by Ohio National Organization for Women
FALL 2010 ISSUE / Editor: Diane Dodge
Disenchantment of public officials spans the political spectrum. More people are frustrated that public officials, from their city councilperson to the President of the United States, don't do what they promise and don't represent them. If this is true, then who do public officials represent? The very wealthy? Absolutely. But also business corporations.
Corporations were created historically by the government via a license or charter to provide goods or services. As a creation of the state, they had no rights, only privileges. The State can revoke a corporate charter if it doesn't follow its terms. They were not equal to persons, but subordinate to them. They were not supposed to rule people. But, that's not how it is.
For the last 124 years, corporations have possessed constitutional rights that have empowered them to rule.
The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 earlier this year to expand first amendment constitutional rights to business corporations. The Court decided in Citizens United vs Federal Elections Commission that business corporations didn't possess sufficient political influence, that the political "voices" of corporations weren't loud enough and that corporations need to have greater political power. Citizens United permits business corporations to take money directly from their treasuries and spend it on "independent" political educational campaigns to elect or unelect candidates.
Corporations are not human and possess no human traits. They have no inalienable rights. They shouldn't have constitutional rights.
The bizarre notion that corporations, nothing more than a pile of legal documents, should possess the same constitutional rights, including the Bill of Rights protections, as people began in 1886 in Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific Railroad when corporations were bestowed with 14th amendment equal protection rights.
This was the same constitutional amendment passed in 1868 to provide freed black slaves constitutional rights. Curiously, in 1874 when women argued before the Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett that their right to vote could not be denied based on the 14th amendment, the Court rejected the argument stating the amendment only applied to black males.
"We the People" are supposed to be free, or sovereign. We're supposed to be in control of the government. Governments are not supposed to do anything without the people's consent. As corporations have gained the legal status of persons, they've accumulated rights and become rulers. They increasingly tell the government and We the People what to do.
It wasn't meant to be this way. A national and state movement has been launched to amend the constitution and abolish corporate personhood. MovetoAmend.org has collected over 80,000 signatures of people who are ready to join the modern day movement for self-governance by We the People.
What could change if corporate personhood was abolished? The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILFP) in a flyer "What Would it Mean to End Corporate Rule" lists: 1) Prohibit all political activity by corporations 2) Prevent corporate mergers and prohibit corporations from owning stock in other corporations 3) Inspect for environmental or health violations without a warrant or prior notice. 4) Revoke corporate charters by popular referendum. 5) Prohibit the erection of cell phone towers and chain stores from doing business in your town, county, and state. 6) Require labeling of genetically modified foods.
Constitutional amendments aren't easy. Ohio women throughout history know this. Women were pivotal in the abolitionist movement in helping runaway slaves escape to Canadian freedom through the more than 700 safe houses and "depots" across the state - thus paving the way for the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. The National Women's Christian Temperance Union, founded in Cleveland in November 1874, eventually led to the 18th amendment prohibition of alcohol. The second National Women's Rights convention in Akron in 1851 helped pave the way for the 19th amendment and the right for women to vote.
Corporate Personhood is a disaster for democracy, people, communities and the planet as it has relegated human beings to subordinate status to the power and rights of corporations. We the People have not only the right but duty to abolish Corporate Personhood.
For information on or to become involved in the Ohio Move to Amend effort, email gcoleridge@afsc.org
OHIO NOW TIMES
Published Yearly by Ohio National Organization for Women
FALL 2010 ISSUE / Editor: Diane Dodge
Disenchantment of public officials spans the political spectrum. More people are frustrated that public officials, from their city councilperson to the President of the United States, don't do what they promise and don't represent them. If this is true, then who do public officials represent? The very wealthy? Absolutely. But also business corporations.
Corporations were created historically by the government via a license or charter to provide goods or services. As a creation of the state, they had no rights, only privileges. The State can revoke a corporate charter if it doesn't follow its terms. They were not equal to persons, but subordinate to them. They were not supposed to rule people. But, that's not how it is.
For the last 124 years, corporations have possessed constitutional rights that have empowered them to rule.
The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 earlier this year to expand first amendment constitutional rights to business corporations. The Court decided in Citizens United vs Federal Elections Commission that business corporations didn't possess sufficient political influence, that the political "voices" of corporations weren't loud enough and that corporations need to have greater political power. Citizens United permits business corporations to take money directly from their treasuries and spend it on "independent" political educational campaigns to elect or unelect candidates.
Corporations are not human and possess no human traits. They have no inalienable rights. They shouldn't have constitutional rights.
The bizarre notion that corporations, nothing more than a pile of legal documents, should possess the same constitutional rights, including the Bill of Rights protections, as people began in 1886 in Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific Railroad when corporations were bestowed with 14th amendment equal protection rights.
This was the same constitutional amendment passed in 1868 to provide freed black slaves constitutional rights. Curiously, in 1874 when women argued before the Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett that their right to vote could not be denied based on the 14th amendment, the Court rejected the argument stating the amendment only applied to black males.
"We the People" are supposed to be free, or sovereign. We're supposed to be in control of the government. Governments are not supposed to do anything without the people's consent. As corporations have gained the legal status of persons, they've accumulated rights and become rulers. They increasingly tell the government and We the People what to do.
It wasn't meant to be this way. A national and state movement has been launched to amend the constitution and abolish corporate personhood. MovetoAmend.org has collected over 80,000 signatures of people who are ready to join the modern day movement for self-governance by We the People.
What could change if corporate personhood was abolished? The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILFP) in a flyer "What Would it Mean to End Corporate Rule" lists: 1) Prohibit all political activity by corporations 2) Prevent corporate mergers and prohibit corporations from owning stock in other corporations 3) Inspect for environmental or health violations without a warrant or prior notice. 4) Revoke corporate charters by popular referendum. 5) Prohibit the erection of cell phone towers and chain stores from doing business in your town, county, and state. 6) Require labeling of genetically modified foods.
Constitutional amendments aren't easy. Ohio women throughout history know this. Women were pivotal in the abolitionist movement in helping runaway slaves escape to Canadian freedom through the more than 700 safe houses and "depots" across the state - thus paving the way for the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. The National Women's Christian Temperance Union, founded in Cleveland in November 1874, eventually led to the 18th amendment prohibition of alcohol. The second National Women's Rights convention in Akron in 1851 helped pave the way for the 19th amendment and the right for women to vote.
Corporate Personhood is a disaster for democracy, people, communities and the planet as it has relegated human beings to subordinate status to the power and rights of corporations. We the People have not only the right but duty to abolish Corporate Personhood.
For information on or to become involved in the Ohio Move to Amend effort, email gcoleridge@afsc.org
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Citizens United comes to Ohio
Thanks to the 5 members of the appointed for life US Supreme Court who voted for the Citizens United case back in January, we now have this...
Shackles taken off corporate political donations in Ohio
Spending on 'express advocacy' now is unfettered; direct giving not OK
Thursday, September 16, 2010 02:54 AM
By Darrel Rowland
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/09/16/copy/shackles-off-political-donations.html?adsec=politics&sid=101
Unlimited corporate cash can now flow freely in Ohio political campaigns because of a federal court agreement yesterday.
"This is a game-changer for Ohio," said Mike Gonidakis, executive director of the Ohio Right to Life Society, which brought the lawsuit against a state ban on corporate involvement in the elections process.
"Prior to (yesterday's ruling), we couldn't use the resources we had at our disposal," he said. "Now, it allows us to hopefully impact the election this fall."
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said "it's turning into the Wild West out there" because of legislative inaction to regulate corporate cash in politics.
A consent decree signed by U.S. District Judge George C. Smith allows corporations to engage in "express advocacy" for or against a candidate, as long as it's independent of the candidate's campaign. Direct contributions to a candidate or party are still not allowed.
Yesterday's agreement specifically brings Ohio races under the umbrella of the Citizens United case decided by a 5-4 vote of the U.S. Supreme Court in January. The high court declared that a federal ban on corporate spending violated the First Amendment.
The Ohio Elections Commission and secretary of state, who were defendants in the lawsuit, were part of yesterday's agreement.
Brunner said the state law became unenforceable after the Supreme Court decision. Shortly after the ruling, she proposed changes to assure transparency and accountability, but they've been ignored.
Ohio's ban on corporate cash, enacted more than a century ago, was designed "to prevent the corruption of elections and political parties by corporations."
The elections commission agreed this month that independent corporate involvement in partisan politics could no longer be regarded as an elections-law violation in Ohio. The commission asked that corporations voluntarily disclose their campaign contributions, but there is no legal requirement.
"Such a filing would manifest the foundation of Ohio's campaign-finance laws: public disclosure," the commission said.
Philip Richter, executive director of the commission, said he's not sure that dire predictions of corporate influence on elections will come true.
"I just don't see it being this massive infusion of cash from corporations," he said.
Ned Foley, former state solicitor and current director of the election law center at Ohio State University's law school, also was skeptical.
"Whether that is a 'game-changer' depends on whether Citizens United is itself a 'game-changer,'" he said. "It is certainly possible that it is, at least in the specific sense that it now permits corporations and labor unions to do what they couldn't do before. On the other hand, whether as a practical matter it radically affects the dynamics of the campaign itself, that's more open to question."
But Gonidakis said there's even more at stake; the Ohio statute contained a clause that if any of the law was deemed unconstitutional, all of it would be automatically repealed. That means provisions involving candidate disclosure and other key issues could now be off the books.
He said the federal court is scheduled to take up that matter in a few days.
While Right to Life has endorsed some Democrats in legislative races, it is backing a straight Republican ticket in statewide contests.
Dispatch reporter Mark Niquette contributed to this story.
drowland@dispatch.com
Shackles taken off corporate political donations in Ohio
Spending on 'express advocacy' now is unfettered; direct giving not OK
Thursday, September 16, 2010 02:54 AM
By Darrel Rowland
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/09/16/copy/shackles-off-political-donations.html?adsec=politics&sid=101
Unlimited corporate cash can now flow freely in Ohio political campaigns because of a federal court agreement yesterday.
"This is a game-changer for Ohio," said Mike Gonidakis, executive director of the Ohio Right to Life Society, which brought the lawsuit against a state ban on corporate involvement in the elections process.
"Prior to (yesterday's ruling), we couldn't use the resources we had at our disposal," he said. "Now, it allows us to hopefully impact the election this fall."
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said "it's turning into the Wild West out there" because of legislative inaction to regulate corporate cash in politics.
A consent decree signed by U.S. District Judge George C. Smith allows corporations to engage in "express advocacy" for or against a candidate, as long as it's independent of the candidate's campaign. Direct contributions to a candidate or party are still not allowed.
Yesterday's agreement specifically brings Ohio races under the umbrella of the Citizens United case decided by a 5-4 vote of the U.S. Supreme Court in January. The high court declared that a federal ban on corporate spending violated the First Amendment.
The Ohio Elections Commission and secretary of state, who were defendants in the lawsuit, were part of yesterday's agreement.
Brunner said the state law became unenforceable after the Supreme Court decision. Shortly after the ruling, she proposed changes to assure transparency and accountability, but they've been ignored.
Ohio's ban on corporate cash, enacted more than a century ago, was designed "to prevent the corruption of elections and political parties by corporations."
The elections commission agreed this month that independent corporate involvement in partisan politics could no longer be regarded as an elections-law violation in Ohio. The commission asked that corporations voluntarily disclose their campaign contributions, but there is no legal requirement.
"Such a filing would manifest the foundation of Ohio's campaign-finance laws: public disclosure," the commission said.
Philip Richter, executive director of the commission, said he's not sure that dire predictions of corporate influence on elections will come true.
"I just don't see it being this massive infusion of cash from corporations," he said.
Ned Foley, former state solicitor and current director of the election law center at Ohio State University's law school, also was skeptical.
"Whether that is a 'game-changer' depends on whether Citizens United is itself a 'game-changer,'" he said. "It is certainly possible that it is, at least in the specific sense that it now permits corporations and labor unions to do what they couldn't do before. On the other hand, whether as a practical matter it radically affects the dynamics of the campaign itself, that's more open to question."
But Gonidakis said there's even more at stake; the Ohio statute contained a clause that if any of the law was deemed unconstitutional, all of it would be automatically repealed. That means provisions involving candidate disclosure and other key issues could now be off the books.
He said the federal court is scheduled to take up that matter in a few days.
While Right to Life has endorsed some Democrats in legislative races, it is backing a straight Republican ticket in statewide contests.
Dispatch reporter Mark Niquette contributed to this story.
drowland@dispatch.com
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
“One Nation” Organizers Should Remember Coxey’s Army
http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/One-Nation-March-Organiz-by-Greg-Coleridge-100906-651.html
Organizers and participants in the October 2 national ‘One Nation Coming Together’ jobs march are hoping for a historic turnout of participants demanding good jobs and other basic domestic needs.
The planned Washington DC rally and march couldn’t be timelier with 15 million people in the US officially unemployed and another 11 million who’ve stopped looking for work. Millions of others are underemployed. The resulting collective losses of homes, heath and hope have been devastating.
The financial implosion of 2008 worsened but didn’t spark the massive jobs losses. Free trade, tax and corporate policies were earlier factors encouraging the movement of companies abroad and the diversion of investments from real goods and services to “financial products.”
It’s a bit unclear what the labor unions like SEIU and AFL-CIO and community groups such as the NAACP who comprise the main organizers of the “One Nation” event are calling for to remedy the jobs crisis.
The Obama administration’s earlier economic stimulus wasn’t large enough and didn’t focus enough on hiring people. It also added to the debt and deficit.
This has led to charges by some that the event may be a front for the Democratic Party, which is scrambling to energize their base just before the mid-term elections.
A national massive public works program is urgently needed. Rather than robbing Peter to pay Paul by shifting funds from housing or transportation to pay for jobs, some of the more recent peace and anti-war co-sponsors of the event who comprise what’s called the “Peace Table” are calling for shifting funds from the bloated and archaic military/war budget. Ending tax breaks to the super rich would produce funds as well.
Connecting jobs to budget and tax policies makes good sense. Yet it ignores a giant arena that most people, including activists, never pay attention to -- monetary policies, specifically government issued money to meet societal needs.
The first DC “jobs march” was led by Jacob Coxey in 1894. It was no simple stroll from one national monument to another one on the mall in DC but rather a long-distance trek from Coxey’s hometown, Massillon Ohio, to the nation’s capital in the month of March – not the best time of the year to weather the weather. Five hundred people participated in the march, what Coxey called a “petition in boots.” Inspired by “Coxey’s Army,” others marched to DC from other communities.
What made the march unique was not simply the long-distance or the numbers or the call for federal intervention – but the marcher’s primary demand. Coxey and his Army demanded that the government directly issue $500 million to employ 4 million people.
Not borrow $500 million from bankers -- which has to be paid back with interest and enriching bankers in the process.
Not move $500 million from one part of the federal budget to another -- robbing Peter to pay Paul.
But, rather, print $500 million in government money.
Coxey’s Army members were “Greenbackers” – advocates for re-establishing the policy of the Lincoln administration that financed the Civil War with $400 million of government issued money.
Coxey’s Army proposed two bills. The “Good Roads Bill” would help farmers through $500 million issued by the federal government in legal tender notes, or Greenbacks, to construct rural roads. The “Noninterest-Bearing Bonds Bill” would empower state and local governments to issue noninterest-bearing bonds to be used to borrow legal tender notes from the federal treasury. This money would be used for urban public projects such as building libraries, schools, utility plants and marketplaces.
Coxey’s Army understood money and monetary policy far better than most of us today. Monetary history and experiences have been obliterated from our textbooks and activist cultures for many decades.
Greenbackers were not confused by the many monetary falsehoods used to justify and perpetuate the corporate domination of money creation and circulation in our society today, namely that:
1. Money must be based on gold or some other “precious” commodity
2. Banks and bankers, not governments, can be trusted to control the money system.
The Greenback experience of Lincoln was still known to Coxey and his pro-jobs cohorts.
“Money exists,” as Aristotle said, “not by nature but by law.” What gives money value and credibility is it’s anointment by society – be it a piece of wood, metal, or paper. We the People should have the ultimate power to issue and circulate money, not banks or bankers. The issuance of money should be democratized.
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works in the US. Money is privatized/corporatized. The private and misnamed Federal Reserve System and banks issue more than 95% of all money in our nation as credit or debt when loans, be they personal or federal, are issued. Money is created literally “out of thin air” by banks and bankers for their own interest – regardless of the needs of society. In fact, banks can loan out $10 for every $1 they actually have “in reserve.”
The starkest example of this was President Obama recently asking, if not pleading, with banks and bankers to provide more loans to help small businesses. Who exactly is in charge of our monetary policies?
The Great Depression was largely caused by the financial ruling class, encouraged by the private Federal Reserve System, making funds available for financial speculation in stocks instead of homes and business expansion. Once the stock market crashed, the same financial ruling class shut off the financial spigot, delaying recovery for years. The financiers have followed the same pattern during the current Great Recession – investing not in real goods and services but highly speculative hedge funds, derivatives and other bizarre financial “instruments.”
With corporate American and the Fed AWOL on the fiscal and monetary fronts, FDR got it right during the Depression to get America working by creating many government programs. He got it wrong, though, by going into debt to do it. He could have issued government money. There would have been no debt and no increased financial (and political) power of banks and bankers. History shows that when government issues funds to pay for vital economic and social needs, there’s little inflation.
Shifting federal budget and tax priorities away from the military and wealthy toward jobs and socio-economic needs of society are, indeed, part of what “One Nation” marchers should advocate both on October 2 and beyond. But their agenda is incomplete if shifting our monetary policies from the corporatization to the democratization of money creation and circulation is not included.
The “American Monetary Act,” proposed by the American Monetary Institute (AMI, www.monetary.org), calls for a three-step plan for just this democratization of money. It includes:
1. Moving the Federal Reserve under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Treasury.
2. Eliminating the 10:1 “fractional reserve system” of banks.
3. Issuing government money and spending it on vital social and economic needs.
The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $2.2 trillion is needed to address the nation’s physical infrastructure needs. Spending government money on physical and human needs would both improve the nation’s infrastructure and hire people without adding to the debt or deficit or increasing inflation (as opposed to spending money on not needed socio-economic needs like military warfare and economic casino speculation).
“When society loses control over its money system it loses whatever control it might have had over its destiny,” says AMI Director Stephen Zarlenga.
The US Green Party National Committee recently adopted a Monetary Plank in their 2010 Platform that would “green the dollar” as called for by the AMI.
Democratizing money. Greening money. Whatever the name, the most important feature is to shift money creation from corporations (banks) to We the People.
This should be included in the “One Nation Working Together” demands.
It would be consistent with the demand of the first Coxey Army national jobs march.
It would be a vital step to not only increasing jobs but also increasing self-governance.
It’s a mandatory step to controlling our own destiny.
Organizers and participants in the October 2 national ‘One Nation Coming Together’ jobs march are hoping for a historic turnout of participants demanding good jobs and other basic domestic needs.
The planned Washington DC rally and march couldn’t be timelier with 15 million people in the US officially unemployed and another 11 million who’ve stopped looking for work. Millions of others are underemployed. The resulting collective losses of homes, heath and hope have been devastating.
The financial implosion of 2008 worsened but didn’t spark the massive jobs losses. Free trade, tax and corporate policies were earlier factors encouraging the movement of companies abroad and the diversion of investments from real goods and services to “financial products.”
It’s a bit unclear what the labor unions like SEIU and AFL-CIO and community groups such as the NAACP who comprise the main organizers of the “One Nation” event are calling for to remedy the jobs crisis.
The Obama administration’s earlier economic stimulus wasn’t large enough and didn’t focus enough on hiring people. It also added to the debt and deficit.
This has led to charges by some that the event may be a front for the Democratic Party, which is scrambling to energize their base just before the mid-term elections.
A national massive public works program is urgently needed. Rather than robbing Peter to pay Paul by shifting funds from housing or transportation to pay for jobs, some of the more recent peace and anti-war co-sponsors of the event who comprise what’s called the “Peace Table” are calling for shifting funds from the bloated and archaic military/war budget. Ending tax breaks to the super rich would produce funds as well.
Connecting jobs to budget and tax policies makes good sense. Yet it ignores a giant arena that most people, including activists, never pay attention to -- monetary policies, specifically government issued money to meet societal needs.
The first DC “jobs march” was led by Jacob Coxey in 1894. It was no simple stroll from one national monument to another one on the mall in DC but rather a long-distance trek from Coxey’s hometown, Massillon Ohio, to the nation’s capital in the month of March – not the best time of the year to weather the weather. Five hundred people participated in the march, what Coxey called a “petition in boots.” Inspired by “Coxey’s Army,” others marched to DC from other communities.
What made the march unique was not simply the long-distance or the numbers or the call for federal intervention – but the marcher’s primary demand. Coxey and his Army demanded that the government directly issue $500 million to employ 4 million people.
Not borrow $500 million from bankers -- which has to be paid back with interest and enriching bankers in the process.
Not move $500 million from one part of the federal budget to another -- robbing Peter to pay Paul.
But, rather, print $500 million in government money.
Coxey’s Army members were “Greenbackers” – advocates for re-establishing the policy of the Lincoln administration that financed the Civil War with $400 million of government issued money.
Coxey’s Army proposed two bills. The “Good Roads Bill” would help farmers through $500 million issued by the federal government in legal tender notes, or Greenbacks, to construct rural roads. The “Noninterest-Bearing Bonds Bill” would empower state and local governments to issue noninterest-bearing bonds to be used to borrow legal tender notes from the federal treasury. This money would be used for urban public projects such as building libraries, schools, utility plants and marketplaces.
Coxey’s Army understood money and monetary policy far better than most of us today. Monetary history and experiences have been obliterated from our textbooks and activist cultures for many decades.
Greenbackers were not confused by the many monetary falsehoods used to justify and perpetuate the corporate domination of money creation and circulation in our society today, namely that:
1. Money must be based on gold or some other “precious” commodity
2. Banks and bankers, not governments, can be trusted to control the money system.
The Greenback experience of Lincoln was still known to Coxey and his pro-jobs cohorts.
“Money exists,” as Aristotle said, “not by nature but by law.” What gives money value and credibility is it’s anointment by society – be it a piece of wood, metal, or paper. We the People should have the ultimate power to issue and circulate money, not banks or bankers. The issuance of money should be democratized.
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works in the US. Money is privatized/corporatized. The private and misnamed Federal Reserve System and banks issue more than 95% of all money in our nation as credit or debt when loans, be they personal or federal, are issued. Money is created literally “out of thin air” by banks and bankers for their own interest – regardless of the needs of society. In fact, banks can loan out $10 for every $1 they actually have “in reserve.”
The starkest example of this was President Obama recently asking, if not pleading, with banks and bankers to provide more loans to help small businesses. Who exactly is in charge of our monetary policies?
The Great Depression was largely caused by the financial ruling class, encouraged by the private Federal Reserve System, making funds available for financial speculation in stocks instead of homes and business expansion. Once the stock market crashed, the same financial ruling class shut off the financial spigot, delaying recovery for years. The financiers have followed the same pattern during the current Great Recession – investing not in real goods and services but highly speculative hedge funds, derivatives and other bizarre financial “instruments.”
With corporate American and the Fed AWOL on the fiscal and monetary fronts, FDR got it right during the Depression to get America working by creating many government programs. He got it wrong, though, by going into debt to do it. He could have issued government money. There would have been no debt and no increased financial (and political) power of banks and bankers. History shows that when government issues funds to pay for vital economic and social needs, there’s little inflation.
Shifting federal budget and tax priorities away from the military and wealthy toward jobs and socio-economic needs of society are, indeed, part of what “One Nation” marchers should advocate both on October 2 and beyond. But their agenda is incomplete if shifting our monetary policies from the corporatization to the democratization of money creation and circulation is not included.
The “American Monetary Act,” proposed by the American Monetary Institute (AMI, www.monetary.org), calls for a three-step plan for just this democratization of money. It includes:
1. Moving the Federal Reserve under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Treasury.
2. Eliminating the 10:1 “fractional reserve system” of banks.
3. Issuing government money and spending it on vital social and economic needs.
The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $2.2 trillion is needed to address the nation’s physical infrastructure needs. Spending government money on physical and human needs would both improve the nation’s infrastructure and hire people without adding to the debt or deficit or increasing inflation (as opposed to spending money on not needed socio-economic needs like military warfare and economic casino speculation).
“When society loses control over its money system it loses whatever control it might have had over its destiny,” says AMI Director Stephen Zarlenga.
The US Green Party National Committee recently adopted a Monetary Plank in their 2010 Platform that would “green the dollar” as called for by the AMI.
Democratizing money. Greening money. Whatever the name, the most important feature is to shift money creation from corporations (banks) to We the People.
This should be included in the “One Nation Working Together” demands.
It would be consistent with the demand of the first Coxey Army national jobs march.
It would be a vital step to not only increasing jobs but also increasing self-governance.
It’s a mandatory step to controlling our own destiny.
Commemorate Constitution Day • Friday, September 17
Celebrate We the People • Condemn We the Corporations • Connect to Move to Amend
The US Constitution says “We the People,” not “We the Corporations.” Nowhere in the Constitution are corporations even mentioned let alone protected and anointed with human rights to do virtually what they want, where they want, whenever they want politically, economically, socially or environmentally.
Constitution Day, September 17, is a terrific opportunity to take this message to your school, your neighborhood, city or town, or your elected officials. Start now to do something: educate, advocate or organize on that date to say and proclaim that constitutional rights belong to human beings, not corporations.
Action suggestions at
https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:29568.6777068368/rid:a46bff2acee6bf46bec5b4f6f06c219e
The US Constitution says “We the People,” not “We the Corporations.” Nowhere in the Constitution are corporations even mentioned let alone protected and anointed with human rights to do virtually what they want, where they want, whenever they want politically, economically, socially or environmentally.
Constitution Day, September 17, is a terrific opportunity to take this message to your school, your neighborhood, city or town, or your elected officials. Start now to do something: educate, advocate or organize on that date to say and proclaim that constitutional rights belong to human beings, not corporations.
Action suggestions at
https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:29568.6777068368/rid:a46bff2acee6bf46bec5b4f6f06c219e
March of the Monahan Brothers through Ohio
PROGRAM SCHEDULE
Cincinnati
Monday, September 13
6:30 to 8 p.m.
First Unitarian Church
536 Linton St. at Reading Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45219
Contact: Dick Bozian 513-521-2391, rcbozian@hotmail.com
Chillicothe
Thursday, September 16
7:30 PM
Old Vanmeter Church Street House
178 Church Street
Contact: Kezia Sproat 740-774-3510, keziabvs@gmail.com
Columbus
Sunday, September 19
7:00 PM
First Unitarian Universalist Church
93 West Weisheimer Road
Monday, September 20
Noon
Action at Statehouse (tentative)
Contact: Karen Hansen 614-280-3631, KLH.Ohio@gmail.com
Athens
Friday, September 24
6:30 PM
First Christian Church
24 West State Street
Contact: John Howell, 740-592-5789, howell@frognet.net
For more information on the Monahan Brothers and their coast-to-coast march calling for the abolition of corporate constitutional rights, go to http://movetoamend.org/march-of-the-monahan-brothers
Cincinnati
Monday, September 13
6:30 to 8 p.m.
First Unitarian Church
536 Linton St. at Reading Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45219
Contact: Dick Bozian 513-521-2391, rcbozian@hotmail.com
Chillicothe
Thursday, September 16
7:30 PM
Old Vanmeter Church Street House
178 Church Street
Contact: Kezia Sproat 740-774-3510, keziabvs@gmail.com
Columbus
Sunday, September 19
7:00 PM
First Unitarian Universalist Church
93 West Weisheimer Road
Monday, September 20
Noon
Action at Statehouse (tentative)
Contact: Karen Hansen 614-280-3631, KLH.Ohio@gmail.com
Athens
Friday, September 24
6:30 PM
First Christian Church
24 West State Street
Contact: John Howell, 740-592-5789, howell@frognet.net
For more information on the Monahan Brothers and their coast-to-coast march calling for the abolition of corporate constitutional rights, go to http://movetoamend.org/march-of-the-monahan-brothers
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