Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) issued a fine statement on October 7 on corporate personhood.
The awakening continues. The movement against corporate personhood grows.
This important statement comes at a critical juncture as people across the country and around the world are occupying public spaces demanding democracy and justice. Among the major institutions on planet earth preventing justice and usurping our right to govern is the business corporation.
From the PsySR statement:
"Corporations...are structural entities created by laws rather than by natural, biological processes. Corporations are vehicles, designed to achieve specific ends, typically those of growth, profitability and longevity beyond the span of human life. Corporations are amoral. They have no capacity for guilt, shame, pride, or penance. They possess no motivations, beliefs, or emotions, and they cannot make decisions nor take action—not, at least, outside of the human beings who run them. Corporations are not people. From a psychological perspective, corporate personhood is a misleading and highly dangerous legal fiction. It provides protection to corporate leaders for activities in which they would otherwise bear personal, lawful responsibility. This legal validation of corporate personhood therefore shields select, powerful corporate officials from the law and liability, encouraging recklessness in the form of unethical, dangerous and, in some instances, illegal behaviors."
Read the entire statement at
http://www.psysr.org/about/programs/wellbeing/corporate-personhood.php
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Talk this Thursday on First Amendment and Corporate Rights
From: Melissa Athens
Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 2:03 PM
Subject: For Immediate Press Release Oct 13 6pm Public Square
Hello,
Please forward to your network tree.
Occupiers! Learn more about our 1st Amendment Right to Free Speech. Greg Coleridge, State Coordinator for Move to Amend, will talk about what our right to free speech means for people and how corporations have hijacked it.
Thursday, October 13 - 6pm - ***PUBLIC SQUARE***
Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 2:03 PM
Subject: For Immediate Press Release Oct 13 6pm Public Square
Hello,
Please forward to your network tree.
Occupiers! Learn more about our 1st Amendment Right to Free Speech. Greg Coleridge, State Coordinator for Move to Amend, will talk about what our right to free speech means for people and how corporations have hijacked it.
Thursday, October 13 - 6pm - ***PUBLIC SQUARE***
Occupy Wall Street and the Punditti
The “nattering nabobs of negativity” have been having their day with OWS. First “why don't they dress differently?” And of course, “they are a bunch of spoiled college kids.” Then, “they have no program, its all a mass of different demands.” and “it will easily be co-opted.” The first two brilliant responses are from the right. They said the same about us 45 years ago, but imagination was never the strong point with right-whiners anyway. Less easy to dismiss, as it comes from left as well as right, is the supposed profusion of demands. For shame, you lefties, if any group should know better it is you! (Ever heard the word dialectics ?) The right views the world in a disconnected, atomistic fashion. Thus, the various demands seem unconnected to them. But in the real world, environmental destruction, imperialism, job-outsourcing, privatization, war, corporate welfare, financial crimes, tax dodging etc., are all part of the same corporate state system. To anyone outside the right-whiner sects, this fact is as obvious as a mules ass at noon! It is brilliant on the part of the organizers not to posit a set of demands and to let the people decide themselves. If at the beginning you posit a narrow set of demands you limit the field of potential support.
As for cooptation, please do! The people have had their Obummer moment, any attempt at cooptation that lacks substance, will be jeered at. Minimally, labour and mainstream social movements will have to demand the re-institution of Glass-Segal, a Tobin tax and a tax on the uber-greed creeps. But capitalism has moved beyond the possibility of allowing even these simple demands. It will take a virtual revolution to impose elements of social democracy again. There will be so much resistance by the parasitic classes to even minor social reforms like these, that it will push the population in a revolutionary direction. We see this in Greece, as but one example. The mass demands are not for socialism, but to stop the cut-backs, to achieve the status quo ante. As Abbie Hoffman once said “the pigs are our leaders.” The state and the criminals it pimps for, are fighting tooth and nail to impose austerity on the workers, and as they do, the popular response becomes ever more militant and ever more radical.
MONETARY HISTORY CALENDAR - October 10-16
OCTOBER 13
1879 – DEATH OF HENRY CAREY, CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Carey was the major proponent in the Lincoln Adminstration of issueing debt-free US money, Greenbacks. In referencing the US economy under the Greenback system, he said, …”for the first time, too, in the history of the world, there has been presented a community in which nearly all business was done for cash, and in which debt has scarcely an existence…there has been a large and general diminution of the rate of interest…traders have therefore become more independent of the capitalist, while the country at large has become more independent of the ‘wealthy capitalists’ of Europe.”
OCTOBER 15
1908 – BIRTH OF JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH, US ECONOMIST
“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is on in which complexity is used to disguise or evade truth, not to reveal it.”
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
1982 – CONGRESS PASSES GARN-ST.GERMAIN DEPOSITORY INSTITUTIONS ACT
The act deregulated savings and loan associations and allowed banks to provide adjustable-rate mortgage loans. Many believe it contributed to the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s.
---------------
Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt?
Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice.
This calendar is a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini and Greg Coleridge helped in its development.
Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, contact monetarycalendar@yahoo.com For more information, visit http://www.afsc.net/economiccrisis.html
1879 – DEATH OF HENRY CAREY, CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Carey was the major proponent in the Lincoln Adminstration of issueing debt-free US money, Greenbacks. In referencing the US economy under the Greenback system, he said, …”for the first time, too, in the history of the world, there has been presented a community in which nearly all business was done for cash, and in which debt has scarcely an existence…there has been a large and general diminution of the rate of interest…traders have therefore become more independent of the capitalist, while the country at large has become more independent of the ‘wealthy capitalists’ of Europe.”
OCTOBER 15
1908 – BIRTH OF JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH, US ECONOMIST
“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is on in which complexity is used to disguise or evade truth, not to reveal it.”
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
1982 – CONGRESS PASSES GARN-ST.GERMAIN DEPOSITORY INSTITUTIONS ACT
The act deregulated savings and loan associations and allowed banks to provide adjustable-rate mortgage loans. Many believe it contributed to the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s.
---------------
Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt?
Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice.
This calendar is a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini and Greg Coleridge helped in its development.
Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, contact monetarycalendar@yahoo.com For more information, visit http://www.afsc.net/economiccrisis.html
Friday, October 7, 2011
Free Will...Again
No posting of mine has had as many negative comments as Free Will Proven a Myth During the years since, I have attempted to understand this reaction. Here are some tentative explanations.
Could it be that the upholders of the free will superstition think an attack upon free will is an attack upon freedom in general? If so, they are making the same mistake the Church made when rejecting the Copernican system in favor of the Ptolemaic. The teachings of Jesus, never rose or fell on whether the earth went around the sun or vice versa. What the Copernican reality negated was the institutional ideology of the Church which dogmatically declared for the Ptolemaic system.
What institutional ideology does the dismissal of the free will fable harm?
In the real world, most people's freedoms and choices are highly restricted. The less wealth we have, the less educated we are, the less self-aware we are, the less choices we have and the more our lives are determined for us. “Aimless” people who seemingly “do whatever they want”, in reality, have their lives largely chosen for them by their emotional problems. Yet, these emotionally and mentally messed up people are the very ones the free will types finger wag, “You chose to live this way!” as though their situation was a simple matter like which brand of cereal to buy or not. Funny though, the very people whose wealth, power and easy access to therapists, would allow them to act with a level of free will (and yet who chose to treat the rest of us as prey) don't come in for this hectoring.
I suspect that most of the rabid free will advocates fear the exposing of their superstition because they can no longer have the pleasure of feeling superior to the “outcasts”. They can no longer play the blame game. Social problems minus free will become just that, social problems. They are rooted in the system under which we live and not the fault of individuals who just didn't try hard enough.
Free will thus plays the role of prop or mask to disguise the true nature of any system of domination. Making everything the fault of the individual deflects criticism away from the reality that most people have little control over their lives because those lives are controlled by a powerful and exploitative minority.
Free will plays a role in abetting another vicious superstition, that of original sin. Humans are deemed innately wicked and the only way for us to behave decently is to repress those evil urges. Those who do not repress their base aspects do so out of weakness, indeed, given free will, have chosen to be sinners. The way to get people to freely chose to do good instead of evil is to threaten them with punishment and reek vengeance upon them when they fail to abide by our strictures.
Thus free will plays a role in propping up a judicial system which is based on punishment and revenge. Without the free will dogma, we must not seek punishment of the perps, but compensation for victims of crime. We must seek the root causes of violent crimes and institutionalize the dangerous, not as punishment, but merely to protect the populous.
One final word on free will. Like Gandhi once said about Christianity - “It would be a good idea.” But in order to have free will, we must be completely self-aware and have the ability to act upon that self-awareness. Few people have achieved that level of enlightenment, for that is what it really is. The vast majority of people are ultimately only reflections of their neuroses and psychoses. As an ideal, free will is sublime. But please don't take an ideal for reality. And most of all don't use it as a club to beat people you are prejudiced against. One day when oppression and exploitation are but vague memories – should we survive that long as a species – we will no longer be encumbered by these burdens, and actually possess a free will.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City -- grievances includes corporate personhood
As with the Declaration of Independence of 1776, the list of grievances in New York City -- which is what's being used by others as a template -- include both individual harms to people and communities AND usurpations of collective power and rights, including stripping collective bargaining and granting
corporations the same rights as people. Actually they go beyond in questioning the right of corporations to determine economic policies.
Moving beyond individual problems to address structural causes is the shift that is necessary to achieve unity...and real change We are all being hurt, regardless of our issues or causes, by the reality that we aren’t in charge of decisions that impact our families, communities and world. Wide recognition that corporations being defined as persons, corporate political donations and unilateral corporate economic decision making are fundamental problems is evolution in the right direction.
Check your community for these democratic “Occupations.” Where they exist, engage participants in discussion on corporate constitutional rights and money as speech. Take Move to Amend petitions. Participate.
http://nycga.cc/2011/09/30/declaration-of-the-occupation-of-new-york-city/
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
This document was accepted by the NYC General Assembly on September 29, 2011
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.
corporations the same rights as people. Actually they go beyond in questioning the right of corporations to determine economic policies.
Moving beyond individual problems to address structural causes is the shift that is necessary to achieve unity...and real change We are all being hurt, regardless of our issues or causes, by the reality that we aren’t in charge of decisions that impact our families, communities and world. Wide recognition that corporations being defined as persons, corporate political donations and unilateral corporate economic decision making are fundamental problems is evolution in the right direction.
Check your community for these democratic “Occupations.” Where they exist, engage participants in discussion on corporate constitutional rights and money as speech. Take Move to Amend petitions. Participate.
http://nycga.cc/2011/09/30/declaration-of-the-occupation-of-new-york-city/
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
This document was accepted by the NYC General Assembly on September 29, 2011
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.
Monday, October 3, 2011
MONETARY HISTORY CALENDAR October 3-9
OCTOBER 3
2008 – US CONGRESS APPROVES $700 BILLION BAILOUT FOR BANKS
The largest US banks were bailed out by US taxpayers since they were considered “too big to fail.” Main Street businesses and side street homeowners facing foreclosures (due in large part to the speculative practices of major financial institutions) received no such support. Many of these major banks were major political campaign contributors/investors in the 2008 political campaign. The final bailout legislation was a revised and slightly better version of an original bill proposed by Sec. of Treasury Hank Paulson that was literally only a few pages in length. Massive public anger resulted in a flood of calls, emails and visits to congressional offices. The original proposal was defeated by Congress.
OCTOBER 4
1923 – BIRTH OF CHARLTON HESTON, ACTOR [I KNOW THIS IS A BIT OF A STRETCH]
“You shall not charge interest to your countrymen…”A quote from Moses from the Bible, Deuteronomy 23: 19-20 Moses was born sometime in 1527 BC. Since the exact date is unknown, why not use the birth date of the guy who played him in films!
OCTOBER 8
1946 – BIRTH OF DENNIS KUCINICH, CONGRESSMAN, OHIO
Author of the National Emergency Employment Defense [NEED] Act, introduced in 2010 and 2011 [HR 2990 in 2011]. Among the bill’s provisions are: (a) make the Federal Reserve System more accountable by placing the Fed under the US Department of Treasury, (b) create government issued money to hire people to repair the nation’s physical and human infrastructure, and (c) eliminate fractional reserve lending – the practice that permits banks to lend out many times more funds that they actually possess.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt?
Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice.
This calendar is a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini and Greg Coleridge helped in its development.
Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, contact monetarycalendar@yahoo.com For more information, visit http://www.afsc.net/economiccrisis.html
2008 – US CONGRESS APPROVES $700 BILLION BAILOUT FOR BANKS
The largest US banks were bailed out by US taxpayers since they were considered “too big to fail.” Main Street businesses and side street homeowners facing foreclosures (due in large part to the speculative practices of major financial institutions) received no such support. Many of these major banks were major political campaign contributors/investors in the 2008 political campaign. The final bailout legislation was a revised and slightly better version of an original bill proposed by Sec. of Treasury Hank Paulson that was literally only a few pages in length. Massive public anger resulted in a flood of calls, emails and visits to congressional offices. The original proposal was defeated by Congress.
OCTOBER 4
1923 – BIRTH OF CHARLTON HESTON, ACTOR [I KNOW THIS IS A BIT OF A STRETCH]
“You shall not charge interest to your countrymen…”A quote from Moses from the Bible, Deuteronomy 23: 19-20 Moses was born sometime in 1527 BC. Since the exact date is unknown, why not use the birth date of the guy who played him in films!
OCTOBER 8
1946 – BIRTH OF DENNIS KUCINICH, CONGRESSMAN, OHIO
Author of the National Emergency Employment Defense [NEED] Act, introduced in 2010 and 2011 [HR 2990 in 2011]. Among the bill’s provisions are: (a) make the Federal Reserve System more accountable by placing the Fed under the US Department of Treasury, (b) create government issued money to hire people to repair the nation’s physical and human infrastructure, and (c) eliminate fractional reserve lending – the practice that permits banks to lend out many times more funds that they actually possess.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt?
Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice.
This calendar is a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini and Greg Coleridge helped in its development.
Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, contact monetarycalendar@yahoo.com For more information, visit http://www.afsc.net/economiccrisis.html
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