THE PRISONER’S DILEMMA

There is a famous illustration in game theory of how moral reasoning works when someone is faced with the choice of betraying another in order to save his own skin. The idea is that if a prisoner is questioned knowing that his co-conspirators are being questioned at the same time, the knowledge that confessing will save them while dooming their confidantes influences their decision as to whether to cooperate. The chance that they will confess under these circumstances often depends on their estimate of how likely it is that the other will betray them.

They say there is no honor among thieves, but when the prisoner is certain that no one would risk the consequences of betrayal they will often refuse the deal. This is what often happens when Mafiosi are captured and questioned. It is also what happens when most members of Congress are asked whether they will support a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood. Knowing that this would reveal many of their colleagues to be corporate tools when they fail to support the amendment, most will not tell the truth and admit that this is what they want.

This analogy may seem like a stretch, but in fact basically honest members of Congress are prisoners of the mentality that they must protect other members of their party in order to protect themselves. This has been made quite clear to Republican politicians for decades, as moderates were systematically purged from their ranks. As their political power has grown as a result of their craven pandering to the corporate interests, Democrats have meekly moved ever further to the Right until our government crept across the line into fascist territory.

The key then to success in getting a constitutional amendment passed is to convince members of Congress that the first to tell the truth will be rewarded while the others will meet their just fate. Of course, no one of them is going to do this alone, but what if we let those who express interest talk among themselves about whether they might want to stage a prison break that would enable us to punish all those who have chosen to work for the criminal enterprise that is corporate America?

Those of us working to make support for an amendment a campaign issue are using just this variant of the prisoner’s dilemma. We are offering liberty to those who want to free themselves from the chains of corporate dependency. When they decide to own up to their own complicity in the imposition of fascism in America, they will be free to do what needs to be done to save our nation and the planet from economic, environmental and moral destruction: Abolish corporate personhood now!

MOVE YOUR MONEY!

Money was originally created for the wealthy to keep score of how they were doing compared to their rivals in the game of Monopoly, where each player sought to acquire the most wealth and property. Once the game was started no new players were allowed unless they took a player's money and property by war in another game we call Risk. The risk of war of course is that players can lose everything in the pursuit of global conquest, and as in Monopoly there is only one winner. Of course, in both games if it gets too tedious the players can decide to put their time to better use. That time may be coming as those left out of the game are demanding that the bank gives up more of what it has taken from them.

When money was created it was not needed by commoners, who were given sustenance by the Lords of whatever feudal Kingdom in which they lived. No wages were paid as they were subject to the will of their Lord Protectors, whose responsibility it was to protect them from those who sought to seize their lands through force of arms. In turn, they tilled the fields like slaves and were expected to go to war when told, much like modern society. The Lords in turn paid a tithe to the King or Queen, who were regarded as entitled to the wealth of the nation by divine right.

A third class arose from the artisans who produced the goods necessary in any society. Originally they were expected to do this as a duty to whatever King, Pharaoh, or High Priest who had been given or had seized authority to rule over the society that was created and maintained by slave labor. Later, artisans were allowed to engage in a system of barter that allowed peasants to acquire these good by exchanging the products of their labor.

Eventually Lords and Kings were expected to pay for these goods and services and money began trickling into the hands of the petit bourgeoisie of the day. This custom originally arose no doubt when competition began among the Lords to acquire the finest goods that their artisans would compete to create. It was a necessity as Lords agreed in most nations to cease making war with one another so that they might combine forces to defend their Kingdoms from powerful foreign invaders.

Peasants eventually came to acquire money when they began to be paid in cash for their labor, a practice that became universal in developed countries during the Industrial Revolution. The barter system persisted to a lesser extent but was supplanted by a cash economy as peasants began to dream that they too could become wealthy Lords in their own right. This radical idea was popularized when America became the first nation to declare that every free male was entitled to this opportunity. This is the origin of the myth that each of us can survive and prosper by the sweat of our own labor if we are willing to engage in the game of Monopoly.

At the founding of the American republic, this proclamation was nearly true, even though only about ten percent of the population was allowed to play. Women, African American slaves and indentured servants were left out of the game and only the indentured servant was allowed to work his way into it. The others had to wait generations before slaves were freed by a bloody Civil War and women gradually acquired the right to own property, a right that had existed even in feudal Europe, at least for those from wealthy families.

Throughout history there have been those who profited from the slavish insistence of the privileged that the object of the game of Life is no more than to acquire enough property to be declared winners. The players did not have to be the first to reach this goal; they only had to make sure that they would not be last and thus losers in the game. Those who profited most were the money lenders, who after generations of living off the sweat of others became the modern aristocracy that is the banking industry. Through their unmitigated greed they have become chief among the international corporate terrorists who are seeking to enslave us all in a fascist New World Order as the final stages of the global game of Risk are played out. The banksters hold the keys to the Kingdome that each of the leading players in the game of Monopoly is sure awaits him.

Something important happened recently that resulted from the banksters and their chief co-conspirators sensing that there was an easy way to win the game: They changed the rules so that a quick victory seemed assured. The first step was for the leading national player to cede sovereignty to the banks upon which they had come to depend to finance their wars of corporate Empire. They did this by creating an international system of currency that they controlled. Initially backed by gold at a fixed price, ultimately it was backed only by an empty promise to repay. Flush with successes since WWII, the banksters and their Puppets in the US government were so positive they would ultimately be the winners in the game of Monopoly that they had no fear that a roll of the dice might result in all of these IOUs to be called in.

The conversion to a promise-based monetary system allowed the banksters to create paper money whenever they chose. In a free market system of currency exchange this would cause the money to become less valuable. Not so under the new rules of Monopoly unilaterally declared by Nixon and New York-based international bankers. As the US was the dominant player in the game of Risk, the other players were compelled to agree to this rule change. This is how the dollar became the standard medium of exchange for the world and the agreed upon petrocurrency. The threat of war did not at first intimidate the other two leaders, China and Russia. However, Russia took a large gamble in invading Afghanistan and lost much of her cash and influence in the game of Monopoly.

Russia then capitulated to the leaders of the game, privatizing the resources of the state so that a few might still earn it a place at the table in the game of Monopoly, even if it could no longer afford to play Risk. In proclaiming itself democratic, the then-leaders of the Politburo repudiated its nonsensical claim to have been the first truly democratic socialist republic. The chief beneficiaries were of course well connected within the communist party and its organ of control, the KGB.

As Orwell predicted in 1948, until 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, we found ourselves in a situation where there are three main power blocs that used the threat of war to subjugate their people to their will. Eurasia is still a player but one in the weakest position. Neither Eurasia nor Eastasia is in a position to actually wage the all-out war that will determine the winner in the global game of Risk and therefore the game of Monopoly, but Eastasia is building their military and Eurasia retains a share of the prize that will determine the shape of the New World Order: oil.

Oceania has taken the same gamble that cost Russia so dearly. Its arrogant leaders seem to believe that victory in the game is near. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan are a proxy war against Eurasia and Eastasia. The citizens of Oceania are hostage to the banksters who finance and profit from these wars of corporate Empire. China has become an uneasy ally of  Oceana following its embrace of capitalism, but its leaders know that the US and UK governments have already set in motion plans to finish the creation of a permanent fascist New World Order in which they would become the Kings by what they considered to be divine right. In such a world order, the Chinese people too would become their subjects.

What none of the Monopoly players ever seriously considered was the possibility that their own Peoples would rise against them and demand that their stolen wealth be returned and that the threat of war be ended once and for all time. We now see ourselves in the midst of a global Revolution where the Peoples of the Earth are beginning to sense their interdependence and the power of collective action. We are witnessing the rise of a united international front against fascism and war that could have prevented WWII had we had the power of the internet at the time.

George Dmitrov laid out the strategy in a famous speech before the Seventh International Communist Conference, but the petit bourgeoisie did not join the workers to demand that their “democratic socialist” governments refuse to capitulate to fascist demands. Too many workers did not join the global protests against the rise of fascism. Global arms dealers were allowed to continue to sell weapons to Germany despite the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The stage was set for global war, pitting fascist nations in the US, Europe and Asia against each other, with Russia playing both sides against the middle. The result was a world where nations were subsumed by alliances among the players determined to be the winners in the game of Monopoly at any Risk.

Fascism arises when the peoples of a nation are impoverished by other players in the game of Risk, as Germany was under the conditions of the armistice ending WWI. After a brief flirtation with democracy under the Weimar Republic and under direct provocation from Great Britain, beleaguered Germans gave up the power to determine their collective destiny and placed it in the hands of a madman who promised security and wealth. As we have seen, a similar thing took place in the United States after 9/11, the equivalent of the burning of the Reichstag that fueled Hitler's rise to power. The only difference is that Hitler was a dictator of the People while working hand in hand with the corporate powers that profit from war, while in the US the war profiteers dictate to the President.

History does not repeat itself unless we allow it to. The people of the US face a stark choice at this singular moment in history. They can capitulate to the international corporate terrorists Hell-bent on world domination or they can abandon the illusion of our separateness from the rest of the world and the cause of liberty and justice for every citizen of Earth. If we let go of our fear of terrorism and demand an end to the Anglo-American War of Terror being waged against the Peoples of the world we will soon see victory and the death of fascism and war.

The banksters are fearful and perhaps beginning to regret that their feral attack on the people of the United States has unleashed a power that for once they cannot control through propaganda and economic slavery. The Peoples of the world can end this global war once they accept that only by ensuring liberty and justice for all can any of us truly be free. That means giving up our narrow self-interest and laying our prejudices aside so that we can combine forces to eradicate the scourge of greed from the Earth.

One of the most powerful tools at our disposal is the ability to take the wealth out of the hands of the banksters by moving our money from their accounts and placing it in the trust of the collectives that are credit unions. When we do we become part owners of a collective enterprise created to serve the community and each of its members. They use the money to provide loans that allow small businesses and thereby communities to thrive and prosper. Every dollar we move is food placed in the mouths of our hungry children.

Move your money to depositor-owned credit unions and encourage your local governments to do the same while we work for state-owned banks and ultimately, a national bank that puts the power of the money press in the hands of the People. Show the banksters that they have no power over us that we do not willingly give them.

OCCUPY AMERICA: CITIZENS UNITED AGAINST CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

When Adbusters Magazine called for an occupation of Wall Street, it recommended that occupiers have a specific political goal in mind. Their short list of suggestions included calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood, the Supreme Court doctrine that corporations are people with constitutional rights, among them the “right” to contribute unlimited sums to elect candidates of their choice.

The occupiers have been criticized from both the left and right for adopting an anarchical process that has led to no clear demands other than that all of the problems besetting 99 percent of Americans be addressed. The problem is that with members of Congress so beholden to corporate money to stay in office, none of the things that must be done to redress their grievances will occur when the interest of We the People conflict with those of the corporations that control the levers of power in the US government.
 

It is not too late to adopt a strategy that embraces support a constitutional amendment as the central issue by which to advance the cause of economic and social justice for the 99 percent. The laborious decision making process of direct democracy as practiced by the occupiers will not lead to this outcome. It is up to each of us who support the movement to decide for ourselves whether we will choose to promote this idea in General Assemblies around the country and within other groups. This is a social justice issue that should concern all Americans.

Members of local party central committees, political activist groups, unions, churches and other organizations need to talk about the central importance of abolishing corporate personhood in protecting the American dream and ensuring liberty and justice for ourselves and our posterity. We can then take the discussion from our meeting places to the town hall meetings that are already beginning to take place across the country as the 2012 election season begins. If we show up and ask candidates to take a position on whether or not they would support a constitutional amendment abolishing corporate personhood, we will easily determine who is willing to put our interests over the corporate Puppetmasters of Congress.

We cannot be distracted by the usual half measures proposed to deal with excessive corporate power, such as proposed constitutional amendments introduced by Kurt Schrader, Donna Edwards and Max Baucus. Each of these would if passed give Congress and state governments the power but not the duty to regulate corporate money in elections. While nice in theory, it is clear that given the conflict of interest between serving We the People and serving their corporate patrons, the majority of members of Congress are not going to willingly bite the hand that feeds them.

As an example, Peter DeFazio of Oregon has endorsed the Schrader amendment, lending credence to an idea so obviously mistaken that even well known corporate beneficiary Max Baucus is willing to promote it in a Senate version. At least two Democratic central committees in DeFazio’s district have passed resolutions calling for an amendment to abolish corporate personhood and others around the state have passed or are considering similar resolutions.

The question is, even if every DCC in Oregon’s District 4 endorses such resolutions, will Congressman DeFazio listen? A resolution to call on him and other members of the Oregon congressional delegation narrowly failed on procedural grounds at the last CD-4 convention. It appears certain that the resolution will be reintroduced and passed at the next convention.

This well-known liberal Democrat ignored resolutions calling on him to back HR 676, the single payer bill that was ignored by Baucus and others during the health care “reform” debacle that resulted in the “Affordable” Health Care Act. That Act has proven unaffordable and to not provide health care but a bailout for the medical insurance industry but was the bill Democratic leadership wanted. Had DeFazio and others listened to the local Democratic Party rank-and-file when they spoke loudly and clearly, the Democratic Party might not be suffering the well-deserved backlash from its blatant sellout to the corporate interests of the medical-industrial complex.

There is only one way to reclaim democracy and make our government one of, by and for the People. We must make support of a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood a campaign issue in 2012 and beyond. Candidates around the country are taking a pledge to amend. As they challenge incumbents and better-known challengers in the upcoming primaries, the issue will gain prominence in other races. Eventually it will become generally recognized that when faced with a choice between candidates willing to prove that they are seeking office in order to serve the interests of their constituents and not those of their corporate patrons and themselves, the choice will be obvious. As voters in more and more elections respond by electing candidates who have taken the pledge to amend it will become clear that the amendment will pass.

THE OLDEST OCCUPATION

It is often said that prostitution is the oldest profession. This is clearly wrong, since money had to be invented first. Banking is thus the second oldest profession. The confusion is natural, since many of us think of banksters as having sold themselves for a few pieces of silver. Politics was in fact the first profession. Politicians became the first prostitutes for the pimps who controlled the money supply necessary to wage war for profit and power. So it is today.

In the good olde days governments manufactured their own money, backed by the precious metals for which they were willing to sacrifice their youth. The business of war was very expensive, despite the fact that the weapons industry was in its infancy and tradesman were not in a position to charge exorbitant prices for their wares. It was not until the rise of the military-industrial complex that war began to profit the Lords of war in the feudal economy of that day. It was natural that the industry would arise among the corporate barons of the day, since even then they lacked any conscience or compassion. Then as now they maximized profits from ever more deadly products by using wage slaves to do the dirty work of making weapons to kill their own children.

From the beginning of what passes for civilization in the minds of the citizens of the nations affected by war, bankers have extracted their pound of flesh from taxpayers. Overly ambitious kings and queens never satisfied with their wealth and power have always been willing to strain the treasury in the hopes of besting their rivals in the global game of risk that is war. This provides the opportunity for banksters throughout history to be the war profiteers with the most to gain. Ultimately they were able to convince American politicians that the only way to build a permanent Empire was to privatize money and use it to finance endless war for power and profit. This brings us to the situation today.

We are in the midst of a great war of the plutocrats against the peasantry, many of whom are still deluded into thinking that they live in democracies. What gives us hope is the rise of a new Occupation, one that is worldwide and will not disband until freedom for the Peoples of the world is assured. We are creating a united international front against fascism and war that in the end will lead us to be the Army that crushes the corporatocracy even at the moment that they feel they have succeeded in establishing a permanent fascist New World Order.

Every Army needs its generals. In the war of the middle class against the ruling elites these are those who plot the strategy and tactics of the world Revolution that has recently begun. In the Arab world these are average citizens led by youth and labor. In the United States, these have been slow to understand their collective power. That is changing rapidly and the troops are fighting back with a vengeance born out of a revulsion toward the injustice that has been worsening throughout the lives of our youth and which unions have stood by and watched helplessly in recent decades.

In nearly every nation the cry has arisen “Occupy the world!” In the US the humble beginnings of the US front of the worldwide Revolution occurred in the heart of the beast: Wall Street. Even as the police state responds with violence financed by millions of dollars from Morgan-Chase, new recruits flock to join the occupying Armies of the epicenter of the financial capital of the world. Heedless of personal danger, the dispossessed are calling for an end to war and economic justice for all.

Victory is at hand for those who have watched and understood as the United States has marched in lockstep toward the abyss of fascism. The Left has flanked the lines of the enemy of the People and is waiting to stage a pincer movement when the Right awakens to the fate that awaits them should they continue to back the very corporate forces that have devastated their lives while they cheered the politicians who have led us here. Slowly but surely the Sleeping Giant is awakening. The fascists who control the US government and media will be helpless by the time they realize that the slaves are in full revolt not only in foreign lands they have occupied but in the US, where only the ignorance of the Sheeple has allowed them to rule in safety.

The cause that will allow the Left and Right to join in open revolt against the corporate Puppetmasters who control the US government and media is the abolition of corporate personhood. More and more, people are awakening to the fact that a fascist Supreme Court has given corporate plutocrats the power to control a government created to be one of, by and for the People and not for corporations, which even the most deluded citizen realizes are not people. Shortly after the decision in Citizens United was announced, polls showed that nearly 80% of both self-identified liberals and conservatives opposed it. If the generals leading the fight for the middle class are worthy of their positions of leadership, they will take advantage of this mistake by the fascist forces to seize control of the US government by a peaceful and democratic process.

It is nearly 2012, the year the ancients predicted would see the end of the world as we know it. It is time that we choose to align with the forces of destruction or the forces of creation. We can allow those who believe that we determine our own fates as individuals or those who recognize the interdependence of all Peoples and the natural world. Not choosing is not an option, for failing to act is also a choice. All that it would take for fascism to emerge victorious is for good men and women to do nothing.

It is up to the Peoples of the United States and the world to realize that we will individually and collectively determine whether the world that emerges is one of dark fascism that will destroy human civilization or one in which war will become a distant memory and liberty and justice for all is a reality. Only by freeing the US from the grip of fascism can those Peoples struggling for democracy in their own nations hope to earn their own freedom. Free of the forces of oppression whose power is dependent on the might of the US government and media, they will finally have the ability to exercise their right to self-determination.

It is said that this is a Revolution without leaders, an anarchical revolt against the Masters of the Universe who would presume to dictate our individual and collective fates. While a nice sentiment, the fact is that pure democracy is too unwieldy to wage war against fascism and war. Every government that is not totalitarian is some form of representative democracy, where in those that function as intended, the People choose their own representatives. In this Revolution we must choose those who will lead us by gravitating toward those who seem to have answers. I believe that those who have labored long and hard for liberty and justice have earned their place in leadership, but they cannot succeed until they make room for a new generation eager to become leaders in the world we are creating together.

My advice to the occupiers is this: To slay the beast that threatens to devour us, we must make a concentrated effort to cut off the lifeblood that sustains it and deal a death blow aimed at its heart. Protest alone will not free us, as the corporate media seems determined to defend the system until its death. Many people on both sides of the political spectrum view the occupation movement as much sound and fury, ultimately signifying nothing.

Only by making the abolition of corporate personhood in the US the first goal of the Revolution can we hope to remove the corporate Puppets from control of the US government. That in turn can only be accomplished by making support for a constitutional amendment abolishing corporate personhood a litmus test for all candidates for Congress and eventually, the Presidency.

STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY

America’s greatest wasted resource is its youth. The obvious corruption in government that three decades of college students have grown up with have led to a political cynicism in this group that rivals that of their parents, who lived through the changes in our government that they are still struggling to understand if they have not given up trying. College students are making tremendous efforts to prepare for a future that is increasingly uncertain, yet most have dismissed the value of spending time in protesting a government and society that has largely abandoned the children of the shrinking middle class and the growing numbers of the poor.

As a result of such fatalism, only a small number of college students are engaged in the political process, mostly in the form of education and protests, neither of which gain much attention in today’s distracted society. In 2008 they enthusiastically supported candidate Obama, only to discover that their parents seemed to be right in dismissing all politicians as liars. Obama has kept very few of the promises he made to average Americans, while clearly keeping promises to corporate interests arrived at behind closed doors as he solicited support for his presidential campaign.

As the fascists who control the US government advance toward their goal of privatizing every government function for their personal profit, the ability to acquire an advanced education has increasingly become a privilege rather than the right that Jefferson argued it must be if the American experiment in democracy is to succeed. As college becomes increasingly inaccessible to our youth they are left with few choices. With jobs being shipped overseas by the millions, many fall victim to the job recruiters from the US military. In effect, they are economic conscripts of international corporate terrorists.

During the Vietnam War students were much more attuned to the effects of war on their future. For ten years, an entire generation of young men faced the prospect of being drafted to fight in a pointless corporate war. The women who faced the loss of their loved ones were affected as well. For those of us not yet of age, the future did not look promising and those of us who understood what was at stake joined the opposition in any way that we could.

The peace movement in the 60s and early 70s grew despite the lack of the critical organizing tool of the internet. Only the cynic would argue that the fact that the corporate media publicized both the war and the protests allowed the movement to grow. In truth, the reasons the movement proved unstoppable were that those involved were determined to achieve victory in spite of the obvious corruption of the US government that declared war on them. That generation was not indoctrinated in the belief that democracy was dead. They knew that their entire generation had been made pawns in the war for corporate Empire and that only their combined efforts at resistance couldend the war.  They were willing to fight to assure that the hope for democracy in America would live on.

Students for a Democratic Society was formed to help organize the members of the resistance to fascism in that day. Like all organizations it had its growing pains in terms of crises in identity and leadership. Those involved persevered and over time, SDS became a leader in the peace movement. It became a leader in promoting the idea that the war was only a symptom of the disease of fascism. Leaders in the fight for the rights of women, African-Americans, Native Americans and gays stood shoulder to shoulder in defense of the right of each of us to liberty and justice.

The only way to engage the youth of the US is to give them reason to hope that they can become part of the struggle to end fascism and war in our lifetime. If those of us old enough to remember the victories of the past can use modern networking tools to get our peers away from their computers and out in the streets, we may be able to inspire a new generation of students to work for a democratic society.

Every generation must have its own leaders. Those who have been in the vanguard of the fight for the last several decades must allow new leaders to emerge from every generation if they are truly more interested in the cause than in self-promotion. There are many young men and women prepared to take up the fight. It is our duty to educate them about our successes and our failures so that they may look at them with fresh eyes and find ways to use this knowledge to mold a 21^st century strategy to wage asymmetric warfare against fascism and war.

It is our youth who will live to see the ultimate effects of the effort to create a democracy in the US from the fascist horror that it has become. We cannot leave them to their fate just because most have come to accept that justice and democracy are dead. It took generations for the fascists to create this illusion and the spell cannot be broken overnight. Good parents understand that children mature only when they understand that as adults they will be responsible for their own future and ultimately, for the future of their own children. This happens when they are given responsibility and when they have had good role models to emulate.

If students get out on the street with petitions calling on their members of Congress to introduce a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood and support any candidate who will, they may yet have reason to hope that they will live in a democratic society in their lifetime.

ALL POLITICS IS INTERNATIONAL

Today's blog was written as an editorial for a local paper in Coos Bay, Oregon. It ties together local, state, national and international efforts to promote peace and justice with some lessons learned from our efforts so far.

Tip O’Neills’ famous dictum that all politics is local usually goes without challenge. The implication of this idea seems to be that ordinary citizens only have power to influence local politics and that when they do so, they act in their own self interest. Two events in August of which residents of Coos Bay may be aware were designed to challenge that commonly held belief. Fittingly, one was local and the other national.

Three Oregon nonprofits pooled efforts to hold the event Visioning the Future in Coos Bay on August 22. Human Rights Advocates of Coos County, Take Back America for the People and Good Grief America teamed to put on an event designed to connect the dots between local, national and international issues that Congress seems unwilling to address.

The event was originally sparked by a request by Cindy Sheehan for local organizers to put together an event that would bring together local residents throughout Oregon to discuss how all these issues are ultimately related to war. The intent was not only to educate the public about the need to generate grassroots opposition to war and other injustice but to bring citizens together to talk about how we can work at the local level to end wars now opposed by 70 percent of Americans.

Sheehan bowed out after learning that organizers had invited a popular local politician to speak. Bill Bradbury was invited to talk about global climate change and possible solutions. Sheehan knew only that he was a Democratic politician and that he was a friend of Al Gore. In private correspondence, Sheehan explained to me that she felt all politicians were so corrupt that to include them in the event would be contrary to her vision. She seemed to be arguing that a grassroots uprising would somehow result in Americans taking back their government without dirtying their hands in the messy business of American politics. Organizers and Sheehan fans expressed disappointment that she chose not to come to Coos Bay to make her case.

After learning of Sheehan’s decision not to attend her own event too late to prevent it from being widely advertised, organizers decided to proceed with the event anyway. Experts on various issues were invited to attend and a number responded. Nancie Koerber is the founder and Executive Director of Good Grief America, which was formed to inform Americans about how the banking and finance industry created the housing bubble to finance the derivatives   market that has nearly taken down the US economy and now threatens to destabilize the world economy. Subscribers to the Good Grief America mailing list are also kept aware of efforts to bring the banking and finance industries that engineered the bailout to justice. Most importantly, Good Grief America was formed to help Oregonians learn how as individuals they can fight against foreclosures.

Human Rights Advocates of Coos County was represented by Anita Coppock, who spoke to the audience about the rights enumerated in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. She focused on the manner in which they are routinely violated in various nations and in particular how they are being increasingly violated in the US at local, state and national levels of government. From torture to illegal imprisonment to denying access to health care and many other violations of the Declaration, she explained the reason that HRACC was formed and how they are fighting these injustices at a local level.

As the founder and Board President of Take Back America for the People, I was the last to speak before introducing featured speaker Bill Bradbury. Our mission statement states that Take Back America for the People was formed to educate the public of the dangers of allowing corporations to control the US government and what we can do about it. This is a task that we argue will take work at the local, state and federal levels. The group takes the position that the key task in restoring democracy to America is to overturn the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United and all prior decisions that established the principle that corporations are entitled to the same rights as living, breathing human beings.

The largest crowd at the event gathered to listen to Bill Bradbury speak and answer questions. He is the former Oregon Secretary of State and was a Democratic primary candidate for Governor in 2010. He trained under Al Gore to give hundreds of talks about the evidence of global climate change and possible solutions.

Sheehan had expressed her belief that as an associate of Al Gore Bradbury must hold the position that the solution to controlling carbon emissions was through a cap and trade system, which she and many others oppose. This creates carbon credits that are designed to be gradually lowered, encouraging corporations to reduce emissions as the credits become increasingly expensive. According to Peter DeFazio, this has the potential to lead to a speculative boom as it has in countries where carbon tax credits have become just another commodity to be bought by polluters so that they can avoid making changes in the levels of their carbon emissions.

Bradbury cited the abundant evidence to support the conclusions of the thousands of independent scientists on the international panel on global climate change. Its members overwhelmingly agreed that human-caused increases in the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide are responsible for a steep rise in average temperatures around the planet and the resulting increase in the melting of glaciers and the polar caps, droughts, severe storms and other logical consequences of the unchecked Greenhouse Effect.

Bradbury argued persuasively that the best solution would be a tax on carbon emissions that would directly impact the costs of polluting, but expressed the opinion that Congress is too corrupted by corporate money to even pass a cap and trade bill of questionable value.

On August 30 the Democracy Convention began in Madison, Wisconsin. Attendees gathered from around the nation to meet and discuss how they could work together to challenge corporate power and influence government at the local, state, national and international levels. The parallels with our local event in Coos Bay were striking. We learned about the details of the Move to Amend coalition strategy to end corporate control of the electoral process that had been greatly expanded under the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case in January of 2009.

Move to Amend holds to the position that corporations should have no “rights” under law. The argument is that since corporations exist only to limit the liability of stockholders in civil actions, stockholders have been granted a privilege and not special rights unavailable to average citizens. They argue that as a result, average citizens are increasingly disenfranchised as the CEOs of large corporations are increasingly able to influence the outcome of elections.
 
Move to Amend takes the  position that corporations having the same rights as human beings is a direct challenge to democracy in America. Accordingly, they (and Take Back America, as an endorser of their organization) advocate for a constitutional amendment that will not only strip corporations of the “free speech right” to finance the elections of their chosen candidates but that will give to local, state and national governments both the authority and the duty to regulate corporations in the public interest, which was the case at the founding of the United States.

One of the more interesting developments at the convention was the coming together of some Move to Amend advocates who want to work more closely with Public Citizen and Free Speech for People to achieve their mutual goal of passing a constitutional amendment. There has historically been a deep division between the groups over the issue of whether that amendment should only end “free speech rights” of corporations or whether Move to Amend’s position that it should end all of the corporate privileges granted them in a series of Supreme Court decisions dating back to the early 1800s should be the goal. This split has historically prevented members of the two coalitions from working together beyond the largely symbolic step of both appearing at large events like the Democracy Convention, where members of the two camps generally talk only to each other.

At least two members of Move to Amend coalition attended a seminar held by constitutional lawyers John Bonifaz and Jeffrey Clements. These are founding members and leaders of Free Speech for People. They described a new strategy to challenge corporate power in court by demanding the revocation of the charters of corporations whose actions constitute “crimes against people, communities and nature.”  

Using the example of the Massey Corporation, they detailed a legal strategy to do so. Their argument is  that the rights of communities devastated by hilltop mining and the rights of the families of twenty-nine coal miners who died in an explosion due to the repeated and widespread violations of safety laws take precedence over the privilege of corporations to exploit with impunity both the environment and the people of the affected communities.

As was the case at Visioning the Future, the main theme of the Democracy Convention was exploring ways to help the public connect the dots between local, state, national and international problems and their solutions. The goal is to find a way of acting at all of these levels to restore democracy to America and ensure liberty and justice for all.

Activists fighting at all levels of government for environmental responsibility, economic and health care justice and the end of war through grassroots organizing are now one step closer to finding a way to work as one to build a coalition of all Americans across the political spectrum to end corporate rule in America.

ECONOMIC SLAVERY AND THE MODERN ABOLITION MOVEMENT

The famous case of San Mateo v Northern Pacific railroad has been described as the precedent that later Supreme Courts used to justify the principle of corporate sovereignty over the people of the US. This case was argued but not decided on the basis of the legal theory that corporations have all the rights of human beings under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus, the fascist Robber Barons of the post-Civil War era were asserting their right to determine the shape of the future America by virtue of their economic power over average Americans and the corrupt body that Congress had become.

Let us put aside any quibbling about when corporate personhood became established law in the minds of the majority of corporate members of any of the previous or subsequent Supreme Courts. Suffice it to say that the chain of logic that led directly to the decision in Citizens United was based in large part on the amendment that was written to free former slaves. Thus began the slide into fascism that has led to the threat of permanent economic slavery in the New World Order of the United States Empire.

For the first time since the Great Depression, the people of the United States are feeling the same lash that the victims in other countries of the international corporate terrorists have known for years. Now that the banksters, international financiers, war profiteers, Big Oil and the medical-insurance complex have devastated the US economy, the apparent victors of the war on the US middle class are dividing the spoils among themselves. After decades of moving jobs overseas and chipping at the social safety net, the fascists who control the US government are fighting for supremacy in the New World Order without regard to the welfare of the economic slave class they have created.

An angry but divided US public cannot assert its sovereignty over its own government. Only by coming together in the interest of liberty and justice for all can those fighting fascism in the US salvage the American dream of a democratic Republic. The great divide between those who regard themselves as conservatives and those who think of themselves as liberals is due to a difference in perception of whether our government more closely resembles fascism or socialism. Achieving consensus on the answer to that vital question is central to the task of establishing a democratic Republic in the United States.

Those of us who do not form our opinions by considering only the corporate propaganda promoted by the mainstream media know that the answer lies in the study of the rise of corporate power over the US government. The problem then becomes one of how we awaken both those on the Right and Left who refuse to acknowledge the simple fact that America has become a primary nexus in the network of international fascism. As one WWII veteran tearfully told me one day: “I didn’t fight and my brothers didn’t die for the nation we have become.”

There is an answer to the seemingly unsolvable problem of melding the collective political power of the Right and the Left. It lies in helping others understand that a system of corporate welfare with all power and privilege going to the most wealthy Americans is not a democracy and certainly not socialism. Benito Mussolini coined the term fascism to refer to just such an unholy alliance between corporation and state, with each using the power granted to them by We the People and an activist Supreme Court to improve their positions in the fascist New World Order. When we agree that the government we are trying to overthrow through a nonviolent democratic revolution is a fascist one, the scales fall from the eyes of those who have accepted the myth that democracy exists in the United States.

There is only one issue that has the potential to bring enough Americans together to Take Back America for the People. A modern abolition movement to strip corporations of the power to buy Congress and to dictate policy and legislation is the means by which we will finish the Revolution. Doing so is the only means to ensure liberty and justice for all Americans and Peoples everywhere who are threatened with slavery in the fascist New World Order. A movement is building to amend the constitution to do just that. Restoring the hope of democracy in America is a nonpartisan issue. Anyone who understands the danger of ceding the functions of government to corporate interests that want only to increase their wealth and power is welcome in the fight to end the system of corporate plutocracy that now threatens the survival of human civilization.

Most of those who have been working for decades to amend the constitution are holding to a strategy with a 20-30 year timeline for success. It focuses solely on an educational process that will indeed take this long if not coupled with efforts to get the amendment on the floor of Congress. Once in place, support for it can be used as a litmus test in every subsequent Congressional election. The implementation of this strategy requires that leaders of the abolition movement realize that no modern revolution will succeed without using the political power we hold in a nominally democratic society to force our government to do our will. If we refuse to consider the idea that there are men and women in Congress who are honest enough and tired enough of continuous competition for corporate cash we may miss the chance to be part of movement that will lead to the introduction and passage of the amendment that is our mutual goal.

Those who give up on the political process have an unrealistic vision that somehow a grassroots Army of people will join them with no hope for immediate political victories beyond the local and occasionally state levels. Forgetting that Senators like Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley and House members like Kucinitch and Ron Paul are speaking out loudly against corporate control of the electoral process, they are ignoring the quickest route to the passage of the amendment. With the threats of global climate change, a permanent depression, mass famine and endless war threatening to decimate the population we cannot afford such a long range strategy. To rely exclusively on education divorced from political action would be to risk abandoning millions of  innocent victims to their fate at the hands of a ruthless international corporatocracy.

No revolution has ever succeeded except though a process leading to democracy. Empires from Persia to Macedonia to Rome to the USSR and Nazi Germany have learned from hard experience that violent subjugation of people will always in the end destroy the power structure that it depends on to maintain order among the Peoples so enslaved. If America, Israel and their allies do not learn this lesson soon, they may become the victims of a violent revolution that could dwarf the French Revolution in its carnage. If we can prevent that then we will have ended the ongoing Civil War that has divided and conquered Americans since the bloody battles across five Aprils ended in 1865. Only when we see and act upon our mutual interests will we have the collective power to finish the American Revolution and free the world from the fascist control of the Puppetmasters of the US government.

In the end, it will be the Tea Party that saves the Republic. It is the job of progressive activists to reach across the great divide that separates those in the US who all claim to love freedom and democracy. The only way to move forward as Americans and members of the global community is to put aside lesser differences in the cause of liberty and justice for all. This means talking to those who may not agree with our vision of the America and the world that we will never create unless we do so together. In learning how to talk tone another with mutual respect and compassion, we may live to see the end of war.