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National and Local News from the war against corporate rule. |
Greetings!
Thursday, January 13th, and every 2nd Thursday of the month, Colorado Move To Amend will hold our monthly meeting at Panera Bread in Arvada at 77th Ave and Wadsworth Blvd (map here) . You are invited. We are working on several campaigns, tactics, and strategies, including Poltical Theatre, Slide Show presentations, local City resolution sponsorships, and collaborative events with other like-minded organizations. So if you would like to participate or learn more please come.
On Thursday, February 6th, the committee to develop our educational slide show presentation will meet at Panera Bread (see map above) at 630pm. You are welcome to participate.
Below are some of the latest developments in our war against the rule of transnational corporations. Make no mistake about it! We are in a war. We are fighting for the survival of democracy in this country against an enemy that has no conscience, no morals, no hopes or dreams, an inanimate property that represents only its financial gain. They are buying our representatives and making our laws. Behind the mask of these mega-corporations are CEOs whose greed is exceeded only by their arrogance. And the corporate-sponsored majority on the Supreme Court are remaking our Constitution, stripping away our civil liberties and granting super-rights to inanimate corporations.
The piece below on Senator Bernie Sanders filibuster should give us hope that change is possible when politicians actually stand up for the people they are charged to represent. Please support his reelection bid.
A national event is being planned for January 21, 2011 to commemorate the infamous SCOTUS ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. Colorado Move To Amend and its affiliates will gather at the west steps of the State Capitol at noon to commemorate that infamous decision.
Best regards,
Michael David Melio
Colorado Move To Amend
End corporate rule.
Legalize democracy.
Abolish corporate personhood. |
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Map of Resolutions and Ordinances Abolishing Corporate Personhood | Many of you have asked for more information about resolutions in other cities and counties around the nation. Ariel Shapiro of Democracy Unlimited in Humboldt County, CA put together this fantastic Google map of Resolutions and Ordinances calling for the Abolition of Corporate Personhood.
See it here: http://movetoamend.org/resolutions-map or here for one with a legend: http://bit.ly/MTA_CPResolutionOrdMap
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Senator, and true statesman, Bernie Sanders' 8.5 hour Senate filibuster (summary) | | A must see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq1zpHF0J04 |
U.S. Supreme Court takes aim at Arizona clean elections law | |
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case challenging Arizona's clean elections law. Under the system, if candidates forgo private fundraising and adhere to spending limits, they can receive public money after raising a set number of $5 donations. The law permits candidates to receive extra money if their opponent spends more than a certain amount. Good government advocates worry that the Supreme Court is gearing up to once again erode laws designed to curb corporate influence of elections. (Courtesy of Public Citizen http://www.citizen.org/ )
Read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/29/supreme-court-clean-elections-law-mccomish-bennett_n_789353.html |
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Social Security Trust Fund pillaged. | |
Quietly, without so much as a whisper in the main stream media, the Obama "compromise bill" made the historic 1st attack on the Social Security Trust Fund, reducing payments into the trust from 6.2% to 4.2%. Does this represents the beginning of the end for Social Security? It appears so, as the Trust is now fair game for Congressional budgets, a bargaining chip that will be gambled away, pillaged and underfunded from hence forth.
Read more on this issue here: http://www.ncpssm.org/news/archive/cutting_contributions_to_social_security/ |
Is this the End of Net Neutrality? | |
December 21, 2010
The FCC passed new rules -- written by corporations -- that will end Net Neutrality. For the first time in history, the U.S. government approved corporate censorship of the Internet, putting the future of online free speech at risk. Unbelievably, the person leading the charge was Obama appointee Julius Genachowski (known in some circles as Judas GenaComcast for his historic sellout and notorious industry-friendly attitude).
These rules also violate President Obama's campaign promise to protect Net Neutrality and appoint an FCC Commissioner who would do the same, but some media are reporting the corporate spin that this is a "Net Neutrality compromise." The White House is trying to convince us this isn't a sellout as well with their wholly supportive statement.
Read the article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-rosenbaum/breaking-fcc-breaks-obama_b_799844.html
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Public Citizen to Argue Before U.S. Supreme Court That Chase Bank Failed to Comply with Credit Card Disclosure Laws | |
Appellate Court Ruling Should Stand in Customer Notification Case
When the U.S. Supreme Court considers Chase Bank USA v. James A. McCoy on Wednesday, Dec. 8, it will be the latest chapter in the dispute over whether banks can continue to rip off consumers. Public Citizen attorney Greg Beck will argue on behalf of California resident James McCoy and others who were surprised to find their credit card interest rates increased without warning despite paying their credit card bills on time.
The case is about Chase Bank's prior practice of increasing its credit card holders' annual percentage rate (APR) without giving notice to customers. Chase erroneously claimed that notice was not required because its consumer credit card agreements stipulated that Chase "may" increase the initial rate "up to" a specified maximum rate if its monthly customer credit review showed that a cardholder was late in making payments - to anyone.
Read more here: http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=3229
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Wall Street's 10 Biggest Lies of 2010
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What a great year for Wall Street: profits up, bonuses up and, best of all, criticism down. Somehow Wall Street has much of America believing its lies and rationalizations.
Read more here: http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149361 |
Justice Department Sues BP, Others Over Gulf Spill | |
by NPR Staff and Wires. December 15, 2010.
Attorney General Eric Holder announces a civil lawsuit against BP and eight others in an effort to recover billions of dollars from the Gulf oil spill.
The Obama administration's lawsuit asks that the companies be held liable without limitation under the Oil Pollution Act for all removal costs and damages caused by the spill, including damages to natural resources. The lawsuit also seeks civil penalties under the Clean Water Act.
Attorney General Eric Holder said the lawsuit represents the beginning of a long legal fight. Justice Department lawyers have been working night and day, he says, to hold BP, Transocean and other companies accountable for the explosion and the spill that followed.
Read more here: http://www.npr.org/2010/12/15/132083722/u-s-sues-bp-others-over-gulf-oil-spill
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Corporate America's Plan to Loot Our Pensions Is the Latest Battle in Decades-Long Assault on the Middle Class | |
By Arun Gupta, AlterNet Posted on December 18, 2010, Printed on December 19, 2010
The severe economic crisis, now in its fourth year, is being used to batter the remnants of the social welfare state. Having decimated aid to the poor over the last 30 years, especially in the United States, the economic and political elite are now intent on strangling middle-class benefits, namely state-provided pensions, health care and education.
The initial neoliberal assault under Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher reorganized the capitalist economy and hammered private-sector unions into submission. This was accomplished by putting labor back into competition with itself by off-shoring industrial production, through deregulation and with frontal assaults on labor rights, organizing and solidarity.
Read more here: http://www.alternet.org/story/149226/ |
Dude, Where's My Mortgage? How an Obscure Outfit Called MERS Is Subverting Our Entire System of Property Rights | |
Banks have scrambled America's system of private property ownership to the point that no one knows who owns what. December 16, 2010
"For the first time in the nation's history, there is no longer an authoritative, public record of who owns land in each county." -- University of Utah law professor Christopher Peterson
There is an unbelievable scandal in the making that threatens to subvert our four-century-old method for guaranteeing a fundamental building block of the American republic-property ownership. The biggest reason why you probably haven't heard much about it is that it involves one of the most generic and boring company names imaginable: Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., or MERS. It is a story of deception engineered at the highest level of power for short-term gain, and another epic failure of the private sector to uphold the laws and traditions of American society, even something as fundamental as property rights.
Read more here: http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149189
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Bush-Appointed Judge Rules Key Parts of Obama's Health Care Reform Law Unconstitutional (courtesy Alternet) | |
It's been a rough few weeks for President Obama. The latest news is that a Bush-appointed federal judge in Virginia has ruled unconstitutional the "keystone provision" in the health care reform law passed by his administration last year.
Reports the New York Times:
In a 42-page opinion issued in Richmond, Va., Judge Hudson wrote that the law's central requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance exceeds the regulatory authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The insurance mandate is central to the law's mission of covering more than 30 million uninsured because insurers argue that only by requiring healthy people to have policies can they afford to treat those with expensive chronic conditions.
Read more here: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/390917/breaking%3A_bush-appointed_judge_rules_key_parts_of_obama%27s_health_care_reform_law_unconstitutional/
[Melio note: For more information on how the Commerce Clause has been misused by the courts, see this book: Gaveling Down the Rabble - How "Free Trade" is Stealing Our Democracy by Jane Anne Morris. This concise 150 page book is an excellent read for the layperson and lawyer alike. Find it here: http://www.cipa-apex.org/books/A397/default.asp ] |
Throwing Public Unions Under the Bus | |
Shamus Cooke, Truthout
The stage is set and the main actors in Congress and in the corporate establishment are ready to perform after rehearsing behind closed doors for the coming assault on organized labor's most powerful sector: public workers. The final preparations were smoothed out in Obama's tax 'compromise' with the Republicans, which gave details of the drama's first act. The tax plan purposely did not include a critical element for state funding, called the Build America Bonds program (BAB), which allows recession-sunk states to easily borrow money from the federal government. In the face of enormous deficits, the states would be left to drown.
Read the Article here: http://www.truth-out.org/throwing-public-unions-under-bus66362
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Vision: Modern Utopians -- Revisiting the Amazing Communes and Alternative Societies of the '60s and '70s | |
By Richard Fairfield, Process Media
Posted on December 29, 2010
The following is an adapted excerpt from the preface and chapter three of The Modern Utopian: Alternative Communes of the '60s and '70s, by Richard Fairfield (Process Media, 2010).
From the foreward by Timothy Miller:
The countercultural communes are the quiet giants of the 1960s, receiving far less attention than the politics, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, even though they helped define the era. There were thousands--probably tens of thousands--of them, and hundreds of thousands of young counterculturists lived in one commune or another at some point.
Read more here: http://www.alternet.org/story/149329/ |
Exclusive: An Inside Look at the "Hacktivist" Attack on Visa's Web Site | |
Mike Ludwig, Truthout
Web pirates are waging cyberwarfare in defense of WikiLeaks, and I had a rare glimpse into the hacktivists' hidden world of Internet sabotage in a secret chat room as the faceless hackers orchestrated the attack that temporarily shut down Visa's web site on Wednesday evening. Hidden behind screen names like Power2All and Bizzaro, hacktivists involved in the Operation Payback campaign logged into a temporary and remote Internet relay chat (IRC) room to share information on the ongoing Visa attack, swap web addresses, tell jokes and give updates on the international media coverage of their cyberwar against the enemies of WikiLeaks and free information.
Read the Article here: http://www.truth-out.org/exclusive-an-inside-look-hacktivist-attack-visacom65804
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Video: Monahan Brothers and Move To Amend Rally in Washington DC October 30, 2010 | |
Watch this inspiring youtube video of the story of two brothers who walked across the country for an Amendment to Abolish Corporate Personhood - the legal doctrine that empowers the corporatocracy.
Watch video here: http://www.youtube.com/user/MoveToAmend?feature=mhsn |
Supreme Court decision spurs satire at Colorado Capitol By Anthony Bowe THE COLORADO STATESMAN |  The U.S. Supreme Court created a monster in January when it ruled that corporations and labor unions could spend unlimited money on political campaigns, according to Colorado Move to Amend and MoveOn.org. Read more...
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David Cobb on democracy, persons, and the Constitution. | |
If you haven't heard David Cobb of Move To Amend lecture on the origins of the Constitution and Corporate personhood, you are in for a real treat. Watch his video here.
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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch | |
The Earth is the common heritage of humanity. It is a closed ecological system where each part is dependent upon the others for its survival.
The earth ecosystems are under tremendous stress caused by human activity, threatening collapse of the food chain.
We must move rapidly away from the consumer culture, the extensive use of plastic, and the fossil fuel economy that is destroying this earth.
Learn about the Great Pacific Garbage patch here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLrVCI4N67M
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Sign the Move To Amend petition here. I leave you with my mantra for a better world: - Reuse, reduce, recycle, remember the earth.
- Relocalize the economy; subsidize local American jobs.
- Go green, eat green, grow green, be green.
- Build democracy, establish community, vote.
- Abolish corporate personhood.
Democracy is not something you believe or a place to hang your hat, it is something you do. You participate. If we stop participating democracy crumbles. (paraphrasing Abby Hoffman).
Best regards,
Michael Melio
Colorado Move to Amend
Legalize democracy. End corporate rule. Move to Amend. |
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