Last edited Sat Jul 5, 2014, 02:29 AM - Edit history (2)
That is not what Move to Amend is asking for to change that ruling. They want an amendment, not a convention:
We the People, Not We the Corporations
On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions.
We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United and other related cases, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law. In a democracy, the people rule.
We Move to Amend.
"...corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their 'personhood' often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."
~Supreme Court Justice Stevens, January 2010
ACTION ALERT: Tell the Senate Any Amendment Must Include Ending Corporate Personhood!
July 1, 2014
Senate Joint Resolution 19 is a proposed Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United, but it doesn’t address corporate constitutional rights at all.
Move to Amend has vowed that we will not support any halfway measures that don't amend the Constitution in two necessary ways:
1) Make clear that only human beings, not corporations have Constitutional rights;
2) Make clear that money is not speech and campaign spending can be regulated.
Tens of thousands of volunteers across the nation have been building a grassroots movement over the past four years from the bottom up. This movement came from everyday people taking this issue to their city governments, to town meeting debates, to candidate forums, to newspaper opinion pages, and to the ballot box directly. Nearly 600 cities and towns have now passed amendment resolutions.
Polling shows 80% of the American public believes that corporations should not have the same rights as people. State legislatures have been pressured to stand up as well, with 16 states passing resolutions calling for an amendment. “Ending Corporate Personhood” was a major theme in the demands that came from Occupy encampments across the country.
The plan is that this amendment will get a vote in the Senate this year -- before election season. We cannot allow a proposal that doesn’t address corporate constitutional rights to get traction -- the amendment must match the demand of our movement: “A Corporation is Not a Person! Money is Not Free Speech!”
Fill out the form below to send a message to the authors of SJR19 -- let them know that Corporate Personhood MUST be included in the language of the amendment:
https://movetoamend.org/amend-sjr19
https://movetoamend.org/
It is a slow and tedious process, not funded by the right who will fund a convention to get their way. They announced their intent years ago, to dissolve the New Deal part of federal government and repealing all progressive amendments past the 10th, thus returning to states rights, or as they call themselves now, the Tenther Movement.
The ones asking for the convention are Paul Ryan and his ilk, and have already stated their plan, to repeal the 14th with its clauses of Birthright Ciizenship, Due Process and Equal Treatment under the Law when they get 38 state legislatures 'red' to vote for it. Most of our current liberties and laws hinge on that Amendment, which was needed to remedy what the fabled 4th didn't do to help minorities.
Now we see 2 states have been hoodwinked with this fallacy that an Article 5 Convention is required to overturn both Citizens United and the McCutcheon decisions. It is not, and to open the toolbox will allow the Koch brothers to rewrite and repeal whatever is in the Constitution that do not fit their agenda.
If it is held, this will be their agenda as they bus in their paid supporters to make it happen. They have gotten just about everything they have on their list, playing the CT, Tea, GOP and the general public who don't understand how the Koch brothers are coercing us to accept a convention they'll have a prominent hand in. The media and their think tanks have all the needed verbiage to make it pull the wool over our eyes, which they have done a good job of so far:
BERNIE SANDERS Uncovers 1980 Koch Agenda- "What Do the Koch Brothers Want?"
What else do the Koch brothers want?
In 1980, David Koch ran as the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential candidate in 1980.
Let’s take a look at the 1980 Libertarian Party platform.
Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:
“We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”
“We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
“We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”
“We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”
“We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”
“We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”
“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”
“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
“As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”
“We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”
“We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”
“We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”
“We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”
“We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
“We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”
“We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”
“We demand the return of America's railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”
“We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”
“We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”
“We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”
“We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”
“We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”
“We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”
“We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”
“We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
“We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”
In other words, the agenda of the Koch brothers is not only to defund Obamacare. The agenda of the Koch brothers is to repeal every major piece of legislation that has been signed into law over the past 80 years that has protected the middle class, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the most vulnerable in this country...
Tomorrow it will be Social Security, ending Medicare as we know it, repealing the minimum wage. It seems to me that the Koch brothers will not be content until they get everything they believe they are entitled to.
Our great nation can no longer be hijacked by right-wing billionaires like the Koch brothers.
For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, for the sake of our economy, we have got to let democracy prevail.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024806298
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/koch-brothers
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a7980koch
to kpete:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024806298
We've heard these memes for years, Americans have come to believe this is how it has to be. An explanation of their beliefs are here:
How Freedom Became Tyranny
Rightwing libertarians have turned “freedom” into an excuse for greed and exploitation.
George Monbiot - December 19, 2011
Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?
In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.
Right-wing libertarianism recognises few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others. In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs and Policy Exchange. Their conception of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed.
So why have we been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty? I believe that one of the reasons is as follows. The great political conflict of our age – between neocons and the millionaires and corporations they support on one side and social justice campaigners and environmentalists on the other – has been mischaracterised as a clash between negative and positive freedoms.
More at the link about the meaning of positive and negative freedoms and how words are used against us:
http://www.monbiot.com/2011/12/19/how-freedom-became-tyranny/
I do not wish to live under the Kochstitution and that is what will happen if we don't take the regular process of amending, but instead go for the heady idea of an Article 5 Convention. It is the fondest dream of the ultra conservatives and the Libertarians.
JMHO.
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