excerpted from below - Scott
" ...it is axiomatic that corporations, companies, and partnerships
have no spiritual nature, feelings, intellect, beliefs,
thoughts, emotions, or sensations, because they do not exist in the
manner that humankind exists
They cannot be let alone by government,
because businesses are but grapes, ripe upon the vine of the law, that the
people of this Commonwealth raise, tend, and prune at their pleasure and
need.
****
The National Campaign to End Corporate Personhood and Demand Real Democracy!
Move to Amend
About | Donate | Take Action
Michael Scott,
When it comes to constitutions, the application of law, and common sense,
the Supreme Court of the United States could learn a thing or two from
President Judge Debbie ODell-Seneca of the Washington County Court of
Common Pleas in Pennsylvania.
ODell-Seneca overruled a previous decision that sealed a settlement
between a Mount Pleasant Township family and large energy corporations,
which caused the family harm because of fracking on an adjacent property
to their own. The Observer-Reporter and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette pressed
the suit, which ultimately decided the publics right to be informed
outstripped the corporations right to privacy.
In fact, ODell-Seneca went much further than that. The judge asserted
corporations have no constitutional rights:
...the constitution vests in business entities no special rights that
the laws of this Commonwealth cannot extinguish. In sum,
[corporations] cannot assert [constitutional privacy] protections
because they are not mentioned in its text.
...it is axiomatic that corporations, companies, and partnerships
have no spiritual nature, feelings, intellect, beliefs,
thoughts, emotions, or sensations, because they do not exist in
the manner that humankind exists
They cannot be let alone by
government, because businesses are but grapes, ripe upon the vine of
the law, that the people of this Commonwealth raise, tend, and prune
at their pleasure and need.
Our friends at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF),
provide a great analysis of this case (pdf), and the Observer-Reporter
details the facts of the case in this article.
Despite the mainstream medias blackout on any reporting that calls into
question corporate personhood, this recent decision is an important
victory for our movement.
CELDF Executive Director Thomas Linzey writes:
The ruling represents the first crack in the judicial armor that has been
so meticulously welded together by major corporations. And it affirms what
many communities already know -- that change only occurs when people begin
to openly question and challenge legal doctrines that have been treated as
sacred by most lawyers and judges.
Laws follow culture and the legal system adjusts as society's views shift.
This case illustrates that we are collectively beginning to change hearts
and minds about the appropriate role of the corporation in society, even
amongst those who are entrenched in the current system.
Keep it up!
Ashley Sanders, Daniel Lee, David Cobb, Egberto Willies, George Friday,
Jerome Scott, Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Laura Bonham, Maria Agosto, Nancy
Price, Pam Brown
Move to Amend National Leadership Team
P.S. In a recent episode of Move to Amend Reports, Shannon Biggs of
Global Exchange talked about community rights, rights of nature, and
fracking. Listen here!
And tune in this week when Egberto and Laura interview Carl Gibson from
Operation Green Jobs, a march to the US Chamber of Commerce headquarters
in DC all the way from Philadelphia between May 18th and 24th. Move to
Amend Reports is every Thursday at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern and can be
heard live or recorded at http://blogtalkradio.com/movetoamend.
MOVE TO AMEND
PO Box 610, Eureka CA 95502 | (707) 269-0984 | www.MoveToAmend.org
We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme
Court's Citizens United ruling, 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.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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