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Join our CAMPAIGN TO ELIMINATE CORPORATE PERSONHOOD at the local level: Fight Citizens United and Corporate power from the grass roots up by passing a
Model Municipal Bill of Rights Elections Ordinance drafted in every municipality in Western Mass.
To join our developing campaign and get more information, send your name and email to shays2@lists.riseup.net.
We believe that creating the necessary and desired outcomes requires us to focus not on merely reversing the Supreme Court's latest expansion of corporate "rights," but on eliminating the basic (and mostly, unquestioned) authority of corporate minorities to override, and interfere with, democratic decision making by local and state majorities as well as at the federal level. It is the usurpation of community decision making authority that must be eliminated if we are to have any hope of building truly sustainable and democratic communities.
(From statement issued for the Jan. 20th protests by the Community Environmental Defense Fund)
This Model Municipal Bill is for a local law, a binding ordinance, requiring cities and towns to legislate on behalf of the citizens and not the corporations in their own home communities. It is NOT the same as the local (nonbinding) Resolutions now being passed to support the Constitutional Amendments to the US Constitution. Both are important. The municipal bills develop grass roots power and we the people can get started on these now.
WHY DO WE CALL OURSELVES SHAYS 2?
The spirit of Shays Rebellion has never been more important to revive. The conditions are the same, 226 years later. Corporations still derail our local democracy and use their power against ordinary citizens by buying public officials, blocking sane changes in agriculture, energy, transportation, health care, manufacturing, social spending.
When our cash-starved local communities find themselves needing to privatize water or open casinos to run the schools, we are losing our democracy. We will see more and more of this in the coming years if we do not put ordinances and legal requirements for transparency in place.
We in Western Mass are the home of Shays Rebellion, our country's first populist anti-corporate uprising --the first OCCUPY the Courts-- led by Revolutionary War veteran Captain Daniel Shays, who protested against the Boston banks and business interests leading poor farmers to close down courts that were sending them to debtors prison because they could not make payments on their farms. And why were they poor? Because the new federal government in Boston refused to pay them for their Revolutionary service, preferring to pay debts to the banks and businesses first.
For more resources covering the wide range of approaches to eliminating corporate personhood, check out our resources:
A CAMPAIGN TO OVERTURN CORPORATE PERSONHOOD AND RECLAIM OUR DEMOCRACY
- Wednesday, December 14, 2011
- 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm (Doors open at 6:30 pm)
- First Churches, Lyman Hall, Northampton
- Free with a small suggested donation
Speakers
John Bonifaz
Co-founder and director of Free Speech for People, a national campaign to enact a 28th Amendment to the Constitution that makes clear that corporations are not people with constitutional rights.
Bonifaz will discuss the People's Rights Amendment to end corporate personhood, recently introduced by Rep. James McGovern and inspired by Bonifaz. He will go on to discuss the national conversation that Occupy Wall Street has created about the threat unchecked corporate power poses to our democracy.
Carolyn Toll Oppenheim
Co-Founder of Shays 2: The Western MA Committee on Corporations and Democracy.
Oppenheim will offer a brief contextual overview of different groups across the country and the strategies they are using to challenge corporate personhood
Sponsors
Northampton Ad Hoc Committee on Democracy and Shays 2: Western Mass Committee on Corporations and Democracy
For further information, contact Daniel McLeod at danielwmcleod@hotmail.com.
Join our Public Forum on the eve of a special "oral argument" session of the U.S. Supreme Court that could determine whether corporations have "corporate personhood" — the rights of natural persons.
7:30 pm, Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Media Education Foundation, 60 Masonic St, Northampton
Sponsored by Shays2 and POCLAD (the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy)
Speakers
John Bonifaz
Legal director of Voter Action and former candidate for Massachusetts Secretary of State
Jeffrey Clements
Attorney who filed an Amicus brief representing five citizens groups arguing against expanding corporate First Amendment Rights.
Ward Morehouse
Co-founder of POCLAD
Carolyn Toll Oppenheim
co-founder of Shays2: Western Mass Committee on Corporations and Democracy
The Citizens of the Pioneer Valley
On the eve of a historic Supreme Court session in which the Court will hear arguments in a case that could ultimately decide the Constitutionality of the concept of "corporate personhood," a Massachusetts attorney who filed a brief in the case (Jeffrey Clements) and a local attorney (John Bonifaz) with national expertise on the the case will participate in a public forum on the key issues.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on Wednesday Sept. 9. At issue is whether corporations can claim free speech rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution, according to Clements and Bonifaz. "The notion that corporations have the same speech rights as people under our Bill of Rights is contrary to the words, history, spirit and intent of our Constitution," said Jeffrey Clements.
Clements filed his Amicus ("friend of the court") brief for five citizens organizations, including: POCLAD, Shays2, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County, and the Clements Foundation.
"The Citizens United case has little to do with citizens, and everything to do with corporations," he said. "A Supreme Court decision saying that Congress and the States cannot regulate the use of corporate money in elections would be a severe blow to our democracy and to our Constitution. Corporations do not vote, speak, or act as people do, but are products of government policy to achieve economic and charitable ends. As such, corporations should not be allowed to influence our elections if Congress and State governments judge that such influence is detrimental to democracy."
Corporate control of our media already gives them a distinct advantage in the marketplace of ideas. Lifting the ban on their flooding the media with political messages just before an election would silence noncorporate voices
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is an ongoing legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the Court should overturn existing state and federal laws that regulate corporate political expenditures. This case is on appeal from a lower court case of the same name from 2008, in which the lower court sided with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that "Hillary: The Movie" could not be shown on television right before the 2008 Democratic primaries. Citizens United, Inc. argued that the ban on its showing the film violated its free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution.
Legal scholars consider this case one of the most important First Amendment cases in years. It will determine the constitutionality of a hundred-year-old ban on expenditures by corporations to influence federal elections and similar longstanding bans in many states. A New York Times front page story on Sunday, Aug.29, 2009, states, "The argument comes at a crucial historical moment, as corporations today almost certainly have more to gain or fear from government action than at any time since the New Deal."
"The Supreme Court has, for years, recognized that corporations, with their ability to amass wealth in the economic sphere, should not be allowed to drown out ordinary citizen speech in the political marketplace," says John Bonifaz, legal director of Voter Action, a national non-profit voting rights organization. "If the current Supreme Court, through this case, were to reverse that long-standing precedent, it would unleash a torrent of corporate money in the political process, posing a direct threat to our democracy. Corporations are artificial entities with state-based advantages and, as such, they do not have the rights guaranteed to persons under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. This pending Supreme Court case provides a clear opportunity to expose the myth of "corporate personhood" and the danger that it presents to free and fair elections."
This case has generated some 40 Amicus briefs from groups on both sides as well as briefs from 26 state Attorneys General —including MA Atty. Gen. Martha Coakley—and the US Solicitor General and others.
The states Attorney Generals' brief supports the Constitutionality of bans on corporate expenditures in campaigns, stating, "Corporate electioneering corrupts the relationship between public officials and the public interest by encouraging politicl dependence on narrowly concentrated private interests embodied in the corporate form" and does so "at the expense of broader and more dispersed interests represented by the people themselves."
The briefs filed in this case by Citizens United and the Solictor General and a number of amicus briefs filed in support of the constitutionality of the corporate expenditure ban are available from Democracy 21, an educational organization working to eliminate the undue influence of big money in American politics. Jeffrey Clements' brief is listed on the site under "Women's International League Brief."
The Democracy 21 website includes a collection of articles on the case including one called "Will the Supreme Court Return America to the 19th Century?" in which the author notes the Founders were wary of corporate influence on politics — and their rhetoric sometimes got pretty heated. In an 1816 letter, Thomas Jefferson declared his hope to "crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." This skepticism was enshrined in law in the early 20th century when the nation adopted strict rules banning corporations from contributing to political campaigns.
See our Corporate Personhood Resources page for general information on the subject.
Shays2 has been on hiatus for a while. We need people to join and invigorate our work. Please read below about our previous work in the Valley.
Nestle Backs Down - for Now
Nestle Waters North America has backed off its intent
to explore state conservation land in the Upper Pioneer
Valley as a source of spring water for a new bottling
plant.
An article
in the Greenfield Recorder states that Nestle clearly
did not want to try to jump through all the state-level
hoops, particularly since there are other options that do
not involve the state.
The two challenges ahead: 1) blocking "other options"
the company may find to access our pure, public water for
profit and move ahead with the withdrawal from the
acquirer AND bottling plant; 2) strategizing "other
options" for municipalities to solve fiscal crises without
selling off public assets and comprimising local
democracy.
See our Water Privatization Page
for general information on the subject. Additional
information on the Montague incident can be found at the
MontagueMA discussion board.
Some Important Upcoming Public Meetings
As corporations converge in the Pioneer Valley to
encroach on our local democracy, activists have a choice
of two meetings on the same evening - either to fight
Nestle's coming to take public spring water from our state
conservation land, or to battle the ongoing struggle to
prevent a Super Walmart in the Hampshire Mall on Route 9
in Hadley between Northampton and Amherst. You can also
fight corporate hospitals in Massachusetts that are
pushing legislation to force nurses to treat so many
patients that our hospital care will be unsafe (and their
professional licenses will be on the line).
Nestle Meeting
Tuesday, October 16, 2007, 7:00 p.m.
Montague Grange Hall, 34 Main Street, Montague
Everyone is invited to learn more about our water
resources, how they are and are not protected, and what we
can do. This affects us statewide if the corporation is
allowed access to state conservation land and water, even
though the water sources taken most directly affect
surrounding communities.
[More Info]
See also our Water Privatization
Resources Page and a new
article by a Canadian watchdog group. Canada has between 20% and 25% of the
world's fresh water sources....and with global warming
and droughts predicted, the profits in private water sales
are expected to soar ? so Canadians are way ahead of us in
the U.S. in anticipating the water privatizers.
Wal-Mart Public Hearing
Tuesday, October 16, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
Whether Wal-Mart will eventually be able to build a
212,000-square-foot Supercenter store at the Hampshire
Mall could hinge on getting a commercial subdivision plan
approved by town planners later this month. The Hadley
Planning Board is slated to hold a hearing Oct. 16 at 7:30
p.m. on the definitive commercial subdivision plans for
Westgate Center Drive and Hampshire Mall Way filed by
Pyramid Corp., the owner of the mall.
[Read More]
Fight for Patient Safety
Get on a free bus ride to the Legislative
Hearing (in Boston) on House Bill 2059, the Patient Safety
Act! Don't let hospital corporations make profits on our
need for care. A hearing on the bill has been scheduled
before the Joint Committee on Public Health on Wednesday,
October 24, 2007. For more information or to reserve
seats, contacting any of the following: Mass Nurses Assn,
584-4607; WMass Jobs with Justice, 827-0301; Mass Senior
Action Council, 543-2334.
Join Shays 2 and other local grassroots groups at the Pioneer Valley Relocalization Workshop
Sunday, September 30, 2007
10:00 am - 5:30 pm
Northampton Center for the Arts
17 New South Street, Northampton
http://www.masschc.org/Relocalization.html
One step to taking power back from unsustainable corporate globalization is a reinvestment in our own communities, building vibrant local economies based on cooperation instead of competition, meeting people's needs instead of manufacturing desires, and respecting the natural environment around us.
Pioneer Valley Relocalization Workshop Schedule
Hear Shays 2 board members speak at Plenary sessions in the morning, hear Ward Morehouse speak at an afternoon session and come chat at the Shays 2 table.
Keynote speaker Frances Moore Lappé is launching her new book, "Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad."
Register now (free) to reserve your seat! Email your name/address/email/organization (if any) to eli@masschc.org, or call (413) 256-1157. If your organization would like to table call/email (413) 256-1157, eli@masschc.org For more information, visit: http://www.masschc.org/Relocalization.html.
Radio Public Forum with Alan Snitow
Author of Thirst: the Corporate Theft of Our Water
Friday, September 21
4:30 p.m., WMUA 91.1FM
Call-in number: 413-545-3691
Private "takings" of our public water resources are looming large right now!
• Nestle Corporation is considering building a new bottling plant in the Montague area and use spring water from the aquifer on state conservation plan onthe Montague Plains somewhere in Massachusetts. The Pioneer Valley is just one of several sites in Massachusetts Nestle's is exploring.
• Furthermore, a bill in our state legislature threatens to make water and sewer privatization easier for the cities and towns before citizens can get their voices heard.
This week, the weekly radio show Writer's Voice with
Francesca Rheannon will feature a live call-in forum on
corporate vs. citizen control of public water resources.
Call in to discuss these issues with guest Alan
Snitow, co-author of Thirst:
• The threat of a Nestle water bottling plant taking our
public water from the Montague Plain state conversation
area, and how other states have fought Nestle
• The threat of widespread water and sewer privatization
in our Mass. cities and towns, and how communities around our
country have fought that.
Guest Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman produced the film
documentary, Thirst, which was aired by PBS. Join host
Francesca Rheannon and fellow citizens to literally "air"
your concerns, thoughts and questions about who should
control our water!
The show will be re-broadcast locally on September
27 at 8 AM on Valley Free Radio 103.3.
For more information, see our background section on water privatization.
The threat of water privatization strikes again in the Pioneer Valley...this time on state owned land near Montague.
The story: Company looks for water in Montague Plains
To understand this threat, read Thirst: the Corporate Theft of Our Water, a brand-new book outlining citizen struggles against multinational corporate privatization of local water and sewer systems (with two chapters featuring struggles in Western MA alone - Holyoke and Lee - where Shays 2 was involved!).
• Write your state representatives and state senators to oppose the threat of fast-track privatization of Massachusetts water services in all our cities and towns from a new bill (House Bill 3216) that is before the legislature now!
• Read a list of reasons Shays 2 opposes this bill.
[Read more...]
Thirst: The Corporate Theft of Our Water
BOOK PARTY
Monday, April 16, 7:00 p.m.
Odyssey Books, South Hadley,
Co-sponsored by Shays 2
Meet the authors of Thirst: the Corporate Theft of Our Water, a brand-new book outlining citizen struggles against multinational corporate privatization of local water and sewer systems (with two chapters featuring struggles in Western MA alone - Holyoke and Lee - where Shays 2 was involved!).
Learn about how we can fight the threat of fast-track
privatization of Massachusetts water services in all our
cities and towns from a new bill (House Bill 3216) that is
before the legislature now!
Discuss citizens rights-based strategies to save our
public sector now under assault, prevent the corporate
theft-through privatization-- of our water, earth and
airwaves.
[Read More...]
SHAYS 2 CO-SPONSORED the FORMATION of the
WFCR DEMOCRACY TASK FORCE
"PUT THE PUBLIC BACK INTO PUBLIC RADIO!" CAMPAIGN
The WFCR Democracy Task force was organized in response to the cuts of four radio shows, two of them locally produced, by WFCR-FM radio (88.5 fm), Pioneer Valley public radio.
We are continuing to work on longer-range projects to organize a citizens-rights based campaign to make public media accountable to public input.For Background on the current WFCR campaign, and to join their listerv, go to http://www.justiceandpeace.net/WFCRdemocracy/.
Many public radio stations across the country have been straying from their original mission of offering alternatives to commercial programming, due to financial pressures, without seeking listener input. SHAYS 2 will present a proposal for a campaign to demand transparency, accountability and citizen input in programming decisions based on citizens' rights to know where tax dollars flow.
If you are interested in getting on our Shays 2 steering committee to work more closely on our projects, send an email to info@shays2.org .
How Corporations Are Infiltrating State and Local Government
and Plundering Our Democracy
An evening with Jill Stein, founding president of Massachusetts Coalition
For Healthy Communities, to discuss how we in Shays2 can expose and challenge this critical situation that
threatens to rip away our democracy through corporate power at the state
level over our local Western Mass municipalities.
Wednesday, October 25, 7:00 p.m.
Unitarian Meeting House
220 Main Street, Northampton
Corporate Rights vs. Community Rights
How activists, labor, business, public officials and ordinary citizens joined forces in California to fight the consolidation of corporate power
Sunday, September 17, 7 p.m.
Media Education Foundation,
60 Masonic Street, Northampton
Free and open to the public
Speaker Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap led the successful legal campaign to ban outside corporations from donating to local elections in Humboldt County, CA. She is an inspiring young democracy organizer who has built a national reputation as speaker and workshop facilitator.
Join us in discussing our own Shays 2 campaign to keep large corporations from hijacking our Western Mass communities!
[Download Flyer]
Co-sponsored by Shays2.
Event Recap
David Cobb: On Building Effective Democracy in the Face of Corporate Hegemony
By Ben Frank, Patriotic Pulse
Friday, 30 June 2006
NORTHAMPTON, MA — Attorney David Cobb, fresh off his recent Measure T victory banning non-local corporate campaign donations in Humboldt County, California, was the featured speaker at a Shays2.org event called "Building Effective Democracy in the Face of Corporate Hegemony" held on Wednesday.
Read more...
Shays Rebellion
Shays Rebellion, 1786-87 in Western Massachusetts, was the first populist uprising after the American Revolution. It's 218 years later, but the spirit of Shays Rebellion has never been more important to revive than now. Corporations still derail democracy and use their power against ordinary citizens by buying our public officials and blocking sane changes in agriculture, energy, transportation, health care, manufacturing and social spending.
More history...
Quotes
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy
of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to
challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid
defiance to the laws of our country."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1812
More quotes...
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