Why Do Corporations Have More Rights Than You Do

LinkLanguage for this page: http://bit.ly/CorporateRightsTemp

Next workshop

TBA

was Occupy Portland Library Workshop tent

Paul Cienfuegos leads these workshops, he has 15 years experience in this field.

Possible timeline

09 Febuary 2012 - Ignite Portland 10

The following will help us determine our timeline and objectives for getting an initiative started. Could someone fill in the details of when our elections are?

From: http://www.portlandonline.com/auditor/index.cfm?c=28158

2.04.090

In computing the required number of signatures, the required number shall be a percentage, as provided in this section, of the number of electors registered in the city on the date of the primary municipal election immediately preceding the date the prospective petition is filed.

D. An initiative petition shall:

1. Be filed with the Auditor for signature verification no less than four months before the election date specified on the petition. Failure to meet this filing deadline shall render the petition void.

2. Be signed by a number of electors equal to or greater than 9 percent of the number of electors registered in the city on the date of the primary municipal election immediately preceding the date the prospective petition is filed.

Mayor Sam Adams invite

based on his comments regarding corporate personhood

Pink Martini show speech

Text, audio and a video, even if a bit fuzzy

Pioneer Square follow up

Here is the intro for Community Rights

Videos

Series on YouTube: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Current Flyer:

Feel free to print and distribute the flier, here is the PDF to download.

• Back / Front

---

• Inside Left / Inside Right

Past flier

• Back / Front v1, v2
• Inside Left / Inside Right v1, v2

Quotes

Frances Moore Lappe: "Growing up in America, we were taught that we inherited a democracy. No one told us that we ourselves had to create one."

President Grover Cleveland worried in 1888 that: "Corporations, which should be carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters."

Thomas Jefferson: "The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when the government falls into the hands of banking institutions and monied incorporations."

Thomas Jefferson: 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.

Alexis de Tocqueville: Can it be believed that the democracy which overthrew the feudal system and vanquished kings will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists?

Rutherford B. Hayes, U.S President, 1876-1880: "This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations."

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power."

They hang the man, and flog the woman

That steals the goose from off the common

But let the greater villain loose,

That steals the commons from the goose.

Medieval rhyme

Howard Zinn, in "Failure to Quit": "Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience... Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running and robbing the country. That's our problem."

"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. ...Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running and robbing the country. That's our problem."

"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."

--Alex Carey, "Taking The Risk Out of Democracy"

Without power and independence, a town may contain good subjects but it can contain no active citizens. Alexis de Tocqueville

"We wish not to seize power, but to exercise it."

--Subcommandante Marcos

Zapatista Army of National Liberation

"...A society is democratic to the extent that people in it have meaningful opportunities to take part in the formation of public policy."

-- Noam Chomsky.

Reference

Based off of this comment at the Occupy Portland website - here is an attempt to make a place for this workshop.