Trees Are Like People (But Corporations Are Not)

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and she said, “I love trees. Trees are like people.” That reminded me of what Supreme Court Justice Arthur Kennedy said in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (January 21, 2010): “I love corporations. Corporations are just like people.”

Well, no.

Corporations are not like people. They are legal entities that shield their employees from being sued for pursuing profits aggressively, relentlessly, unsustainably. Think British Petroleum and the Gulf oil spill, Monsanto and its chemicalization of food.  Think any high-tech or Wall Street firm and their multi-million dollar executive bonuses, while their rank-and-file workers fail to make their rent or mortgage payments.

Corporations do not have babies, raise children or struggle to get them educated. Corporations do not get cancer or AIDS or require surgery to replace a knee or a heart. Corporations do not fall in or out of love. Corporations do not cry or laugh. Corporations do not care. Period.

No, they are not like people at all. And they certainly do not deserve the rights people enjoy under the Constitution of the United States.

And now people are doing something about it.

On the United for the People website, the umbrella organization has displayed the logos of 99 organizations around the country working to oppose Citizens United and see a Constitutional Amendment passed. They include Center for Biological Diversity, CodePink, Common Cause, GAIA, Greenpeace, National Education Association (NEA), Pax Christi USA, Rainforest Alliance, Sierra Club, and United Auto Workers (UAW) – quite a diverse set of bedfellows.

Recently, members of OccupyMV and other concerned citizens participated in a nationwide training put together by moveon.org focused on preparing for non-violent protest of the Citizens United decision. It was held right here on the Vineyard.

Move to Amend is another organization taking action intended to overturn the Citizens United decision. Take a look at their nationwide map of state and local government initiatives opposing Citizens United!

Right here on Martha’s Vineyard, the action is all in town meetings where so far five of the six island towns have already approved resolutions in support of Massachusetts State Senate bill 772 calling for an amendment to the Constitution. That amendment would restore free speech and voting rights to the people by declaring that corporations are not, indeed, people after all -- and it would restore spending limits for corporations in election campaigns. Accordingly, all five of our towns that have held town meetings -- Edgartown, Chilmark, Oak Bluffs, Tisbury, West Tisbury – have voted in support of S.772 and the efforts of our Cape and Islands legislators, State Senator Daniel Wolf and State Representative Timothy Madden.

Since Citizens United ruling went into effect two years ago, election campaign spending by corporations and their political action committees (PACs) has dwarfed the total of election campaign spending in any previous decade. And no one is surprised. The greatest beneficiary of the SuperPAC spending has been the GOP, and the evidence is in the results of the mid-term Congressional elections. Now the GOP is targeting the U.S. Senate.

But this really should not be a partisan issue. In fact, multiple recent polls indicate nearly eighty percent of Americans oppose the Citizens United ruling and want big corporate money out of politics.

that “In the Colonial period, shortly before the American Revolution, Town Meetings in Needham and elsewhere were really the place where the American Revolution began…This is where the grievances against King George and the British rule were articulated.”  The speeches made and resolutions adopted in Massachusetts apparently upset King George – and never mind his madness, he was utterly tyrannical – so George, our king, passed a law that proclaimed town meetings in Massachusetts could not discuss any measure whatsoever unless first approved by his political advisors.

So now we have a new kind of tyranny -- the tyranny of the corporate state -- threatening our democracy and our rights under the Constitution.

Here in Massachusetts alone there is a coalition organized to stir organized opposition that includes the Coffee Party, the Massachusetts Nurses, MassPIRG, Public Citizen and other groups. Town and local resolutions having passed now number well over 30 and those pending another 25 or so and growing. Clearly, there is a wave building at the grass roots level, and it has not yet come close to reaching its peak.

What can you do to get more information about this situation?

You can follow the links in this blog post and read about it. You can call the offices of Dan Wolf (617-722-1570) and Tim Madden (617-722-2810) and ask for information from your elected legislators. You can talk to your friends and neighbors about it. You can drop into the Hebrew Center on April 29^th from 3-530 for the Understanding Occupy – Part 2 educational forum where you can watch short films about all this and discuss them openly with your island neighbors.

And you can go up to Aquinnah on May 8^th for the last island town meeting vote on S.772 and watch history being made as the Vineyard rises up as one to oppose Citizen’s United.

After all, you and I know that corporations are not at all like people. But I still haven’t figured out about trees. Or carrots.