Corporations Are Not People Lecture: May 3

North Shore Move to Amend will present Jeffrey D. Clements, author of Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It  in a forum on Thursday evening May 3 at Endicott College’s WAX Academic Center Auditorium, 376 Hale Street, Beverly, MA. The forum will commence at 7:00 PM.
 

Clements will discuss the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision and the movement to amend the Constitution to address that decision.

Corporations Are Not People, with a foreword by Bill Moyers, tells the true story of how some of the largest corporations in the world organized to take over our government and Constitution, culminating in 2010 with the 5-4 Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Citizens United marked a culminating victory for the legal doctrine of corporate personhood. Corporations, as legal persons, are now entitled to exercise their alleged free-speech rights in the form of campaign spending, effectively enabling corporate domination of the electoral process.

In his book, Jeffrey Clements uncovers the roots, expansion, and far-reaching effects of the strange and destructive idea, which flies in the face of not only all common sense but, Clements shows, most of American legal history, from 1787 to the 1970s. He details its impact on the American political landscape, economy, job market, environment, and public health—and how it permeates our daily lives, from the quality of air we breathe to the types of jobs we can get to the politicians we elect. Most importantly, he offers a solution: a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United and tools readers can use to mount a grassroots drive to get it passed.

Move to Amend is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not corporate interests.

Move to Amend is organizing Americans across the country to seek an amendment to the US Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong to human beings only, and that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated in political campaigns.

Overturning Citizens United is not about a triumph of one political ideology over another—it’s about restoring the democratic principles on which America was built. Republican president Theodore Roosevelt and conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist both vocally opposed the idea of corporate personhood.

Recent polls have shown that 62% of Americans are opposed to the Citizens United decision

For more information on North Shore Move to Amend contact Kathy Lique kquinn310@gmail.com

7th Annual Democratic Three Towns & Two Cities Breakfast

Press Release: 4/24/2012

7th Annual Democratic Three Towns & Two Cities Breakfast

The 7th Annual Democratic Three Towns & Two Cities Breakfast will be held on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at Nicholson Hall, 9 Harris Street, Newburyport, MA. Tickets are $25. Seating is limited.

There will be Coffee and Socializing from 8:30-9:00AM followed by the Program and Breakfast at 9:00AM.

The Democratic committees of Amesbury, Newbury, Newburyport, Salisbury, and West Newbury join together to invite you to a hearty buffet breakfast with state and local political leaders discussing today's issues.

Confirmed guests to date include Congressman John Tierney, State Treasurer Steve Grossman, State Representatives Michael Costello, former State Senator Stephen Baddour, Registrar of Deeds John O'Brien, and John Walsh, Chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

US Senate candidates Marisa DeFranco and Elizabeth Warren will also speak as will Tim Coco of Haverhill and former Methuen Mayor William Manzi, candidates for the 1st Essex State Senate seat, and Barry Fogel, candidate for the 2^nd Essex State Representative seat.

Bob Allison of Newburyport will provide musical accompaniment. HOBO Catering of Salisbury Beach will provide the buffet.

Proceeds from the breakfast will be used to support the sponsoring town and city committees. A limited number of tickets will be available that morning. Those interested in purchasing tickets in advance should contact the chairs:

                        Amesbury, Rebecca Jordan at jordan161@verizon.net,

Newbury, Nancy Weinberg at weinbergagain@gmail.com,

Newburyport, Ed Cameron at edcameronNBPT@gmail.com,

Salisbury, Lou Masiello at thesummerwind300@comcast.net,

                        West Newbury, Kathy Pasquina at kathypasq2@hotmail.com

Press: For more information about this event, please contact Ed Cameron at edcameronNBPT@gmail.com or call 978-518-0786.

Full oped at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/opinion/krugman-the-amnesia-candidate.html

The excerpt:

The Amnesia Candidate

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Just how stupid does Mitt Romney think we are? If you’ve been following his campaign from the beginning, that’s a question you have probably asked many times.

But the question was raised with particular force last week, when Mr. Romney tried to make a closed drywall factory in Ohio a symbol of the Obama administration’s economic failure. It was a symbol, all right — but not in the way he intended.

First of all, many reporters quickly noted a point that Mr. Romney somehow failed to mention: George W. Bush, not Barack Obama, was president when the factory in question was closed. Does the Romney campaign expect Americans to blame President Obama for his predecessor’s policy failure?

Yes, it does. Mr. Romney constantly talks about job losses under Mr. Obama. Yet all of the net job loss took place in the first few months of 2009, that is, before any of the new administration’s policies had time to take effect. So the Ohio speech was a perfect illustration of the way the Romney campaign is banking on amnesia, on the hope that voters don’t remember that Mr. Obama inherited an economy that was already in free fall.

How does the campaign deal with people who point out the awkward reality that all of the “Obama” job losses took place before any Obama policies had taken effect? The fallback argument — which was rolled out when reporters asked about the factory closure — is that even though Mr. Obama inherited a deeply troubled economy, he should have fixed it by now. That factory is still closed, said a Romney adviser, because of the failure of Obama policies “to really get this economy going again.”

Actually, that factory would probably still be closed even if the economy had done better — drywall is mainly used in new houses, and while the economy may be coming back, the Bush-era housing bubble isn’t.

But Mr. Romney’s poor choice of a factory for his photo-op aside, I guess accusing Mr. Obama of not doing enough to promote recovery is a better argument than blaming him for the effects of Bush policies. However, it’s not much better, since Mr. Romney is essentially advocating a return to those very same Bush policies. And he’s hoping that you don’t remember how badly those policies worked.

MAD Asks...Who Said It? Mitt Romney or Mr. Burns?