CSPAN: Summit on Money in Politics
1:30 pm Introduction • Bill Moyer-Backbone Campaign • Annabel Park –Coffee Party 1:45-3:00 pm Reports on Impact of the Citizens United Ruling in 2010 Format: Moderated panel, press conference style Participants: • Lisa Graves (Center for Media Democracy) • Marge Baker (People for the American Way) • Douglas Clopp (Common Cause) • Craig Holman (Public Citizen) 3:10 - 4:25 pm Strategies for Addressing Corporate Personhood & the Corrupting Influence of Money in Politics Format: Facilitated panel presentation followed by panel discussion and q&a.
Join me, one of the New Media Outreach Coordinators for Coffee Party USA, over the fold for the latest details on the For The People Summit, including the We the People vs We the Corporations event, which is being held as I am typing this report.
This diary is an update of Coffee Party USA helps launch Movement for the People as part of For The People Summit January 20-22, 2011
LIVE AND RECORDED VIDEO UPDATE
Live Video from C-SPAN 3
Continuing live coverage of the For the People Summit. Proceedings are being broadcast as I type.
Responses to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Strategies for Addressing Corporate Personhood & the Corrupting Influence of Money in Politics Format: Facilitated panel presentation followed by panel discussion and q&a. Moderator: This program was part of a conference focusing on the issue of money in politics and corporate power, and organized by a coalition of groups calling itself the "Movement for the People."
Ethics in Politics
Keynote w/ Q&A • Larry Lessig, Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University This program was part of a conference focusing on the issue of money in politics and corporate power, and organized by a coalition of groups calling itself the "Movement for the People."
Coming up tonight between 7:00 and 8:30 PM EST on C-SPAN 3. Available at the C-SPAN 3 website afterwards.
Corporate Power and Politics
This program was part of a conference focusing on the issue of money in politics and corporate power, and organized by a coalition of groups calling itself the "Movement for the People." 7pm-8:30pm Transpartisan dialog on corporate power: Americans as citizens, Consumers and employees (facilitated by Michael Ostrolenk) • Tim Carney, Washington Examiner • Arnold Kling, EconLog • Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research • Jane Hamsher, Firedog Lake.com 8:30pm-9:30pm Building Power - Victory Stories and Movement-building Models Format: via short video and presenter • Boston Eviction Defense and Principal Reduction - Steve Meacham • Paul Glover on Localization: Currencies, Health Care and more • Democracy Collaborative & Cleveland Coops - Delivering Jobs: Steve Dubbs • United Workers - Ashley Hufnagel
The following segments have already been recorded and are available for viewing on demand.
For The People Summit
First up, the latest video narrated by Annabel Park on the event.
This paragraph of Coffee Party USA's most recent blog post also helps introduce the event.
Restore Civility and a Government for the People
We are three days away from the first anniversary of the "Citizens United vs FEC" ruling that opened the doorway to unlimited and often anonymous spending by corporations to influence our elections.
Ordinary Americans from around the country, including many Coffee Party members, will be participating in the MOVEMENT FOR THE PEOPLE by hosting house party screenings, visiting their elected officials, or gathering in Washington D.C. for a Lobby Day, a Rally at the U.S. Capitol, and a 2-day Summit focused on the problem of money in politics.
The press release on the Movement for the People website comes a roll call of those organizations joining Coffee Party USA in this event.
"Citizens United" anniversary sparks For the People Summit Jan. 20 to 22
WASHINGTON D.C. Jan. 6, 2011 — To mark the first anniversary of the controversial "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling, a coalition of advocacy groups and concerned citizens will host the For the People Summit, including a strategic conference at the Washington Plaza Hotel and a "We the Corporations" vs. "We the People" rally at the U.S. Capitol.
...
Bill Moyer of the Backbone Campaign and Annabel Park of the Coffee Party are two of the principal organizers. "It's very hard to make progress on any issue without addressing the problem of money in politics," Park said, "because right now it takes a nearly impossible amount of effort for ordinary people to compete with the daily influence that entrenched lobbyists enjoy. To succeed, we need to step outside the traditional left-right-center framework and find common cause across the political divide."
Today, a growing coalition that also includes Center for Media and Democracy, Alliance for Democracy, and Move to Amend launched a new website — MovementForThePeople.org — inviting people around the country to create local events and/or participate on-line.
"The greatest political reform of our time will be to abolish the legal concept of 'corporate personhood' and the inherently anti-democratic equation of money with political speech," Moyer said. "I believe this monumental task will be achieved in the coming years built on a foundation of community-based battles to return power to the People."
...
Nancy Price, Co-chair of the Alliance for Democracy, said she is impressed with the emerging coalition, for which she has served as an adviser. "The Summit will be an open discussion putting aside political, cultural, and ideological differences because the problem of money in politics is uniting America like few issues can," she said. "80% of us disapprove of the Citizens United decision. 87% disapprove of the job Congress is doing. The American public will not accept a future in which we are no longer a self-determining people."
More info about the participating, sponsoring, and endorsing organizations can be found at Movement for the People's about page.
For more background to and overview of the For The People Summit, see the original announcement here on Coffee Party USA's website and here on Movement for the People.
Coffee Party USA has a very busy schedule of events planned for this extended weekend, which started on Thursday January 20th and ends on Sunday January 23rd.
Corporate Emancipation Satirical Rally at the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 21, 2011 at 11 AM
The Corporate Emancipation Satirical Rally will be one of two events held on Friday the 21st, the other being the opening day of the For The People Summit at the Washington Plaza Hotel.
To mark the anniversary of the controversial Citizens United Supreme Court decision, we are preparing a Satirical Rally at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 21st featuring a cast of characters celebrating their identity as Corporate-Person-Americans, and the anniversary of Corporate Emancipation.
The people role-playing as corporations won't have all the fun. Coffee Party USA is looking for artists and performers who will portray flesh-and-blood people, too.
We are looking for writers and artists to lend their creativity. We hope that a humorous approach, which spoofs the notion of "corporate personhood" through the lens of self-righteous identity politics, will grow into an interactive web series with nationwide participation, and possibly a feature length film. They will unveil their "We the Corporations" reworking of the Preamble to the Constitution, only to be met by a "We the People" counter-protest.
For a taste of the performances at the Satirical Rally today, watch the following videos.
For The People Summit
Can Citizens United unite America? On Jan. 21 and 22 at the elegant Washington Plaza Hotel, we are marking the anniversary of the Citizens United decision with an exploration of the how corporate money impacts representative democracy. Two days of panel discussions, collaborative workshops, and special presentations designed to facilitate trans-partisan dialogue and conservative/progressive alliances in the areas of overlapping interest.
A growing list of speakers and panelists will be participating, including the following confirmed speakers.
• Dean Baker of The Center for Economic and Policy Studies
• Marge Baker of People for the American Way
• John Bonifaz of Free Speech for People (Bonifaz was the guest on Coffee Party USA's Blog Talk Radio show this week in John Bonifaz: An Amendment to Put People Ahead of Corporations)
• David Cobb of Move to Amend
• Eric Hensal of Murray Hill, Inc.
• Ellen Hodgeson Brown author of Web of Debt
• Lawrence Lessig of Fix Congress First
• Michael Ostrolenk of Transpartisan Center
• Steve Meacham of City Life Vida Urbana
• Bill Moyer of Backbone Campaign
• Annabel Park of the Coffee Party
• Sanho Tree of the Institute for Policy Studies
• Kevin Zeese of Voters for Peace
For an updated and complete list of speakers, including capsule biographies, click here.
There will be two series of panels.
The Corporate Power vs. People Power panels will examine the ways in which the corrupting influence of money in politics has undermined the best interest of the People on consumer rights, health care reform, environmental protections, civil rights, and campaign finance reform, just to name a few.
...
Our Victories For the People series will look at case studies from Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and other parts of the country where ordinary citizens delivered legislative and legal victories through a populism that brings our the best, rather than the worst in people, making a real difference in their lives.
Saturday's schedule includes an open mike event called "We the People/Free Speech Day." The participants in Washington will hold theirs in Washington Plaza. Local organizers nationwide will choose a space to set up a microphone, and allow people 3 minutes each to use words, creativity, music, or poetry to express their feelings about money in politics or corporate personhood.
Whether in Washington or nationwide at local events, the message will be the same: This is what Free Speech looks like--average citizens having their say, not groups of wealthy people funneling unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns.
For a complete schedule of events, click here.
The people attending the Summit For the People in Washington, D.C., will not have all the fun. There will be local events scattered throughout the country. These events are being organized by participating organizations and grassroots volunteers around the country and include "We the People Free Speech" events, rallies, forums and screenings of Priceless, an excellent documentary about this issue.
To find one of these local events, click here.
If you don't find one near you, organize one yourself. Your event does not need to be this week, it can be next week or the one after that. But we need our elected officials to know that their constituents are informed and involved on this issue, and that we are informing and involving others.
Finally, all these events require money. You can donate here.