DISCLOSURE:
change.org IS NOT change.gov - it is a social entrepreneurship venture. They are running a similar poll to the one on change.gov.
You'll note that Netroots Nation is a partner organization on the main page for ideas.
Here is how the site describes this effort:
The Ideas for Change in America competition was created in response to Barack Obama's call for increased citizen involvement in government. The final round of voting began on January 5 and is comprised of the top 3 rated ideas from each of the 30 issues in the first round of the competition, which collectively received more than 250,000 votes.
The top 10 rated ideas from the final round will be presented to the Obama administration on January 16th at an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, co-hosted by the Case Foundation. At the event we will also announce the launch of a national advocacy campaign behind each idea in collaboration with our nonprofit partners to turn each idea into actual policy.
Want more information on Ideas for Change in America?
Voting ends at 5pm ET on Thursday, January 15
I am asking you to go over, sign up, and vote on this idea in second round, just as I asked in my original diary for the first round:
END CORPORATE "PERSONHOOD"
An 1886 Supreme Court clerk's headnotes misreading (Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad) applied the 14th Amendment to corporations, extending to them all the rights, but none of the responsibilities, of human persons. The result has been the steady erosion of our democracy since then, and the consequent rise of the corporate state, which is primarily responsible for the military-corporate-media-academic complex, the expansion of the often brutal U.S. global empire (including the IMF, WTO, and World Bank) with its protecting militarism, and the destruction of our only planet's environment, all in the service of corporate capital's endless lust for power and profits. Corporate personhood is at the core of all of our problems. Ending it is the start of the way back to humane civilization.
- ED CIACCIO (RETIRED TEACHER/CURRENT ACTIVIST) Nov 26 @ 12:12PM PST
In great thanks to the rec list posting from the earlier diary, the corporate personhood idea made it to the top three in the 'other' category, and hence into the second round of voting. When the second round began, this idea was in the #9 position. The top 10 will be presented to the new administration, its current position is #13.
As of Friday night:
This idea is currently in 13th Place and needs 624 more votes to be part of the final 10 ideas presented at our event in Washington, DC
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While you are over there, you have nine more votes you can cast:
There are a handful of very interesting ideas as finalists (including on universal health care, green energy, marriage equity, peace and even woozles make the list - Arken, you can vote on legalization there, you know...), but I would like to call attention to one other with which I have some direct familiarity.
Protect Our Food Supply – Stop NAIS! is related to the corporate personhood issue in that mega corporate farms are using their their resources to drive small family farms out of business. This harms not just the farmers, but all of us. The price of corporate control of our food supply is increasing incidences of food poisoning and contamination, pollution of our air and water, inhumane treatment of animals in factory farms, continued dependence on foreign oil, and the exploitation of immigrants. Fellow Kossack (and speaker at Netroots Nation), Judith2007, plays a key role in this idea, currently in position #16. Look for her diary on this topic over the weekend:
Protect Our Food Supply – Stop NAIS!
The National Animal Identification System (NAIS) poses the greatest threat to local and sustainable agriculture since the Nixon administration. NAIS was originally designed to give huge corporations help with export markets. It will not stop animal disease or improve food safety. NAIS will only enrich the corporations that already control most of our food supply.
Under NAIS every single livestock animal in the United States will be identified and tagged. All livestock animal movements will be tracked, logged and reported to the government. Big factory confinement farms are allowed to use a single ID for thousands of animals. Small farmers, pet owners, and homesteaders will have to tag and track every single animal, in most cases using electronic ID.
- Pamela Matlack Klein (Writer/Farmer/Slow Food Eater), Appomattox, VA
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Back to End Corporate Personhood
The comment from the previous diary which describes this issue most succinctly came from Into The Woods:
To the extent we elevate corporations (property) to the status of humans we make them a lawful, separate participant in the political and governing process.
But this additional power has assured that the grant of additional rights has not been accompanied by corresponding obligations or responsibilities.
What elevates corporations in matters of constitutional rights, demeans and degrades human beings.
From Wikipedia:
Controversies about corporate personhood
Since the mid-1800s, corporate personhood has become increasingly controversial, as courts have extended other rights to the corporation beyond those necessary to ensure their liability for debts. Other commentators argue that corporate personhood is not a fiction anymore—it simply means that for some legal purposes, "person" has now a wider meaning than it has in non-legal uses. Some groups and individuals (including the Green Party, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom), and former Vice-President Al Gore (Gore 2007:88) have objected to corporate personhood. These opponents usually do not actually want to abolish the theory that allows corporations to be governed by the law, be subjected to taxes, sue and be sued, and otherwise be treated as a legal entity. Rather, their objections focus on constitutional protections such as the ability to contribute to political campaigns. For example, Gore argues that because of the 1886 decision, "the 'monopolies in commerce' that Jefferson had wanted to prohibit in the Bill of Rights were full blown monsters, crushing competition from smaller businesses, bleeding farmers with extortionate shipping costs, and buying politicians at every level of government" (Gore 2007:88).
In part as a matter of subsequent interpretations of the word "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. courts have extended certain constitutional protections to corporations. Opponents of corporate personhood don't necessarily want to eliminate legal entities, but do want to limit these rights to those provided by state constitutions through constitutional amendment. Often, this is motivated by a desire to restrict the political speech and donations of corporations, interest groups, lobbyists, and political parties. Radio personality and political commentator Thom Hartmann is among those that share this view. Because juristic persons have limited "free speech" rights, legislation meant to eliminate campaign contributions by juristic persons (notably, corporations and labor unions) has been repeatedly struck down by various courts. Those who believe juristic persons should have the protection of the U.S. Constitution point out that they are just organizations of people, and that these people shouldn't be deprived of their human rights when they join with others to act collectively.
On that note, one could construe that corporate persons essentially get DOUBLE the rights and advantages of individual people since they have their own rights PLUS that of the corporation.
What this short definition leaves out is that individuals rarely have access to the same level of resources to fight legal persons which are corporations when individuals find their freedoms and rights are abridged by the behavior and influence of those corporate persons.
Think corporate personhood doesn't affect you? Consider this example:
One of the bizarre consequences of corporate personhood has been that some corporations have been winning so-called 'negative free speech' rights where they ban discussion features of their products to which consumers might object. Specifically, Monsanto has been lobbying and filing suit - with some success - against other companies' use of labeling which advises consumers that their products do not contain Monsanto product bovine growth hormone (rBGH):
The Monsanto Corporation manufactures Posilac, the only bovine growth hormone approved for sale in the U.S. Monsanto claims the increased milk yield that results from Posilac outweighs the products expense and the cost of increased rates of illness among cows that results from its use.
Faced with a growing resistance to Posilac, Monsanto is waging war on informed decision-making, lobbying state officials to ban dairies from placing factual information about rBGH (diarist's note: or in some cases, the phrase 'rBGH-free') on their label. Its lobbyists argue that consumers are making poorly-informed choices based on fear-mongering, necessitating government intervention to save us from being misled by alarmists.
Link
Reclaimdemocracy.org has written a Constitutional amendment they propose would fix current corporate abuses of personhood (note: This is NOT part of the change.org idea, it is added to provide context for the discussion of corporate personhood):
SECTION 1. The U.S. Constitution protects only the rights of living human beings.
SECTION 2. Corporations and other institutions granted the privilege to exist shall be subordinate to any and all laws enacted by citizens and their elected governments.
SECTION 3. Corporations and other for-profit institutions are prohibited from attempting to influence the outcome of elections, legislation or government policy through the use of aggregate resources or by rewarding or repaying employees or directors to exert such influence.
SECTION 4. Congress shall have power to implement this article by appropriate legislation.
If you have any queasiness about how corporate dominance impacts the lives of individual persons, please consider how the discussion of corporate personhood may lead to leveling the playing field for whistleblowers and others who want to speak truth to power:
Vote to End Corporate Personhood.
Thank you.