Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed
Calendar of Events
Monday, August 10 at 6 PM to Wednesday, August 12 at 12:30 PM at Seattle
University – National
Vacations Matter Summit, with three
hundred experts, advocates, and stakeholders from the fields of health, travel
and tourism, family studies and the environment with other interested citizens. $95. To Register. $120-180 for room
for both nights, meals, and parking.
Sponsored by right2vacation.org
Communication
with Our Members
I am actively seeking to
include more commentaries written by you readers. Concerning
health, education, work (labor), environment and other topics. I prefer up to 2 pages; but have published
excellent 6 page commentaries. I would
be glad to write only half or a third of our commentaries, with the rest of
them written by you. Please help our
readers by sharing your expertise and Liberal Values.
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Access
to jillions of political cartoons.
See all of President Obama’s
weekly (Saturday) addresses.
Petitions
Add
your name to a television ad supporting a public health coverage option.
Tell your congress members that no recess until each house
approves health care reform bill.
Tell your
congress members that health care reform must include reproductive health care.
Tell
your representative to support President Obama’s request for pre-K early
childhood funding.
Tell
the United Nations to urge all countries to end school violence.
Tell
President Obama to work toward abolishing all nuclear weapons.
Tell your
congress members and President Obama to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Tell
Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor for Bush
Administration crimes.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Thanks
to millions of dollars from the illegal BIAW insurance pool slush fund propping
up his “Astroturf” roots organization, Tim Eyman has qualified yet another
Initiative for the Fall ballot. Eyman claims his cap is needed to limit “out of
control” government spending. But I-1033 would do much more than cap State
spending, It would place a lowest common denominator limit on State revenue,
condemning our public school funding to remain among the lowest in the nation.
There
are two shortcomings to Eyman’s shortsighted Initiatives. The first is that
they are factually dishonest. The truth is that State spending is not actually
out of control. In fact, according to the Washington State Department of
Revenue, State spending as a percent of income has fallen about 20% in the
past 12 years. As a consequence, State spending for public schools,
colleges and public universities is at the lowest point in our State’s history
and is now far below the national average. In turn, our State suffers from the
lowest percentage of 9th Graders who go on to complete college. It
is morally wrong to sacrifice the future of our children, and our State’s
economic future, just so millionaires in our State can buy bigger yachts.
The
second shortcoming of Eyman’s Initiatives is that they are legally dishonest.
Article 7, Section One of our State Constitution states: “The
power of taxation shall never be suspended, surrendered or contracted away.” Our State Constitution makes it clear that
the power of our State legislature to levy taxes (in order to pay for public
schools) within the bounds of the one percent Constitutional limit can not be
suspended. Mr. Eyman cannot amend our State Constitution and deprive our public
schools of adequate funding merely by passing an Initiative. Therefore every
one of his Initiatives are unconstitutional. If Mr. Eyman does not like this
Section of our State Constitution, then he should submit his proposals not
merely as Initiatives, but as a Constitutional Amendments.
A few
months ago, in Brown versus Owen, our State Supreme Court concluded that
Senator Brown had the power to over-ride I-747 (another Eyman Initiative) with
a simple majority vote of the Senate. We voters have the same power. Let's send
a message to Mr. Eyman that we are tired of his hidden backers and their well
financed attempts to avoid paying their fair share for public schools. Eyman
and the BIAW have driven our public schools and universities to near bankruptcy.
Shame on Tim Eyman and shame on the BIAW!
I have a
different idea. Despite the Great Recession, we still have one of the top 20
economies in
Laslo Bako: Government Should Pay for Health
Costs
Thoughts about health care and economy.
What health care, what
economy?
I am a Denturist
practitioner. I provide
patient-removable dental appliances for my patients who come mostly from
retirement age or near to it. This is
the age group cannot expect more wealth from life. No more promotion at work, no more second or
part time work. Their work load
capability is less than it was in their younger years. So their dollars cannot be stretched, they
are poorer nowadays compared to that time when economy was better and they were
younger.
Patients come for a
consultation – which is free – to find out what their dental needs are and if
they can afford to take care of those needs?
The majority have complete dentures, but there are significant numbers
of partial wearers also. 45% of the
American population has removable dental appliances. 40% of our fellow citizens cannot afford any
health insurance, let alone dental insurances.
A single crown is in the thousand dollars range, a single denture or
partial on the average about fifteen hundred.
A high dental insurance
coverage is about two thousand per year.
The average retirement is about fifteen hundreds per month. So the person who need both upper and lover
removable dental appliances cannot afford to get a new set for a long
time. Besides paying for utilities,
mortgage loan or rent, car payment, eat and buy gasoline, how could he possibly
save for dentures, crowns or bridges?
Forget vacations!
My background is Hungarian. I have been here in the states for 32
years. I raised children, redid my
European diploma (which was not accepted here), built my clinic from scratch,
suffered a slow start, had all those monthly payments, and paid lots of
taxes. If I would need myself dental
attention in my own mouth, I couldn’t afford it either. Luckily I was born with
good genes and I am in a good shape with my natural teeth. I sympathize with my patient greatly and try
to help them as much as I can with affordable prices all the time.
Knowing how well-working the
universal medicine system in
Many times those subjects
come up when a retired or one on the poverty level sits in my chair and sigh
with great sadness saying: “ … to bad, I cannot afford a new denture, can you
at least repair my outdated 10, 20+ old junk cheaply, so I could chew a
little-bit better? …” Many patients
loose weight, subsequently their health, simply because they cannot eat
properly. Who has the guts to tell them that
this healthcare system of ours works, or if we are a humane society? Considering the average citizen, this medical
system is a complete, utter failure. It
is only good for the insurance companies who harvest high profits at the
expense of and harm to poor.
I would be happy to be paid
by the government instead of the patients, who wouldn’t be concerned and
handicapped by the cost. but would instead be properly helped. They pay taxes! But his money doesn’t go to providing dental
insurance? In the European world the
practitioner freely helps the patient with whatever needed for his/her
health. His hand is not tied down with
the patient’s capability, if he can pay for the care. Laslo
Bako
Rich Austin: Most Western Senators Vote to Fund
F-22 Fighter Jets
Good
news! The Senate voted 58-40 to cut funding for the F-22 boondoggle after
Obama threatened to veto the military-industrial complex's taxpayer subsidy.
Note
that all west coast senators except Oregon's Wyden and Merkley voted with the
warmongers: Cantwell (D-WA), Murray (D-WA), Tester (D-MT), Boxer
(D-CA), Feinstein (D-CA), Baucus (D-MT), Bingaman (D-NM), Udall (D-NM, Inouye
(D-HI), and Akaka (D-HI).
Other
Democrats voting to fund F-22’s are Begich
(D-AK), Byrd (D-WV), Dodd (D-CT), Sheehan (D-NH)
and Lieberman (D-CT). They were joined by 25 Republican Senators. Not voting
were Kennedy (D-MA) and Mikulski (D-MD).
Rich Austin
For more. For
more. For
more. This is Old Politics in Action. These
inconsistently Liberal Democrats voted like Conservatives, guilty of incompetence
(malfeasance) and corruption. While we are struggling to fund health care
reform, they are voting to waste money on military equipment our military
doesn’t need or want. They should be replaced by Consistent
Liberals. It remains to be seen how
Liberals
and Democrats
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
President Obama Says We Must Rebuild Something Better.
Obama’s commentary ended with, “Providing all Americans with the skills
they need to compete is a pillar of a stronger economic foundation, and, like
health care or energy, we cannot wait to make the necessary changes. We must
continue to clean up the wreckage of this recession, but it is time to rebuild something
better in its place. It won't be easy, and there will continue to be those who
argue that we have to put off hard decisions that we have already deferred for
far too long. But earlier generations of Americans didn't build this great
country by fearing the future and shrinking our dreams. This generation has to
show that same courage and determination. I believe we will.” We have advanced from Yes we can.
to I believe we
will.
To
read Obama’s whole commentary. See
what he said earlier.
Health Care
50 Representatives
will vote against health reform bill that doesn’t include robust public
insurance option, such that Republican votes would be needed to pass it. President Obama’s
personal physician criticizes commercial
media for not fully covering all health care reform options. Representative
Kucinich’s amendment allows states to form single payer systems. For more. Some doctors, unions
and others are pushing single payer health reform. The AMA
has now approved the house’s health care reform bill. Paul Krugman argues that health care is within
reach; it
is both workable and affordable. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says House health
care reform bill has enough
votes to pass it.
Many powerful special interests are
opposing reforms in health care spending, including monopoly protections
and subsidies. Against the interests of
small businesses, Chamber of Commerce opposes health care reform. Special
interests are still making campaign contributions to congressional members,
including Senator Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance committee.
Like 1993,
opponents of health care reform are advertising. As before their
advertising is misleading. One ad
features a Canadian who says
All
three House committees and one of two Senate committees have approved
health reform bills. We now need
approval by the other Senate committee and by the full house and senate. The House Ways and Means
Committee’s proposed surcharge on the very high income will still leave
their taxes less than it was after Kennedy’s tax cut and before Reagan’s tax
cut. A tax increase on high income people to fund health care
reform may also produce fairer taxation and less economic inequality. For
more. For more.
The suggestion
that health care reform is likely to not pass is largely a media creation. My understanding is that the House can pass
their version. Only 6 Democratic
Senators appear to be ready to oppose passage of any likely bill, leaving 54 to
pass it, enough under reconciliation.
Even if there were only 50, Vice President Joe Biden would break the
tie. For
more. Blue
dogs raise various objections, but some of their concerns are likely to be
addressed. Some opposed congress members
are saying health reform is proceeding too fast. Is 60 years too fast? Tell your congress members that no recess until each house
approves health care reform bill.
If we pass
health reform and make it work, Republicans
will suffer greatly. Otherwise,
Republicans may benefit. But
maybe not. Having let congress take
the lead, President
Obama is now urging them to adopt health care reform legislation in each house
before the August 10 recess. More
than many Democrats, Obama
realizes how much power Democrats have.
At
Obama’s Wednesday’s press conference, he strongly emphasized the negative
consequences that most of us, our businesses, our government and economy will
experience without health care reform. For
more. For
the entire transcript or video. Also
view or watch his Monday health
care roundtable with health care providers.
For more.
Action in Many Arenas
The Congress (both House and Senate members) are still
practitioners of Old Special Interest Politics: protecting committee turf,
voting for military and other pork, even if our Obama Administration doesn’t
want it, and more. How
about primary challenges to Conservative Democrats? The
Progressive Change Campaign Committee is now assisting Liberal
Congressional candidates. For more.
A
watchdog report is untrue, that
financial bailout cost may total $4.7 trillion and obligations may total $23.7
trillion. Some of the $4.7 trillion
hasn’t been spent and won’t be. The
$23.7 figure is much higher than the net exposure, which would only occur if
our economy severely worsens.
Senate Votes to eliminate F-22 fighter jets, not
wanted by Obama Administration. For
more.
The
chair of Congress’s new Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is an aggressive
reformer. For
more.
The
proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency fills a major need. The banks, from which it would protect
consumers, are
lobbying intensely to defeat it. For more. For
more.
Right to Rent would assist foreclosed landowners, without government cost.
Student
Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act will greatly help college students.
Our
military plans to implement various strategies to end smoking within 20 years.
Food
safety legislation may hurt small farmers.
To
protect endangered species, Interior Department is restricting Oregon logging.
The Interior
Department barred the filing of new uranium mining claims on 1 million
acres of stunning, irreplaceable public lands near the park -- lands that will now be off limits to
uranium exploitation for two years while the government studies its options for
permanent protection. For more.
President Obama and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seek to enhance
How
Richard Holbrook became Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Read
or watch President Obama’s speech in Accra, Ghana.
U.S.
Trade Representative Ron Kirk pledges greater protection of worker rights.
Senate includes
Hate Crimes bill in defense bill. Senate will vote on
an amendment to allow people with a concealed gun permit in one state to
use it in almost all states, including ones that ban them.
House Intelligence
Committee will investigate CIA assassination program.
ACLU says Attorney
General Eric Holder should initiate torture investigation.
Here’s the Beef
Media Matters exposes conservative radio hosts who
regularly attack immigrants, women, the LGBT community, minorities, the poor
and homeless, progressives, unions, college students, and even autistic
children.
State
and Local
2009 Washington legislature had dismal record
on labor issues. For more.
Rating Washington State Senators on their 2009
labor votes.
Rating Washington State Representatives on
their 2009 labor votes.
Labor adopts new strategy
concerning Democratic legislators which oppose labor issues.
Labor declares fundraising war on state
Dem leaders
Posted by Chris
Grygiel on SeattlePI.com on 7/13/2009.
The
state's labor community says it will try to hit Democratic leaders where it
hurts most - the pocketbook. Labor,
usually staunch allies of Democrats, is frustrated by the party's failure to
get key legislation passed during the legislative session and by what they
perceive as Democratic leadership's hostility to their issues.
The
Washington State Labor Council on Monday said it has created a new political
action committee that would funnel money directly to candidates it feels
supports their causes and not to House and Senate party funds controlled by party
bosses. Washington State Labor Council President Rick Bender said labor had
previously given hundreds of thousands of dollars to those funds
Now
the Labor Council will urge members and individual unions to give to the 'Don't
Invest in More Excuse' (DIME)
Democrats
enjoy healthy majorities in both the House and the Senate and Gov. Chris
Gregoire is a Democrat as well. However union activists feel the party is too
beholden to business interests, particularly the state's powerful builders'
lobby.
During
the most recent legislative session the labor community was particularly
incensed when legislation known as the Workers' Privacy Act was killed by
Democratic leadership. That measure - which was opposed by Boeing and other
businesses - would have restricted companies' ability to discuss union matters
with workers. Democratic leadership shelved the measure after some members
received an e-mail from the Labor Council that implied Democrats would stop
getting campaign money unless they enacted the bill. Democratic leadership went so far as to refer
the e-mail to the State Patrol for possible criminal investigation. Authorities
determined no law was broken.
"We
thought we had commitments from the leadership, the governor, the House and the
Senate," Bender said of the Workers' Privacy Act. "We found out that
commitment was broken. It could've been handled in a much different way, but
they decided to overplay their hand and they're getting burnt because they did
so."
Dwight
Pelz, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said the last legislative session
was one of the "toughest in the history of the state" as lawmakers
dealt with a $9 billion operating budget deficit. "We understand that organized labor was
disappointed by some of the actions of the Legislature," Pelz said.
"We in the Democratic Party are working hard to repair our traditional
strong relationship with the labor community." Chris Grygiel
Published
in
After a rough legislative session for labor, the Washington State
Labor Council announced a sharp change in strategy. Labor’s campaign contributions and volunteer
efforts will go to candidates with a track record of supporting labor issues,
“not just to build political majorities,” according to the WSLC Legislative
Report.
State Democrats
can say goodbye to contributions to caucus committees and to safe-seat
incumbents, contributions that party leadership can use with some flexibility.
The Labor Council will ask members and individual unions to donate to a new
political action committee, the DIME PAC, which stands for Don’t Invest in More
Excuses. The PAC will target contributions to party members who support labor,
regardless of their affiliation, according to the report.
The Labor
Council will also change the way it evaluates candidates. WSLC says party
leaders are trying to protect certain members by denying votes on some
legislation or blocking recorded roll-call votes. So the council will dig in to
the sausage-making behind bills – for example, taking note of legislators who
co-sponsored bills popular with labor but then work behind closed doors to kill
it. And unions may get behind ballot
initiatives that take labor issues directly to the voters, circumventing the
Legislature entirely.
At the upcoming
Aug. 6-8 WSLC convention in
Read my commentary: Washington State Needs a New Democratic Party, in
last week’s newsletter. There will be
more commentary of this next week.
Some Conservatives
Are Rejoicing
Conservatives
may think that Conservative Democrats who don’t receive labor contributions
will vote conservatively. But they
already do. It wouldn’t even do much
damage if some of them are replaced by Republicans. To make a difference, it is necessary to
replace them with Liberal Democrats.
Ones who are more concerned with our public welfare than with the special
interests represented by the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW). More on this topic will appear in next week’s
newsletter.
Featured Advocacy Group ---
Progressive Majority -------------------------------
Progressive
Majority’s mission is to elect progressive champions. We accomplish this by
identifying and recruiting the best progressive leaders to run for office;
coaching and supporting their candidacies by providing strategic message,
campaign, and technical support; prioritizing the recruitment and election of
candidates of color; and bringing new people into the political process at all
levels.
Progressive Majority’s agenda includes:
·
Economic Justice: Prosperity should be accessible to everyone, not merely the few.
·
Civil Rights: Every individual's civil rights must be protected; discrimination and
harassment based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or
physical and developmental ability should be banned.
·
Health Care: Every
individual should have affordable, quality health care.
·
Education: It is
essential that we invest in quality public education for all.
·
Environment: We must commit
to restoring and protecting our environment.
·
Reproductive Freedom: Women and men - not politicians - deserve the right to make personal
decisions about their reproductive health in accordance with their own personal
and moral beliefs.
Progressive Majority President Gloria A. Totten
says, "Progressive Majority is not giving conservatives a chance to
regroup. We haven't let up on recruiting and electing progressives since we
opened our doors in
Why
Why National Average
School Funding is Important
National average school
funding is essential to insure national average class sizes. The national
average class size in lower grades is 16 students and in upper grades it is 22
students. By contrast, in
Thus, our Hi Tech
industry is forced to do their recruiting by bringing in better trained
applicants from
Under-funding public
schools also harm kids in dozens of other less noticeable ways:
·
Over
crowded cafeterias mean that some kids will get lunch starting at 10 am while
other must wait until one pm.
·
Fewer
computers in our schools causing kids to line up just to get a chance to go
online.
·
Overcrowded
schools leads to more disruptive student behaviors and less time available for
productive learning.
·
Overcrowded
schools also increase teacher burnout and reduce teacher retention.
·
Overcrowded
schools also cause more kids to “slip between the cracks.” This is especially
true for children with unusual learning styles and kids from poorer economic
backgrounds.
Our kids will have to
compete with kids from other States, not only for spots in good colleges, but
also for good jobs in the global market place. Overcrowded classes place our
kids at a severe disadvantage before the race for success has even begun.
Our schools are
over-crowded and falling apart.
Not only has our
legislature failed to provide adequate funds for operating schools, but they
have also failed to supply funds for the repair and building of schools. In
particular, our Legislature has failed to help growing communities build
urgently needed schools. While the State claims to “match” up to 50% of school
construction costs, the Legislature’s distorted school construction “formulas”
result in a “match” of as little as 3% of actual school construction costs. As
a consequence, over half of school construction bonds have gone down to defeat
in the past 10 years and over 10% of the one million children in our public
schools now go to school in particle board boxes
There is no greater
danger to the economy of our State than inadequate funding for our schools.
Investing in public schools leads to a stronger economy and a lower crime rate.
When we fail to provide our kids with adequate schools, the entire economy
suffers. Not only are we failing to provide employers with a highly trained workforce,
but we will end up with more kids in dead end jobs, teen pregnancies, broken
families and higher crime rates. It costs over $60,000 a year to keep one
person in prison. So we either pay for schools now or we pay for prisons later. PAY
NOW OR PAY LATER: If we do not help kids get a good education now, our
State will have a lower economic base and much higher social services costs in
the future:
|
Education Level |
Median Earnings 2000 |
Unemployment Rate 2001 |
|
Less than High School |
$21,391 |
7.3% |
|
High School Graduate |
$28,807 |
4.2% |
|
Associate Degree |
$35,386 |
2.9% |
|
Bachelor’s Degree |
$46,276 |
2.5% |
|
Master’s Degree |
$55,302 |
2.1% |
|
Doctorate Degree |
$70,476 |
1.1% |
Source: US Census
Bureau
A common complaint of
the voters about past measures to provide more school funding is that there was
no guarantee that the additional funding would actually go to increasing school
funding. The State legislature has a long history of diverting money away from
public schools to pay for an assortment of pet projects. As a consequence,
school spending, as a percent of capital and operating budgets has fallen
significantly since 1995. A key provision of the funding options described in
this report is that each has precise accountability language which requires
that all funds resulting from the funding measure must be spent on public
schools until school funding reaches at least the national average.
This will give the
public confidence that they will actually get what they are paying for and that
the funds will not be diverted for any other purpose.
National Average School
Funding is required by our State Constitution
It is the
Join our Fair School
Funding Coalition.
When Your Opponents Are Self Destructing, Don’t
Interfere
You may have noticed, that we
haven’t commented much about Christian Conservatives, especially Washington
Christian Conservatives. Since
they are self destructing, I think we should leave them alone to
continue. To get involved would only
encourage them to unite in opposition to us.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the Beef
States
are leading on social issues; but
failing on economic ones.
Puget
Sound’s experienced aerospace workers are a key resource for Boeing.
More localities may
ban bottled water.
Urban
city lot greenhouses feed local people.
For
more.
Chicago passes nation’s
first healthy food and climate legislation
New
rooming house will provide inexpensive minimum size rooms.
Oakland, CA city
council is asking voters to approve taxing medical marijuana stores.
San
Francisco, CA now has more medical marijuana stores than it has Starbucks
coffee shops.
Cherry
glut reduces prices and causes some to go unpicked, harming cherry farmers.
Oregon
passes a series of greenhouse gas laws.
Oregon
provides $80 million bond to build Portland building which provides own energy
and no waste.
Reflective
white roof paint greatly reduces need for air conditioning.
To
conserve much energy, building codes should require energy audits.
Governments
can take various steps to help us become physically fit.
Washington
is one of only 13 states to adequately fund children’s health.
Police
shouldn’t take offense at verbal abuse, only arrest if physically resisting
arrest.
Representatives Jim
McDermott and Adam Smith have cosponsored Fair Elections Now Act.
We know about ‘Small is beautiful.’ How about ‘Slow is
beautiful’.
Washington State Democratic Chair Dwight Pelz is using
our national health care reform struggle to raise money for our state
Democrats. I don’t know of any efforts
by the state party to increase support for health care reform. And many of our Democratic congress members appear
uncommitted. Just look at their
websites.
Nation
and World
Congressional Democrats Have Failed to Support Labor
Posted on Democrats.com on 7/13/2009
The Democrats in Congress have sold out
their supporters in the labor movement by giving up the so-called “card-check”
feature of the embattled Employee Free Choice Act, which makes the “reform”
legislation that has been billed as labor’s “number one issue” much less of a
reform. Instead of being hammered into line on this issue by party leaders and
by President Obama, who has long pledged to back EFCA, conservative Democrats
in the House and Senate were allowed to join Republicans in opposing the
measure, leading to its replacement with a vague plan to require quicker
secret-ballot elections in union-organizing drives. Dave Lindorff
For more.
Obama: Wake Up to Quality Jobs and Other Labor Concerns
I commented two
weeks ago that “I recently became aware of how little the Obama Administration
has given to improving earnings. I am
amazed that labor unions aren’t loudly complaining. Immediately following the passage of health
care reform, Obama must address increasing worker’s earnings. See Chuck Collins’ 2000 book, Economic Apartheid in America for
measures which must be implemented.” This is a must read for Liberals concerned
with labor issues and quality jobs. View the movie Norma Rae again, as I did recently.
Last
week, I commented about the Obama Administration’s failure to emphasize
labor concerns. We don’t need just more
jobs. We need more jobs which pay fair
wages, offer security, provide safety protections, otherwise protect worker’s
rights,(including rights to unionize and increased penalties for businesses that
violate these rights. Until card check,
contract mediation, and other labor legislation is passed, our Administration should
strictly enforce existing labor laws.
What Is a Corporation, Anyway?
Modern corporations dominate
the organizational and economic landscape of
What follows is a bit of
history surrounding this issue and a discussion of a legal framework to help
understand it. The story starts before
there was a
The first issue is a simple
one: where does the power or right come
from to create a legitimate government?
Our Founding Fathers unequivocally answered that the only legitimate
source of governmental power was and is the consent of the people. The reason this obvious fact is important is
that many Americans do not really understand where their rights originate. Many think that their rights are granted by
the Constitution, specifically by the Bill of Rights. That is not true. Our rights predate the Constitution and any
other written document. Our rights are,
to quote Thomas Jefferson in The Declaration of Independence,
“unalienable”. They are the birthright
of all human beings. “We the people…” in
agreement with each other created the government. We give that government certain duties and
responsibilities. We give it the power
to make laws and perform acts that “…establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquility, provide for the common defence (sic), promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity….” The rest of the Constitution creates the
mechanisms for doing that. When creating
the judiciary, it was given only the power to interpret and clarify. Then come the amendments, the first ten of
which are the Bill of Rights.
It is important to realize
that those amendments are not and cannot be the sum total of our rights. James Madison and the other primary authors
of the Constitution did not want a listing of rights for fear that they would
come to be seen as the only rights we have.
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are
The second issue is also
fairly simple. What powers did we or can
we give our governments? As we all know,
we can argue endlessly over this one.
But for our purposes in talking about corporations, it is not all that
complex. “We the People of the
Now, we are ready to address
our primary question. What, exactly, is
a corporation? It is a business with a
piece of paper called a charter. Who
grants a charter? State or federal
governments? What rights, etc. can
governments give a corporation? Only
those which We expressly delegated to those governments. This is the central issue.
Nothing in the Constitution
gives the federal government the right to charter corporations. But nothing prohibits it, either. State governments have written into their
regulations and laws the procedures for incorporation. But did We the People ever grant those states
that power?
Before we try to answer that,
we need to take an excursion into our history.
We begin in colonial
When industrialists gained
considerable wealth during the heady expansion of the early 1800s and later
after the Civil War, they wanted to preserve their gains and create their own
business empires to honor their achievements.
The moneyed elites pressed governments and the courts to greatly expand
the lifespan and operating capability of corporations. A few states in the Northeast gave them what
they wanted. Their life expectancy became infinite. Their obligation became the general public
good instead of project specific. And
their range of action became broad and virtually unregulated. But none gave them the reward they prized
above all – full-blooded, constitutionally recognized and protected
personhood. Every time the subject came
before the court, it was rebuffed. In
1855 in Dodge v. Woolsey, the courts
said, that the People had not
…released their power over the artificial
bodies which originate under the legislation of their representatives.... Combinations...in society...united by the
bond of a corporate spirit...unquestionably desire limitations upon the sovereignty
of the people.... But the framers of the Constitution were imbued with no
desire to call into existence such combinations.
Again, in 1876 in Munn v. Illinois, the Court denied
corporate personhood. But, when in 1886
the Santa Clara County v. Southern
Pacific Railroad case came before the Supreme Court, something very strange
happened. Either in error or by
malicious intent, the clerk summarizing the decision, wrote that the Court
determined that the 14th Amendment, written to outlaw persecution of
former slaves by Southern states, protected corporations, as persons, under the
equal protection and due process clauses.
The odd thing is that the court did not actually say that in the
majority decision. In fact the Chief
Justice, in a personal communication, specifically told the clerk that they did
not decide whether or not corporations were persons. But there it sits, in the head notes of the
case. Again, it is important to note
that the Supreme Court in all its previous rulings denied corporations such
constitutionally protected personhood.
This claim in the head notes has no precedent. Unfortunately, most lawyers never actually
read the full opinions of the court, only the summaries in the head notes. This unprecedented and bizarre case became
the open gate through which corporations stampeded to gain new power and new
freedom from regulation and taxation. In
the 20 years from 1890 to 1910, the Supreme Court heard 307 cases involving the
14th Amendment; only 19 involved natural, human persons. In the years since, almost all public
obligations have been stripped from state regulations governing
corporations. Since the 70s, the courts
have continued to elevate the “rights” of corporations far beyond the 14th
Amendment. In addition to equating
corporate commercial messages with political speech and money with free speech,
they have even granted corporations the “right” to lie.
Now let’s answer the question
of whether We the People granted to our governments the right to create
constitutionally protected persons.
Nothing in the Constitution or any of the state constitutions shows a
grant of personhood to government or the authority to, in effect, give
birth. No second tier government entity
is capable of granting human rights to any entity, not to mention its paper,
third tier entities because the government is not sovereign, only We the People
are. The answer, I believe, is clearly,
no. We did not give the government
full-blooded personhood. The government
has no ability to give full-blooded personhood to anything else. Even a careless reading of the 14th
Amendment cannot ignore the opening words in Section 1.
All persons born or
naturalized in the
Corporations are neither born
nor naturalized; they are not citizens; they are only written documents. The only persons We the People give
personhood to are our children.
What is a corporation? It is a business enterprise with a piece of
paper which gives it the ability to make contracts, own property and file
lawsuits. It also limits the financial
liability of its owners and their families in the event the business fails. Period.
It is in all other respects a totally artificial fantasy.
I leave to your imagination
what we should consider doing about these misbegotten Goliaths. Norm
Conrad
Protectionists may have had it right when they
decried the loss of manufacturing jobs in the
More alarming, the U.S. is losing its ability to
create big-impact products as research and development is increasingly
transferred to foreign lands that have become manufacturing leaders in, say,
computers or telecom gear. Except for Apple's products, for instance, every
What to do? Government and private industry must
work together to rebuild what can be called the nation's industrial commons.
This is akin to the grazing land that farmers shared for their herds.
Industrial commons would include R&D that could be housed in universities
or consortiums, often centered in a particular city or region to make sharing
easier. Skills would be retained while innovations would recharge the
Here’s the Beef
We need to shift from
consumerism, debt and speculation to sustaining our health and planet.
A
handbook for changing form an industrial food system to a sustainable one.
To
reduce global warming, we can’t just clean up after consumption. We must reduce consumption.
Corporate
abuse of workers abounds.
Like
tobacco companies, pharmaceutical companies seeks to addict us on their
products.
Like tobacco companies,
chemical companies lie about their products ill effects.
Due to monopoly, dairy
processors and other factors, bye bye dairies.
Are our large financial
companies profiting from doing things that regulations should prohibit?
Goldman
Sachs repaid TARP money, but not other billions of government money it
received.
Large
banks misused TARP funds, used it for other purposes than making loans.
Purchasers
of government debt aren’t worried about inflation. A better indicator than seers.
85%
of stimulus-recovery impact will occur before the end of 2010.
July
24, 2009 increased minimum wage will generate $5.5 billion consumer spending.
Increased minimum
wage of $7.25 per hour has less buying power than the 1956 minimum wage.
Despite efforts to
prevent mortgage foreclosures, they reach a record high.
Home
and community based health services can help some of 11 million people to stay
in their homes.
My
favorite macro economist Joe Stiglitz is respected abroad, but not here in our
U.S.
A major strategy for improving public education is more class
time: longer days, more weeks.
Bill Gates
calls for education reform to improve graduation rates.
American
Indians struggle with defining who are tribal members.
Indonesians
have held two peaceful Democratic elections and its economy is performing well.
Foreign
aid should be made more effective through increased transparency and
accountability.
Mid
East maneuvering concerning terrorism may be more about oil.
Besides
protecting ourselves for al Qaeda, we must fight the Taliban to protect women.
Iran
opposition to President Ahmadinejad continues.
Israeli
settlers intend to incorporate Palestine into Israel. There are now 300,000 Jewish settlers there.
Israeli
companies profit from Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Chinese
government oppression may stimulate Uighur extremism.
China is
strategically buying foreign businesses, aided by their depressed prices. More. More. More.
Our
Liberal Spirit
How Beliefs Resist
Change
Christian
Belief through the Lens of
Cognitive Science
The
Jesuits have a saying sometimes attributed to Francis Xavier, “Give me the
child until he is seven, and I will give you the man.” The Jesuits were a
tad optimistic, but ample research on identity formation
shows that religious, cultural, and political identity become established by
early adulthood and rarely change thereafter except in response to
crisis. In fact, even in the face of crisis, core beliefs about who we
are and why we are here, can be remarkably resilient.
This
is due in part to the fact that individual beliefs do not exist in
isolation. Rather, each exists as part of a whole network of other
beliefs, memories, and attitudes. The more central or important any given
belief, the more it is entangled with the rest of our world view. And the
more it is tied into the tangle, the harder it is to change. Because
religious views are so central, they are particularly resistant to
change.
To
make things even more complicated, each religion has what can be called an
immune system. Because traditional Christianity is centered on
orthodoxy, meaning right belief, the immune system consists of a set of
teachings that guard against other beliefs or loss of belief.
Christianity’s immune system includes the following teachings:
·
Doubt is a sign of weakness or temptation by Satan, the
father of lies.
·
False teachers (those whose theology differs) should be cast
out.
·
Believers should not be unequally yoked (partnered) with
nonbelievers.
·
Nonbelievers have no basis for morality, so their motives
are suspect.
·
If Christians act badly, the flaw is in the persons,
not the religion.
Given
that core beliefs are naturally resilient and given the power of messages such
as these, it will come as no surprise that people go to extreme lengths
psychologically to defend religious dogmas.
Cognitive
dissonance theory, helps us to understand what happens when people are
confronted with contradictory beliefs. If, for example, I believe the
world is fair (called a Just World
Hypothesis), but a kind, generous neighbor gets assaulted and hurt, I am
faced with a contradiction. I can revise my view of the world (it isn’t
so fair), the neighbor (she isn’t so good), or the harm done (it wasn’t so
bad). Surprisingly often, people resolve such contradictions in favor of
a treasured belief rather than in favor of the evidence—even if this requires blaming victims for
their own suffering or coming up with elaborate justifications for
catastrophes. When the catastrophe is the apparent failure of a prophecy
or the moral failure of a religious leader, such justifications can be
spectacular.
In
Doubting
Jesus Resurrection, Kris Komarnitsky offers an nice overview of
cognitive dissonance concepts followed by a series of jaw dropping stories from
history – each showing the extreme contradictions believers can accommodate.
Small apocalyptic cults suffer the devastating failure of end-of-the-world
prophecies and yet each, faced with crushing disappointment, finds some
interpretation that leaves the cult belief system intact. In this light,
Komarnitsky examines the pressures faced by Jesus followers when his triumphal
entry into
A
small close-knit cult fending adjusting to the disappointment of another
ordinary sunrise is just an extraordinary example of ordinary – the human
tendency toward confirmatory
thinking. All of us are biased to seek information that fits what we
already believe. Confirmatory evidence jumps out at us, and we find it
emotionally appealing. It’s like our minds set up filters – with
contradictory evidence stuck in gray tones on the outside and the confirmatory
evidence flowing through in bright and shining color.
Unfortunately,
confirmatory thinking causes all kinds of problems. Corporate leaders
fall into group think about the best competitive strategy. Jurors assume
an accused criminal is guilty. Politicians fabricate reasons for war—sure
that the real evidence must be there somewhere. Confirmation bias is so
built into human thinking that the whole scientific endeavor is structured
essentially to get around it. The scientific method has been called,
“What we know about how not to fool ourselves.” And yet, as we know, even
scientists end up embarrassing themselves from time to time by getting a little
to eager to confirm their pet theories and forgetting how easy it is to fall
prey to our own filters.
Even
outside our personal information filters is a set of ring defenses: our
communities. Who forwards you email? What magazines do you
subscribe to? What shows do you watch? Because confirmation is so
satisfying and contradiction is so uncomfortable, we surround ourselves with
friends and colleagues and coreligionists who think like us. Often, we
join groups that do the filtering for us: Democrats for
In
an even more impervious form of this, we form a group identity: I’m a
Catholic. I’m a Republican. I’m an American. I’m a Woman. I’m Hispanic. I’m a
Calvinist. Each of these identities creates what I call a tribal
information boundary (TIB). TIB’s are remarkable efficiency devices,
allowing us to weave coherent story lines about the world around us. But
for someone seeking to understand complicated realities, they can be
tremendously costly. People inside the tribe may be most able to help us
refine our insider knowledge, but it is people outside the tribe who are most
able to show us new vistas.
When
we actually allow ourselves to bump up against the limitations of our world
view, when we acknowledge we’ve hit a wall and then find a way over or around
it—that is when growth is most likely to occur. In the 1998 comedy, “The
Truman Show,” the protagonist, played by Jim Carrey, pushes past an information
boundary and realizes he is living in the artificial world of a television
set. From childhood, Truman has accepted the explanations and roles
offered him. But he is confronted with small discrepancies, and one day
he ignores his own fears and barriers that his community has erected, punches
through to the outside, and finds that there are familiar people there to
welcome him. The movie’s message to us all: It is possible.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Roy Morrison, 1997, We Build the Road as We Travel, Mondragon, a
Cooperative Social System
Most of our free enterprises
are capitalist, in which the ones who risk their capital are the sole owners. Mondragon (in the Basque Region of Spain)
presents an alternative form of free enterprise, in which the owners are ones
who work for the enterprise.
Free Member Advertising
Hire Our Lake Hills Neighbors
· Auto Repair, price varies depending on job (but always fair),
Jaime Speicher (AAS Auto Repair Technician) (425-746-2353)
· Babysitting
for infants (occasional evenings
and weekends) - $5 per hour- Christy Pacheco- johnpacheco01@yahoo.com 425-653-3565
· Data
Entry- $10 per 12 font, double
spaced page- Christy Pacheco (425-653-3565 johnpacheco01@yahoo.com)
· Debt
Elimination Counseling, Seminars and
Workshops – price negotiable – Sherry Brandt (206-356-8034, somerev2@comcast.net)
· Home
Repair- prices vary, depending
on job- John Pacheco 425-653-3565 johnpacheco01@yahoo.com)
· Home Repair
and Remodeling, Rick Hegdahl
(206-227-6280 vikingnw@comcast.net)
· Housekeeper, price negotiable – Laura Montano (641-5038 ambar_lau@hotmail.com)
· Life Support
Therapies, Astara Burlingame RN. (MD)
holistic care, acupuncture hypno therapy, biological medicines (206-370-0356)
· Private
Piano Lessons (students must have a
piano), afternoons - Anna Khosrowian (378-7938), price negotiable
· Psychotherapist, accepts insurance -
Sandy Mathews (462-7889, www.sandramathews.com)