Educating on Corporate Personhood - Resources and Study Group Materials
Published April 17, 2009 @ 12:27PM PT
Someone mentioned in the suggestions section, and I want to highlight here, the educational resources on corporate personhood available from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
At this point in time, the phrase "corporate personhood" still means very little to most people. It almost certainly doesn't make most people think of a legal doctrine that interferes immensely with basic democratic ideals.
That's why education on the topic is so important. You can take a big step in helping bring an end to the vast accumulation of corporate rights through corporate personhood by educating yourselves and others about how that accumulation has happened.
WILPF has made that incredibly easy by putting together a set of materials available for anyone wanting to lead a study group on the topic of corporate personhood. The "Challenging Corporate Power, Asserting the People's Rights" study group packet has ten sessions that start with the history of the corporation and corporate personhood, and move to understanding current laws around the corporation in both modern regulatory and international law. Previous resistance movements (such as radical unionism and the Populist movement) are also covered, and the study group ends with examples of actions being taken by communities at the local level.
See their page on "Getting Started" for easy steps to get a group going, and then download all the materials you need for the study group, including readings and suggested discussion questions.
An especially helpful resource, whether or not you decide to do a study group, is the Timeline of Corporate Rights put together by WILPF member Jan Edwards. It briefly summarizes many of the legal cases granting rights to corporations and puts them into perspective next to the rights gained for human beings in U.S. history. You can access the timeline, and an article providing some analysis, here: http://wilpf.org/docs/ccp/corp/ACP/CP_article%2Btimeline.pdf
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Author
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Megan Wade Antieau
- Eureka, CA
I meet with a group in Seattle, WA called
STOP DRUG ADS ON TV. We get the attention of
people by circulating information about this issue but in every communication we end with information about stopping Corporate Personhood.
Every attempt to improve things has its roots in the big issue of stopping the corporation's power in having all the rights of persons but not the responsibilities.
We have sat still for deregulating, forcing all the little people in this country to either subscribe to cable or buy a box and we have suffered at the hands of mega-corpoations who never answer their phones and have layers of organizational power which citizens can no longer penetrate.
We didn't rise up and prevent a senseless war with its
trillions of dollars of wasted funding and we sit by as corporate capitalism asks for handouts because it has failed.
We must get at the root cause of economic disaster which is
welfare for the rich corporations while the citizens of the world suffer starvation and limited health care and education.
If capitalism works, then why do we have to subsidize it and bail it out?
Let's stop CORPORATE PERSONHOOD now and take back our country and cooperate with citizens of the world to unite in peace and cooperation.
Posted by Georgie Kunkel on 06/17/2009 @ 09:29PM PT
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