Forum Post: Occupy Corporations! OWS is People, Corporations are Not People

Occupy Corporations!: A modest strategy proposal prompted by the news that LA City Council unanimously voted to end corporate personhood and now the FreeSpeechforPeople.org constitutional amendement movement.

Here's the idea: Incorporate OWS as OWS Inc. Presumably this would get protected free speech for OWS as a corporate person. Then: either OWS indeed gets protection as a person: or 'they' get rid of the corrosive doctrine of corporate personhood; or things just fall apart in showing their absurd contradictions.

I realize there's a tension here with the anarchist principle of simply going around the need to be recognized by official organs. But, given that government organs can drive out physical occupations, this is a move that leverages the law in a way that gets protection whilst showing the implications of the corrosive law. Further, there could be OWS Inc, and then one for each city and neighbourhood: Occupy LA, Inc. A hundred or more Occupy Persons. Maybe there could even be an Occupy Montreal, Inc., or Occupy London, Inc. (If it's legally possible for a foreign entity to incorporate in the US and then get standing as a person.)

This might show the absurdity of allowing there to be more 'persons' partaking in speech about democracy in the US than there are registered voters (and also showing that it would let foreign persons be counted in that speech, if this is legally possible). And at the same time it would highlight the fact that people who should be allowed to speak, namely those in the Occupy movement, are being shut down and pushed out.

Again, I realize that this as at odds with anarchist principle of direct action vs. protest as a kind of communication that would seek recognition from the powers against which protest is directed. But, I think there's something nicely 'jujitsu' about it. Also, I am not someone knowledgeable about what's actually required for incorporation.

DM