Forum Post: The Corporation As Crime !
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 8, 2011, 9:06 p.m. EST by mikeleonardi
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http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/06/the-corporation-as-crime/ by Russell Mokhiber Richard Grossman says that Occupy Wall Street activists need to go beyond greed and corruption and focus on usurpation.
As in – illegal seizure of power.
As in – the corporation has usurped – illegally seized – power from the people.
He quotes Thomas Hobbes as saying that a corporation is merely a “chip off the old block of sovereignty.”
Grossman, the father of the “no to corporate personhood” movement, says the first step in taking back the power is to criminalize the corporation.
To that end, he has drafted a four page law – “An Act to Criminalize Chartered Incorporated Business Enterprises.”
“As of 12:01 a.m. on July 4, 2012, no incorporated business shall exist or operate within the United States and its territories, or with any State or municipality,” the draft law reads.
“As of 12:01 a.m. on July 4, 2012, all existing business corporation charters granted by the United States, and by all States, shall be null and void.”
“If people want to go into business, fine,” Grossman said. “But this law would strip away 500 years of Constitutional protections and privileges. No more limited liability for shareholders. No more perpetual life. No more Constitutional protections.”
Those local, state or federal officials “who fail to implement and sustain the prohibition – and criminalization – of chartered, incorporated business entities after 12:01 a.m. July 4, 2012, shall promptly be indicted and speedily tried for the crime of villainous usurpation – perfidious, felonious, illegitimate rule exceeding their proper authority – as well as for the crime of dereliction of duty.”
In a footnote to the draft law, Grossman writes that “in a corporate state, law, culture, contrived celebration and tradition illegitimately clothe directors and executive officers of chartered incorporated businesses in governing authority.”
“This is usurpation,” he writes. “A corporate state nurtures, enables and expedites such illegitimate governing authority by violence enforced by courts, jails, police and military force and by historians. Less-overtly ferocious institutions – for profit and non profit – routinely reinforce that reality.”
RUSSELL MOKHIBER edits Corporate Crime Reporter.
Lobbying by Corporations should be illegal PERIOD. Anyone with an active political position that accepts lobbying should be removed and thrown into jail for life. Not the nice kind of jail, but =the bend you over kind of jail.
The Energy companies have a monopoly on how my lights get turned on where i live and in many places all over the country. I am all about demanding that our electors stand up to our elected officials that cave into Corporate demands time and time again. I just posted another piece about the Nuclear Industry and its collusion with the NRC. UNfortunately, the dominance of Corporate governance greatly limits our choices in MANY, MANY areas from food to energy and water.. the largest corporations like BP for instance -- despite their bad behaviour, are relatively untouchable and continue to benefit from a revolving door at the top between corporate boardrooms and government insiders. The same could that is said of the NRC could be said of the FDA -- which just had a former Monsanto executive appointed to run it.
obama's complicity is corporate owned and in this election cycle it will be to the tune of 1 billion dollars of secret contributions from the Energy giants, Big Pharma, The Insurance Industry, the Banks and More -- protected freedom of speech. If anything maybe an occupation of SCOTUS which gave Corporations the rights of individual citizens.
It isn't corporations it is your government. Without complicity from Obama and his associates in Congress/Senate no corporation could get special treatment.
our entire government and supreme court has been complicit with and enabled corporate rule for decades...
So you are confident that nothing in your possession is manufactured by a corporation?