Corporations, Government and Corruption - Do WE need another Boston Tea Party?

I think it is necessary and appropriate to put the pressure on in our local communities and at our city council level. As we can see, our federal government is out of our control. Our federal representatives are too closely wed to corporate interests; indeed, a single corporate campaign donation obliterates 100,000 citizen opinions. Our federal representatives are too far removed from the average American citizen for us to have any influence over them. They don't have to look us in the eye at the grocery store or at the post office; our city officials do.

And speaking of government being in bed with corporations, many people forget a very important part of our American history. The American Revolution of 1776 was as much a revolt against abusive corporations as it was against a distant monarchy.

The Hudson's Bay Company, The British East India Company, and The Massachusetts Bay Company were all early corporations that existed during colonial times in America. Our founding fathers despised and feared those chartered companies, for they recognized the way British Kings and their cronies used them to control and deplete the resources of their labors in the colonies.

Remember, it was the British East India Company which imposed duties on the tea they were delivering to the colonies, and because they had a monopoly on the tea market, the colonists were forced to pay the duties or go without. The colonists revolted. Colonial merchants agreed to not sell the East India teas. Many East India Company ships were turned back, unable to deliver their cargoes of teas. And surely you must recall that the result was the Boston Tea Party, when colonists dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

The Declaration of Independence in 1776 freed Americans not only of the British monarchy, but also the British corporations. For more than 100 years Americans remained suspicious and mistrusting of corporate powers. They were very careful about the way they granted corporate charters and the powers granted in them.

Early American corporate charters were of a completely different type than contemporary corporate charters. They were created literally by the people, as a convenience to the people, mere financial tools. Corporations were invisible, intangible, and artificial. They were chartered by the states, not the federal government, where they could be monitored locally, kept under close watch by the people. They were automatically dissolved if they violated their charter. Limits were placed on how big and how powerful companies could become.

The 200 corporations that were in operation by 1800 were kept on a short rein. They were not tolerated to participate in the political process, they could not buy stock in other corporations, and if they acted improperly, the consequences were severe. In 1832 President Andrew Jackson vetoed a motion to extend the charter of the corrupt and tyrannical Second Bank of the United States, and he was applauded for doing so. That same year Pennsylvania revoked the charters of ten banks for acting contrary to public interest. Even the industry trusts that formed to protect corporations from external competitors eventually faced the anti-trust legislation that was put into place in the mid 1800's.

In the early history of America the corporation played an important role, but their role was in service to the people. The people, not the corporations, were in control.

The shift began in the last portion of the nineteenth century. It was the start of a period of great struggle between corporations and society. The turning point was the Civil War. Corporations made huge profits from procurement contracts and took advantage of the disorder and corruption of the times to buy legislatures, judges, and even presidents. Corporations became the masters and keepers of business. Before his death, President Lincoln warned, "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war."

President Lincoln's warning went unheeded. Corporations continued to grow in power and influence. They had laws governing their creation amended. States could no longer revoke their charters. Corporate profits could no longer be limited. Corporate activity could only be restrained by the courts, and time after time judges granted them small victories, conceding them rights and privileges they did not have before and were never intended to have.
Then, in 1886, an event occurred that would change the course of American history. In Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, a dispute over a rail road route, the US Supreme Court ruled that a corporation was a "natural person" under the Constitution and was entitled to all the rights and protections under the Bill of Rights. Suddenly, the corporation was made equal to the people, enjoying all the rights and sovereignty of individuals, including the right to free speech.

That court ruling gave to corporations the same powers and rights as private citizens. But, with their vast financial resources corporations thereafter actually have had more power than the individual citizens our Constitution and Bill of Rights was intended to protect against such tyrannical and empirical entities such as corporations. In a single stroke the whole intent of the American Constitution - that all citizens have one vote and equal voice in public debates - had been undermined. A single blunder by a corrupted judge changed the whole idea of democratic government.

In boardrooms in all the major global capitals, CEOs of the world's biggest corporations imagine a world where they are protected by what is effectively their own global charter of rights and freedoms -- the Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI). They are supported in this vision by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other organizations representing twenty-nine of the world's richest economies. The MAI would effectively create a single global economy allowing corporations the unrestricted right to buy, sell and move their businesses, resources and other assets wherever and whenever they want. It's a corporate bill of rights designed to override all "nonconforming" local, state and national laws and regulations and allow them to sue cities, states and national governments for alleged noncompliance. Sold to the world's citizens as inevitable and necessary in an age of free trade, these MAI negotiations met with considerable grassroots opposition and were temporarily suspended in April 1998. Nevertheless, no one believes this initiative will remain suspended for long.

We, the people, have lost control. Corporations, these legal fictions that we ourselves created two centuries ago, now have more rights, freedoms and powers than we do. And we accept this as the normal state of affairs. We go to corporations on our knees. Please do the right thing, we plead. Please don't cut down any more ancient forests. Please don't pollute any more lakes and rivers (but please don't move your factories and jobs offshore either). Please don't use pornographic images to sell fashion to my kids. Please don't play governments off against each other to get a better deal. Please don't fire me and hire a contractor whom you do not have to offer benefits. Please don't pay your CEO millions and millions every year while cutting away at my income. We've spent so much time bowed down in deference, we've forgotten how to stand up straight.

The unofficial history of America, which continues to be written, is not a story of rugged individualism and heroic personal sacrifice in the pursuit of a dream. It is a story of democracy derailed, of a revolutionary spirit suppressed, and of a once-proud people reduced to servitude. How long will we cowtow to the corrupt and power holding corporations and let America be sold out from underneath us?