Farmers, growers and seed suppliers join to sue Monsanto

From NOFA/Mass--the suit, which was filed yesterday, seeks to protect farmers from Monsanto, which has filed patent infringement suits in some cases where pollen from the company's genetically-modified crops has contaminated crops grown in nearby fields. You can read the text of the suit here.

NEW YORK - March 29, 2011 - On behalf of the Northeast Organic Farming Association/Massachusetts Chapter, Inc. (NOFA/Mass) and others, the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) filed suit today against Monsanto Company to challenge the chemical giant's patents on genetically modified seed. The case, Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association, et al. v. Monsanto, was filed in federal district court in Manhattan and assigned to Judge Naomi Buchwald. Plaintiffs in the suit represent a broad array of family farmers, small businesses and organizations from within the organic and non-GMO agriculture community who are increasingly threatened by genetically modified seed contamination despite using their best efforts to avoid it.

"This case asks whether Monsanto has the right to sue organic and other farmers for patent infringement if Monsanto's genetically modified seed should land on their property," said Dan Ravicher, lead attorney in the case and PUBPAT's Executive Director and Lecturer of Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. "It seems quite perverse that a farmer contaminated by GM seed could be accused of patent infringement, but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement, so we had to act to protect the interests of our clients."

Once released into the environment, genetically modified seed contaminates and destroys organic seed for the same crop. Soon after Monsanto introduced genetically modified seed for canola, for example, organic canola became virtually extinct as a result of contamination. Organic corn, soybeans, cotton, sugar beets and alfalfa now face the same fate, as Monsanto has released genetically modified seed for each of those crops, too. Monsanto is developing genetically modified seed for many other crops, thus putting the future of all food, and indeed all agriculture, at stake.

In the case, plaintiffs are asking the court to declare that if they are ever contaminated by Monsanto's genetically modified seed; they need not fear also being accused of patent infringement. One basis for such a ruling would be that Monsanto's patents on genetically modified seed are invalid because they don't meet the "usefulness" requirement of patent law, according to Jack Kittredge, NOFA/Mass Policy Director.

This lawsuit filing comes on the heels of a recent controversial USDA decision to deregulate genetically modified alfalfa, the fourth largest crop grown in the US and a major source of feed to the nation's meat producers. Arguments against genetically modified food crops include concerns about lack of long-term studies of its effects on human health, concerns for biodiversity within our crop varieties, and contamination of crops grown by organic and other non-GMO farmers.

The Public Patent Foundation, is a not-for-profit legal services organization affiliated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. PUBPAT represents the public interest against undeserved patents and unsound patent policy.

For more info, you can contact the Public Patent Foundation at press@pubpat.org, or Jack Kittredge at NOFA/Mass, jack@nofamass.org.

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Vermont House passes single-payer health care bill

Vermont becomes the first in the nation to take a major step toward institution of a single-payer health care plan with "Green Mountain Care." Establishing single payer was a big part of Governor Peter Shumlin's election campaign.

by Dave Gram, Associated Press. Posted on The Boston Globe March 24

Every Vermonter could sign up for state-financed health insurance under a bill passed by the House on Thursday that would put the state on a path to a single-payer health care system by the middle of this decade.

"This bill takes our state one step closer to a system that ensures that all Vermonters have access to the care they deserve and contains costs," House Speaker Shap Smith said shortly after the House passed the bill 92-49.

The measure now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to pass, but with some possible changes.

Gov. Peter Shumlin, who made single-payer health care a centerpiece of his gubernatorial campaign last year, also praised the legislation. He said it would make Vermont "the first state in the country to make the first substantive step to deliver a health care system where health care will be a right and not a privilege, where health care will follow the individual, not be a requirement of the employer, and where we'll have an affordable system that contains costs."

Costs are an open question. The bill sets up a five-member state board to design a benefit package to be called Green Mountain Care, but doesn't require the governor to propose a way to pay for it until 2013. That drew fire from minority Republicans in the House, who said the hard part of reform -- paying for it -- won't be tackled until after Shumlin campaigns for a second two-year term in 2012. They also said the bill would create too much uncertainty for businesses in the state.

"Creating a health care system based on theory and campaign promises is not good policy," said House Minority Leader Don Turner, R-Milton.

Rep. Thomas Burditt, R-West Rutland, went further, arguing that government should sharply reduce, not increase, its role in the delivery of health care.
Burditt quoted V.I. Lenin, leader of the Russian Revolution and founder of the Soviet Communist Party, as saying "medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism," adding, "I believe those who are promoting 'universal coverage' via government-run and government-controlled medicine know this. What they hope is that the public won't find out the truth. There is nothing compassionate about socialism."

That drew a rebuke from Rep. Paul Poirier, I-Barre, a supporter of the bill. "I take offense at the remarks ... that we're socialists, that we're communists," he said. "I ask all members to respect other people's points of view."

Poirier spoke of profit-driven insurance companies denying coverage to people who should have it had coming, and, before Vermont passed laws to bar the practice, "cherry-picking" young and healthy subscribers who would pay into their coffers without being costly to cover.

Despite the Republicans' complaints, majority Democrats largely held together with their leadership to pass the bill. A similar outcome is expected in the Senate, though that chamber's president pro tem, Sen. John Campbell, said members would do their "due diligence" on the bill and might seek some changes.

The bill outlines a four-year timeline leading to establishment of the statewide, publicly funded system. It begins by setting up the Green Mountain Care Board on July 1 with a budget of $1.2 million to begin planning the new system. It then creates a health insurance marketplace -- or "exchange," of the sort required by last year's federal health care legislation. And it then calls for converting the exchange to the Green Mountain Care system.

The Shumlin administration and supporters of the bill need to address numerous uncertainties as the process goes forward. One concerns the more than 100,000 Vermonters who get health coverage from employers who are self-insured, meaning they assume the financial risks of coverage, and are chartered under federal law.

The House defeated a proposed amendment to allow those employers, among them the state's largest, like IBM, to be exempt from paying taxes to support Green Mountain Care. Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield, said that would leave them in a similar situation to parents who send their children to private schools, but pay taxes to support public ones.

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Supreme Court to decide Arizona’s unique campaign financing law

Does more money automatically equal freer speech? Does leveling the playing field between a candidate who runs "clean" and a free-spending non-participant mean "less free speech?" The Supreme Court considers Arizona's Clean Election law today, capping lower court decisions both backing and eliminating extra public money for candidates in the Clean Elections program who face well-funded opponents.

by Warren Richey. Posted on The Christian Science Monitor March 27

In the most important test of a campaign finance reform law since last year’s Citizens United decision, the US Supreme Court on Monday is set to examine the constitutionality of an Arizona statute that guarantees government money to certain political candidates in a dollar-for-dollar match of funds raised by opposing candidates through private donations.

At issue is whether Arizona’s system of public financing of state election campaigns violates the First Amendment rights of candidates who decide not to participate in the state-funded campaign system.

Candidates who opt-out are free to raise and spend as much money as they wish provided they abide by the state’s limits on individual contributions.

But the Arizona system is designed to encourage candidates to participate in the publicly-financed program. It does so by rewarding participants with automatic payments of matching funds whenever their privately-funded opponent spends certain amounts of money to advocate his or her political views.

The law, known as the Citizens Clean Elections Act, also applies to spending by independent advocacy groups. Expenditures by such groups either for a privately funded candidate or against a publicly funded candidate trigger state-provided matching funds to help the publicly funded candidate counter the group’s political activities.

A central issue in the case is whether the law punishes speech by privately funded candidates or merely enhances speech by candidates who accept only public funding.

Last year, the high court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that Congress under the First Amendment may not restrict the political speech of corporations and unions during election season.

Is 'equalizing' political speech constitutional?
The current case examines whether the First Amendment allows a state government to use a privately-funded candidate’s level of campaign spending to trigger matching funds from the government in a way that helps equalize the amount of speech by publicly funded candidates in the election.

Leveling the playing field among candidates to decrease the influence of money in politics is a major goal of many campaign finance reform advocates. The Arizona case may test the constitutionality of that approach.

Supporters of the Arizona public finance system say it helps fight corruption or the appearance of corruption by eliminating the need for state candidates to raise money to fund their election campaigns.

Opponents say the matching funds provision of the law exerts a chilling effect on the political speech of candidates who want to fund their own campaigns. Under the law, the more money a traditional candidate spends, the more money his or her publicly funded opponents will receive.

“Public financing in Arizona’s matching funds system forces a yoke around the neck of traditionally funded candidates,” said Nicholas Dranias in his brief to the court on behalf of candidates challenging the law.

“The State of Arizona … compels individuals to help disseminate private political speech, which they abhor, as a consequence and condition of speaking freely about politics,” said Mr. Dranias, a lawyer with the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix.

State officials say the matching funds system does not penalize traditionally funded candidates. Instead, they say, it is a calibrated mechanism to ensure that publicly-funded candidates are provided with sufficient money to run competitive races.

Since the total amount of matching funds for candidates is capped, privately funded candidates are free to outspend publicly funded candidates, Assistant Attorney General James Barton said in his brief defending the law.

“Petitioners alleged that the matching funds provision may burden their ability to speak, but it imposes no ceiling on campaign-related activities and does not prevent petitioners from speaking,” Mr. Barton wrote.

The state also argues that the public funding program protects Arizona from quid pro quo corruption and the appearance of corruption by freeing participating candidates from having to rely on special interest groups for campaign contributions.

“A system which eliminates the need for a candidate to accept private dollars would prevent financial quid pro quo: dollars for political favors,” Barton said in his brief.

Opponents dispute corruption-fighting rationale

Opponents of the public finance system dispute this claimed corruption-fighting rationale. They say the public funding mechanism is really designed to “level the playing field” among competing candidates by restricting the amount of money candidates are likely to spend trying to get elected.

“The matching funds provision exists to ‘level’ the speech of privately financed candidates and independent expenditure groups who speak against publicly financed candidates,” wrote William Maurer, a lawyer with the Institute of Justice, in his brief on behalf of candidates and organizations challenging the law.

“It does so by creating disincentives for candidates and independent expenditure groups to engage in political activity above the expenditure limit set by the act,” he said.

Any effect on corruption, he says, is too far removed from the more direct effect of chilling political speech, he said.

The case began as lawsuits filed on behalf of two groups of candidates for state office and political committees that make independent expenditures in state elections. They argued that the matching fund provision of Arizona’s public finance system violated their free speech rights by deterring them from making campaign expenditures that might trigger a new source of funds for their publicly financed political opponents.

Lower courts came to different conclusions
A federal judge agreed with the candidates, and ordered the state to stop disbursing matching funds. A panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding that Arizona’s public finance system was justified as a means to prevent corruption and that the matching funds provision did not amount to a significant impediment to political speech.

“Based on the record before us, we conclude that any burden the act imposes on Plaintiffs’ speech is indirect or minimal,” the appeals court said.

“Plaintiffs bemoan that matching funds deny them a competitive advantage in elections,” the panel said. “The essence of this claim is not that they have been silenced, but that the speech of their opponents has been enabled.”

A few weeks after the Ninth Circuit panel’s decision, the US Supreme Court blocked the decision and reinstated the federal judge’s injunction prohibiting enforcement of the matching funds provision.

The cases are Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett (10-238) and McComish v. Bennett (10-239).

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Branding a new generation of consumers?

What sounds more sweet and innocent than teaching children about the importance of fresh water? That's the public relations message Nestlé is putting out in its press releases. But what message is getting conveyed to the world's children when they learn about fresh water from a corporation which wants to sell them drinking water out of a bottle and charge them the market price? Nestlé water is for drinking and tap water is for washing, that's the message. This is the same corporation which sold infant formula as a substitute for breast milk to poor mothers in developing countries where clean tap water was not available. Here's Nestlé's story. You can decide for yourself.

Nestlé celebrates World Water Day with children from 25 different countries
March 22, 2011--Around 10,000 children in 25 countries will be offered the chance to learn about the importance of fresh water at educational festivals led by Nestlé Waters in partnership with Project WET this week.... To support the initiative, Nestlé Waters has invited local school children and their teachers to attend 'Together for Water' festivals at its sites, or nearby locations, in countries ranging from the United States to France, Lebanon, Brazil, Pakistan and China.... While at Nestlé's Henniez factory in Switzerland, staff will spend the day with groups of local school children, running Project WET exercises and explaining the company's efforts to protect the mineral water's natural source. Full story is here.

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March e-news online!

Our March e-news is online here. Why not subscribe? We don't pummel you with emails, we don't trade names and you can unsubscribe at any time.

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Two New England states are breaking the bottled water habit

Vermont and Connecticut are looking to pare down some unnecessary state spending by cutting back on bottled water purchases.

"We simply cannot justify this expense in a time when over 700 state positions have been eliminated over the past 3 years," said Vermont State Employee Association spokesperson Conor Casey, at a news conference at the Statehouse in Montpelier. According to state Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Deb Markowitz, Vermont spends more than $200,000 a year on bottled water, though Markowitz concedes that it won't be eliminated entirely.

Some businesses are joining in as well. Sean Ward, co-owner of Montpelier's Coffee Corner, isn't selling bottled water in his diner anymore. He's committed to supporting tap.

"Public water systems are the best way of ensuring people have access to water," Ward told WPTZ TV.

According to New England Cable News network, Connecticut spent $48,000 last year on bottled water. State senator Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, said the use of bottled water sends the wrong message that tap water isn't as good. A spokesman for Nestlé, which bottles water, said he hoped the issue would be discussed in Connecticut before a ban is imposed.

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Our statement for World Water Day, March 22

Download or read a pdf. of the resolution here.

As the world reels from the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear catastrophe in Japan, a disaster which was never supposed to happen, we have an opportunity today on World Water Day to look into the future and pledge to take action to prevent another impending disaster. We must not allow corporations to gain control of water on which all life depends. Action must be taken at all levels, from local communities to the United Nations.

This means we must examine the confluence of privatization of municipal water/sewer systems and bottled water commodification which if left unchecked will overwhelm efforts to ensure the right to water in specific communities.

• While multinational corporations like Suez and Véolia focus on municipal water/sewer systems in the U.S. and multinational corporations like Nestlé, Pepsico and CocaCola focus on the bottled water industry, there is a confluence of their impacts that threatens the fundamental right to water.

• Corporate control of water/sewer systems puts these systems in private hands where profit, not service, is the fundamental corporate objective.

• The bottled water industry commodifies drinking water by selling water at a price determined by the marketplace. It also creates a private water distribution system for drinking water.

• These converge toward the corporate control of water even in a country like the U.S. with a proud history of public water systems. Federal support for public systems has already dramatically decreased. Public support for funding municipal systems erodes as corporate advertising instills the idea that drinking water comes from bottles, despite the fact that Pepsico and CocaCola bottle municipal water.

• Once this corporate control reaches a critical point, government will have little control over the price of water which will then be free to increase dramatically, creating a serious impediment to the right to water for the poor.

We commend the United Nations for passing the resolution on the human right to water and sanitation last July.

We commend Catarina de Albuquerque, the United Nations Independent Expert on Human Rights Obligations Related to Access to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, on her commitment to seeing that this resolution is carried out in the real world.

Now we call on the United Nations to take the next step: pass a declaration to block the sale of public water and sewer services to private companies.

Say NO to the commodification of water

Say NO to corporate control of water

WATER FOR LIFE, NOT FOR PROFIT!

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MassCare annual gala--turn out for a great time and support single payer health care!

If you're near Boston this Saturday, March 26, and up for good music for a good cause, check out Mass-Care's annual single payer gala from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge. Tickets are $35 at the door, $10 for students, and a flyer for the event is on the Mass-Care web-site here.

The gala features the music of The Winiker Band--the city's "house band" for swing--and talks by James Haslam, Executive Director of the Vermont Workers Center, speaking on Vermont’s single payer legislation progress, and Gerald Friedman, UMass Economist, reporting his study on the impact of a single payer system for Massachusetts residents and businesses. Mass-Care activists Reverend Judy Deutsh, Matthew Patrick, and Walpole Peace & Justice will be honored.

This year health reform is migrating from the national level to the states, with the exciting news that Vermont is on the brink of passing the first state single payer legislation in the country. Mass-Care and UHCEF along with the help of many allied groups was able to put single payer questions in the ballot in 14 representative districts this past election cycle—winning in all 14 districts. In 2011 the state legislature will take up most cost control, and Mass-Care and UHCEF will play an active role in advocating for single payer as the only truly effective cost control measure, and will support the introduction of a public health insurance option for Massachusetts.

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AfD backs removal of investor protections from FTAs

Alliance for Democracy has signed on to a letter addressed to President Obama calling for the removal of investor protection provisions from the Central American Free Trade Agreement and other FTAs. CISPES, the group organizing support for the letter, hopes to present the letter to Obama during his El Salvador trip next week, and to publish the letter in newspapers in Salvadoran papers.

Investor protection clauses give corporations the right to sue before secret trade tribunals if they feel that a nation's laws or regulations impede their ability to make a profit. David Delk, AfD co-chair, explains more here.

Presentation of the letter also coincides with the next phase of an arbitration hearing between Pacific Rim Mining Company, a Canadian firm, and El Salvador--Pacific Rim is claiming millions of dollars in damages after widespread opposition to a proposed gold mine led them to drop plans for permitting and end exploratory drilling.

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Up and down votes for local food and self governance ordinances

Penobscot and Sedgwick, Maine have passed a rights-based Local Food and Self-Governance Ordinance at their annual town meetings, although it was defeated in Brooksville.

The ordinance gives people the right to purchase food from a local family farm that has not been processed in a licensed and inspected facility. It also protects local farmers' markets and community events such as church suppers and school bake sales. It was necessitated by the recent attempts to enforce USDA standards created for large-scale agribusiness on small farms that have no way to pay for the new facilities they would need.

The Brooksville vote was a narrow defeat, but there are questions as to whether a bylaw review committee improperly recommended that the article be voted down. A fourth town, Blue Hill, will vote on the measure in April and a state legislator has proposed a similar bill that would cover all of Maine. You can read more at this previous post, including links to media coverage.

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OREP Policy Digest online!

Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy (OREP) has launched an online newsletter, OREP Policy Digest. OREP promotes feed-in tariff policies in order to expand local production of renewable energy. Feed-in tariffs are in use in more than 60 countries, and are responsible for 75% of the world’s solar energy and 45% of its wind.

The first issue focuses on global, national and state developments including use of feed-in tariffs in Italy and the UK, an ambitious program in Ontario that will create 70,000 jobs and cost taxpayers the equivalent of "a donut a month," a "how-to" on Oregon's program, and frequently asked questions.

You can learn more about OREP, and subscribe to the newsletter, at their website. You can also donate to OREP to support the growth of renewable energy in Oregon through Alliance for Democracy here.

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Massachusetts health care reform hasn't stopped medical bankruptcies

According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Medicine, medical-related bankruptcies in Massachusetts haven't fallen, despite that state passing a comprehensive health care reform package, on which the national health care legislation was based.

A selling point for the Obama administration's national reform program was that it would lower the incidence of personal bankruptcy triggered by overwhelming medical bills.

One reason for the lack of decline is the cost of health insurance. The study notes that "the least expensive individual coverage available to a 56-year-old Bostonian carries a premium of $5,616, a deductible of $2,000, and covers only 80 percent of the next $15,000 in costs for covered services.” The cost of health care has been steadily climbing as well. Most medical bankruptcies, now as in the past, affect families who already have insurance, but who are left unable to pay the bills that their insurers won't cover.

You can read more about the study at Healthcare-NOW!s website.

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A call to action from Madison

Likening the fight for workers' rights and for the economic well-being of the vast majority of Americans to broad and transformative movements of the past, Rep. Dennis Kucinich calls for new unity and resistance to corporate control of government. "This is a moment in America history where we're called upon to respond with everything that we are, with all that's in our heart and soul, so that we can reclaim the essence of economic justice before somehow it is lost on the corporate scaffold. We have to fight back!"



Kucinich spoke at the "Speak Up For Workers' Rights rally in Madison, WI, shortly after Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill that eliminated most collective bargaining rights for public employees.

More from UpTake video here.

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Portland AfD responds to Wisconsin GOP vote to kill collective bargaining rights

AfD-Portland is helping organize two local rallies in response to the Wisconsin vote to eliminate public employees' collective bargaining rights and in support of job creation, preserving the safety net and our common wealth, and making Wall Street pay for the collapse they encouraged. Here's the email notice:

In an act of class warfare, Wednesday the Wisconsin Senate (with the Democrats still in self-imposed exile) cut the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions and the people responded immediately by poring an estimated 7000 protesters into the state capital building in Madison. So many people occupied the capital that the police gave up trying to stop them and as of 10 PM Wednesday evening the doors of the building were wide open. Many of those protesting the decision have called for a General Strike. The Republican Senate action would still need to be approved by the Wisconsin Assembly before becoming law.

Read the AP story here. See some video from the NBC affiliate here. The MSNBC story is here. Slide show of pictures of the scene here.

Portland must respond. Below are notes on two upcoming public protests in Portland. WE MUST BE THERE!

Please forward this message.

STAND WITH ALL WORKING FAMILIES!! WISCONSIN, OHIO, INDIANA......
"SAVE THE AMERICAN DREAM" RALLY
March 15, 5 pm, Terry Schrunk Plaza at SW 3rd and Madison

"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans as 'right to work.' It provides no 'right' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining...We demand this fraud by stopped."-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King was on the front lines of the sanitation workers struggle in Memphis just before he was killed. He understood the struggle for union rights, civil rights, for human rights.

Today, he would be on the front lines in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio.

Now is the time to join the fight for Full and Fair Employment, quality public education, good jobs, strong communities, advanced manufacturing, a green economy and ...the American Dream!

More info: jwjpdx.org, 503.236.5573

PORTLAND RISING
RALLY & MARCH OF JOBS AND BENEFITS, NOT CUTS
Saturday, April 16-Noon at Pioneer Courthouse Square

Eight million jobs were lost in the 2008 meltdown. Today there are more than five jobs seekers for every job. Instead of creating jobs, Congress is focused on cutting the safety net!

Let's stand up for community values:
• Create good jobs now.
• Stop job killing trade agreements.
• Protect and strengthen the safety net.
• Support collective bargaining as 15,000 workers lauch campaign for fairness at work in Portland.
• Wall Street should pay for the economic crisis, not working people!

Sponsored by Jobs with Justice, Alliance for Democracy, AFSCME Council 75 and Local 3135, Economic Justice Action Group of 1st Unitarian Church, Oregon Progressive Party, SEIU Local 49 and 503, Teamsters Local 206, flierLocal 555, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and more.

More info: jwjpdx.org, 503.236.5573

Printable flyer here.

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Kindness, generosity, (oil) and bombing Libya

As the UN, the US, and some NATO and EU countries debate some kind of military involvement in Libya, David Swanson points out that it is non-violent resistance that has the better success rate for toppling dictatorships.

Meanwhile, Pepe Escobar explains why diplomats and government are so sympathetic to a democratic uprising (hint--it's trading at $105 a barrel). If proponents of nonviolent solidarity invested $146.3 million in candidate funding, perhaps so many activists wouldn't be quite so worried about another oil war.

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Water in Washington state: citizens organizing to have a say in Anacortes

by Sandra Spargo

On Sept. 13, 2010, the people of Anacortes, Wash., opened their Sunday paper to read the headline, “Anacortes water, bottled?” The next evening, the City of Anacortes, Wash., approved selling five million gallons of municipal water from the Skagit River for thirty years to Tethys Enterprises of Everett, Wash. The contract can be extended to 2040 and contains two optional, five-year renewal terms. The contract allows Tethys, a startup venture capital company, to flip the proposed one million square foot beverage bottling company in three years.

Anacortes citizens had neither an opportunity to review nor comment on the contract’s implications before the city council’s approval of the Tethys contract. It was approved the next day, Sept. 14, 2010. According to the Skagit Valley Herald, Mayor Dean Maxwell had met with Tethys and Anacortes city council members for five previous months, exchanging information on an individual basis, and, thus, city officials were not required to discuss the business proposal in an open, public session.

An interesting note is that Mayor Ray Stephanson of Everett, Wash., turned down Steve Winters, CEO of Tethys Enterprises, regarding a similar municipal water contract after fifteen months of negotiations.

Due to the appalling lack of City of Anacortes-citizen communication, I searched the Internet for local environmental groups that would band together to confront the Tethys contract decision. Unfortunately, there were none. Either local environmental groups are tied to the city with municipal grants/projects or are exhausted from battling the city over development and policy issues that affect neighborhoods and the environment. However, my persistency found people online who were willing to come to my home and hear Dr. Rebecca Wolfe of the Alliance for Democracy and the Sierra Club speak about environmental issues related to beverage and water bottling companies and the corporate control of water. She gave us support when no one else stepped up to the plate—and she has continued to guide us.

From this initial group gathering, four of us are finding our grassroots way to educating the community about water as a sustainable human right. On Jan. 25, 2011, we organized “Your Water—What You Should Know” at the Anacortes Library. Eighty-six people attended, which is a good showing in this island community. Outstanding speakers shared their knowledge: Ingrid Tohver of the Climate Impacts Group of the University of Washington, Seattle; Mark Savoca of the U.S. Geological Survey, Tacoma; Jen Kingfisher of The Plastics Project, Port Townsend Marine Science Center; and Erica Pickett of the Anacortes City Council. Although Pickett said that she had no information on Tethys’ negotiating progress of land purchase, she shared Anacortes’ municipal water history in a Power Point presentation.

Although we have now formed a citizens’ State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) group of twelve people, we do not know when the SEPA process will proceed. Tethys has until Oct. 2012 to inform the City of Anacortes where it will site the beverage bottling company. The SEPA process offers only a two-week window for citizens’ written input after Tethys applies for a building permit.

We realize that SEPA is favorable towards corporations, so we are now looking to the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), which conducts Democracy Schools. I attended Democracy School on Feb. 18 and 19 in Seattle and must admit to being somewhat overwhelmed by the powers of corporations. However, we are in contact with Kai Huschke, CELDF’s Washington State representative in Spokane. Kai has generously offered to come to Anacortes to teach us how to assert our citizens’ rights about business sustainability.

Moreover, the Skagit River belongs to all surrounding communities. The City of Anacortes contracted with a company for water-intensive uses, allowing a dangerous precedent that negates sustainability and impacts future generations of the Skagit River Basin.

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Fracking Democracy

A look at some of the ways the corporate elite has escaped democratic, local, accountable oversight and control of their actions. The focus of the article is on hydrofracking, but there are many industries where regulatory decision-making takes place far from where the environmental, economic or public health consequences are felt.

by Greg Coleridge. Posted March 7 on OpEd News
Industrial horizontal drilling with massive slick water hydraulic fracturing (known as "fracking") poses tremendous risks to our communities.

The plan to force toxic chemical-laced water at incredibly high pressure through shafts to fracture bedrock hundreds of feet below the ground of our communities to release natural gas threatens human health as well as our water, land and air.

But the threats are more than physical and environmental. They're political.

Industrial drilling for natural gas is fracturing the very bedrock of what's left of our democracy at the local level based on current laws.

Out-of-state gas drilling corporations lobbied the Ohio legislature in 2004 for ripping control from local communities in regulating and prohibiting gas drilling. The result was passage of HB 278. Support for this measure to place regulation under the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) came ironically from many legislators who in general are skeptical of big "bureaucracies" and government control over communities and corporations in favor of "local control."

Not in this instance.

Sadly, such maneuvers are typical of corporations who fear communities exercising their democratic, self-governing muscles. Gas drilling corporations don't want to justify industrial drilling in a housing development or in a community before a local zoning board in the presence of angry community residents. Not many zoning boards pressured by an informed and active citizenry would decide to permit industrial drilling in an area zoned exclusively for housing

The alternative for gas drilling corporations was to run to the state, and push for a bill preempting local zoning laws -- promoted often in the name of "modernizing" or "harmonizing" antiquated local laws.  Voilà, no more worries about pesky and arcane local control issues.

Gas drilling corporations escaping democratic controls is not a new corporate phenomenon.

US-based corporations have spent 150 years in this country working to escape any and all forms of public definition and control.  They have sought to gain "liberty" and "freedom" from We the People in many ways.

During the early period of US history, many state laws and constitutions controlled corporations through awarding, conditioning and revoking charters. Corporate charters were privileges, not rights. They granted corporations the privilege to exist for specific purposes and limited time-periods. Profits were limited. Liabilities of stockholders, owners or managers were in some cases limited. Corporations were often prohibited from all types of direct or indirect political influence.

Following the Civil War, many corporations amassed great wealth (which corporations do following all wars). They sought to translate their new economic power into greater political power. They still do so today.

Three historic strategies corporations have used to escape democratic controls are:

1. From a "lower" level of government to a "higher" level -- usually from the state level to the federal level. It's more difficult for ordinary citizens to wield influence the further removed legislators are from local communities. There are also usually many fewer in number federal or state legislators to politically influence than the aggregate number at the state or local level.

2. From legislatures to "regulatory agencies." Agencies like the ODNR provide a convenient shield between, on the one hand, the public and accountable legislators and, on the other hand, corporations -- a political sinkhole where activist energy, time and resources often end up. Regulatory agencies can be stacked with corporate friendly appointees (the new head of ODNR, for example, is a drilling guy). Regulatory agencies, by definition, regulate activities, as opposed to prohibit them -- ensuring that the activity or process occurs in some form. And even if regulatory agencies decide against a corporate action, corporations can always escape this arena and run to the courts, which lead to the next form of escaping.

3. From legislatures to courts. It was much easier to stack a few courts with corporate-friendly judges or bribe a few judges (who at the federal level aren't even elected but appointed for life) than to try to influence an entire group of legislators.

Escaping public control of US corporations in the US was also codependent with another force. That force isn't the policeman's gun or baton. It's the law book.

Corporate attorneys with their colleagues on federal courts have perverted the law at every level. They've won legal decisions making corporations legal "persons" with due process, equal protection, free speech, search and seizure and other protections from the government and the public. This has enabled the corporate invasion of the body politic in Ohio and across our nation -- of our health care, workplace, environment, education, news, food, entertainment and politics -- to continue with constancy and rapidity.

There are currently two general political responses to corporate usurpation of local laws and corporate "personhood."

Locally, communities are asserting their right to decide -- claiming that corporate claims to frack, spew, dump, and subvert local environments and economies violates a local community's basic powers and rights to protect their health, safety and welfare. These basic rights to promote community self-preservation are often enshrined in local governing charters (constitutions). Pittsburgh, Buffalo and other communities on the issue of fracking have passed legally binding bans or prohibitions. Not legal regulations of this risky practice. Not general lacking any teeth resolutions against it. But outright bans. Several Ohio communities are considering such actions. Complementary campaigns are also underway to call for a moratorium on the fracking until complete health and environmental assessments can be completed.

The second response to is calling for the abolition of the bizarre legal notion that corporations possess Bill of Rights and other Constitutional protections that were intended solely for human beings. Move to Amend (http://www.movetoamend.org) is the national organization seeking this sweeping profound change to return corporations to being subordinate to We the People legally and constitutionally. The group is organizing a national campaign calling for a constitutional amendment abolishing all forms of corporate constitutional rights.

Hydraulic fracking needs to be opposed on its own environmental and human health merits. Actually, more like demerits. But the political reasons (its preemption of local control in Ohio and elsewhere by corporations claiming and abusing their political rights) for opposing fracking are just as crucial. The political reasons -- corporations shouldn't have more power than people and communities -- are the same reasons other activists are struggling on other issues in other places.

All of this calls us as socially concerned humans to work simultaneously in two differing but supplementary arenas:
1. To protect and/or promote whatever community, group of people, natural place, alternative structure or condition under assault by corporations and their supporters, and

2. To work at shifting the relationship between citizens and corporations to one where people are in charge, making the rules, deciding their own futures.
 
Greg is the Director of the Economic Justice & Empowerment Program of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker social action organization (AFSC.net); Steering Committee member of Move to Amend (MovetoAmend.org); and a member of the a member of the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD), a collective which instigates democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to govern (POCLAD.org) 

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"Corporations are Human"

"Bard Insurgent" Tom Neilson has written a song about the humanity of corporations, aptly titled "Corporations are Human." Here's some choice lines:

People have faces and socks in a drawer. Corporations are faceless, here and offshore.
If you think corporations bought free speech before, now that they're human they'll buy even more

When a corporation has a colonoscopy, then I'll believe they're human like me.

You can listen to it here.

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First Maine town passes Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinance

At least four towns in Maine will vote on the rights-based Local Food and Self-Governance Ordinance at their annual town meetings this spring--one town has already passed the measure. AfD'ers in the Blue Hill area have been working to get the ordinance before town meetings and build support among farmers and consumers.

The ordinance gives people the right to purchase food from a local family farm that has not been processed in a licensed and inspected facility. It also protects local farmers' markets and community events such as church suppers and school bake sales. It was necessitated by the recent attempts to enforce USDA standards created for large-scale agribusiness on small farms that have no way to pay for the new facilities they would need. Maine law says that the purpose of the Maine Dept. of Agriculture is to protect small family farming in the state.

The measure passed unanimously at the first town meeting vote in Sedgwick on Saturday. This week the measure will go to Town Meetings in Brooksville and Penobscot, and will be taken up by Blue Hill in April. Other area towns are also considering adding it to their warrants this year.

At the state level, District 36 representative Walter Kumiega has introduced two similar pieces of legislation, one to exempt raw milk from licensing if it's sold direct from the producer, and the second to expand this local ordinance statewide. Kumeiga said that access to "straight from the farm" food is important to his constituents, and that he had no trouble finding cosponsors for the bill.

You can read more here and here, and read the ordinance here.

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AfD council member hold town meeting on corporate personhood, constitutional amendment

AfD council member Rick Staggenborg will be facilitating a town hall meeting on corporate personhood in Brookings, Oregon on March 23. The town hall will take place at 7 p.m. at the Chetco County library, 405 Alder Street. The meeting gives people an opportunity to share their concerns about the state of representative government, and to learn more about building the movement to take away corporate access to personhood rights through Constitutional amendment. For more information, contact Rick at 541-217-8044.

Rick, a doctor as well as an activist, will also be touring southern Oregon with members of Physicians for a National Health Program, building support for single payer health care.

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"The Story of Citizens United"

The Story of Stuff people and Free Range Studios have collaborated on a new video, "The Story of Citizens United."



Enjoy and share--the video offers a good, quick explanation of how corporations got to be such an influence on government and policy even before the Citizens United decision. It also briefly mentioned public funding for elections--a big part of the fix for the problems that spring from institutionalizing big-money politics.

As far as amendments go, there's debate on whether the better approach is to go after all corporate usurpation of constitutional personhood rights or just First Amendment ones. The organizations that Story of Stuff links to on this YouTube video limit themselves to the first amendment. Story of Stuff's website also gives a nod to the Move to Amend coalition, which proposes ending corporate access to all constitutional rights, not just those granted by the First Amendment. Alliance for Democracy is a member of the Move to Amend coalition and recommends the broader approach--check out the fliers on this page to find out why.

There are state and local resolutions in the works supporting both approaches--maybe one where you live. Given that this movement is just beginning and has a long way to go, this is a good video to share regardless of your views on how broad an anti-corporate personhood amendment we need to win.

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But will he ever work in this town again?

Inside Job director Charles Ferguson's Oscar acceptance speech began with this observation:

"Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that's wrong."

An estimated 1 billion people watch the awards show, most of whom, one imagines, applauded his observation, as did the audience.

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Monopoly: The Wisconsin Edition

This infographic details how Koch Industries supported the candidacy of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, only to be well positioned to take advantage of a provision in his budget bill that would allow him to sell off state-owned energy infrastructure to whomever he likes at whatever price he wants. Check out The Other 98%'s website for other good videos, graphics, and signs.

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Richmond, California, city council passes anti-corporate personhood resolution

On Monday, the Richmond, California City Council unanimously passed a "Resolution to Free Democracy from Corporate Control." You can read the text here.

The resolution calls for state and federal constitutional amendments to reject corporate personhood and corporate "free speech." Neighboring Berkeley passed a similar resolution earlier this year.

One councilmember defended the resolution as a local issue, noting that in recent Richmond elections, controversy over a casino proposal led to millions of dollars being spent by Chevron and other companies on political ads.

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