Indefinite Detention: It CAN Happen Here!

The National Defense Authorization Act will allow the President to merely claim a person is a terrorist in order to lock them up and throw away the key – without charge and without trial. Given all the fear and demagoguery surrounding "terrorist" threats, it’s not surprising that the bill passed both the House and the Senate with wide margins.  

The only hope now is a Presidential veto.

By Sue Udry, Defending Dissent

The trauma of Sept. 11, 2001, gave rise to a dangerous myth that, to be safe, America had to give up basic rights and restructure its legal system. The United States was now in a perpetual state of war, the argument went, and the criminal approach to fighting terrorism — and the due process that goes along with it — wasn’t tough enough.

President George W. Bush used this insidious formula to claim that his office had the inherent power to detain anyone he chose, for as long as he chose, without a trial; to authorize the torture of prisoners; and to spy on Americans without a warrant. President Obama came into office pledging his dedication to the rule of law and to reversing the Bush-era policies. He has fallen far short.

Obama refused to entertain any investigation of the abuses of power under his predecessor, and he has been far too willing to adopt Bush’s extravagant claims of national secrets to prevent any courthouse accountability for those abuses. This week, he is poised to sign into law terrible new measures that will make indefinite detention and military trials a permanent part of American law.

The measures, contained in the annual military budget bill, will strip the FBI, federal prosecutors and federal courts of all or most of their power to arrest and prosecute terrorists and hand it off to the military, which has made clear that it doesn’t want the job. The legislation could also give future presidents the authority to throw American citizens into prison for life without charges or a trial. The bill, championed by Republicans in the House and Senate, was attached to the military budget bill to make it harder for Obama to veto it.

Nearly every top American official with knowledge and experience spoke out against the provisions, including the attorney general, the defense secretary, the chief of the FBI, the secretary of state, and the leaders of intelligence agencies. And, for weeks, the White House vowed that Obama would veto the military budget if the provisions were left in. On Wednesday, the White House reversed field, declaring that the bill had been improved enough for the president to sign it now that it had passed the Senate.

This is a complete political cave-in, one that reinforces the impression of a fumbling presidency. To start with, this bill was utterly unnecessary. Civilian prosecutors and federal courts have jailed hundreds of convicted terrorists, while the tribunals have convicted a half-dozen.

And the modifications are nowhere near enough. Obama, his spokesman said, is prepared to sign this law because it allows the executive to grant a waiver for a particular prisoner to be brought to trial in a civilian court. But the legislation’s ban on spending any money for civilian trials for any accused terrorist would make that waiver largely meaningless.

The bill has so many other objectionable aspects that we can’t go into them all. Among the worst: It leaves open the possibility of subjecting American citizens to military detention and trial by a military court. It will make it impossible to shut the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. And it includes an unneeded expansion of the authorization for the use of military force in Afghanistan to include indefinite detention of anyone suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda or an amorphous group of “associated forces” that could cover just about anyone arrested anywhere in the world.

There is no doubt. This bill will make it harder to fight terrorism and do more harm to the country’s international reputation. The White House said that if implementing it jeopardizes the rule of law, it expects Congress to work “quickly and tirelessly” to undo the damage. The White House will have to make that happen. After it abdicated its responsibility this week, we’re not convinced it will.

Sue Udry directs Defending Dissent, a non-profit foundation that has opposed repressive legislation for decades.

It’s too late for petitions. The only way to stop this step toward friendly fascism is to phone the White House and demand a veto of the National Defense Authorization Act. Here’s the number: 202-456-1414

Media & Movements: Blackout to Spin Control

Upset about how the media has handled recent protests around the country? First most of the press ignores Occupy Wall Street (and other places), then they go wall-to-wall for a while. And yet they continually question what it’s all about – as if economic inequality is an obscure notion -- and eventually manage to divert the discussion.   

This is not a new approach to coverage of social movements. Let's take a look back just ten years:

In April 2001, less than five months before 9/11, most media outlets provided a useful lesson in spin control during coverage of an economic summit in Quebec City designed to win support for a so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas, known as the FTAA. After largely ignoring the story in the days immediately preceding the meeting, TV networks went all in as soon as the first protesters began dismantling the security perimeter separating them from the gathered heads of state. 

The images were simply irresistible. 

Less than 24 hours later, however, despite an escalation of police violence in Quebec, large protests throughout the Americas, and serious disagreements among the leaders attending the summit, the coverage shifted again. Footage of the protest was abruptly dropped from the coverage, and a new story emerged. 

The Associated Press led the charge, announcing in a headline that the proposed trade deal had been "ratified." Despite reality – notably the fact that ratification was in serious doubt and years away – the intention was to leave the impression that a deal had been struck and the protest had become irrelevant.

That was Saturday night. By Monday, the official line was in place: Despite protests, announced the wire service, an "accord" had been signed. Newspapers across the country dutifully disseminated the misinformation. In fact, all that they signed was a "communique" – about as binding as a joint press release – that expressed a willingness to keep at it. 

Behind the scenes, all was not well. Even before the meeting, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso had expressed concerns about the risks posed to vulnerable Latin American economies by the trade agreement.

Venezuela dissented from several points in the communique, saying it wouldn't be able to meet the 2005 deadline for ratification. In response, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien provided his personal assurance that, despite such equivocation and the leadership of Hugo Chavez, it could stay in the global club anyway -- as long as a referendum could be stage-managed at some point. 

Caught between US pressure and internal opposition to corporate trade deals fueled by the Zapatista rebellion, Mexican President Vicente Fox struggled to find some middle ground. While backing the FTAA, he called for initiatives to promote democracy and reduce poverty, decrying the "whims of market forces." That was carefully excised from US reports.

Doubts were also growing that newly-installed President George W. Bush would succeed in winning "fast track" – recently renamed "trade promotion authority." According to US Sen. Max Baucus, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee at the time, Bush didn’t have the votes “because they've not yet worked out ways to adequately and meaningfully deal with labor and environmental issues."

Without "fast track" legislative authority in the president's hands, the argument was that many Latin American countries would not take US promises seriously, and the FTAA was unlikely to be implemented. Insiders said Bush had less than a year to win that fight. He never did. The FTAA and other trade and investment deals --- not to mention a Bush pledge to "compete in the long term with the Far East and Europe" – faltered in the years that followed.

The corporate press never admitted it, but the Quebec talks failed. No agreement was reached on an FTAA text, which helped explain why a draft document wasn't released. Instead, the "communique" attempted to spin the setback by focusing on an empty promise that future FTAA member countries would have to observe "democratic norms." 

Actually, this allowed the US to rationalize the exclusion of Cuba, the hemisphere's harshest critic of corporate-driven trade rules, and intensify pressure on Haiti, whose President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was again out of favor in Washington. 

A year later, there was an unsuccessful coup attempt in Venezuela. Aristide was forced into exile in early 2004. Both exercises in regime change showed faint US fingerprints.

Casualties of a covert war for globalization? Perhaps. In any case, both stories hit a virtual press blackout, emboldening at least one other coup since then. Think Honduras.

A Brief Recap…

There has been no admission of US involvement in the removal of President Manuel Zelaya, the first successful coup in Central America in about 25 years. But US policy clearly shifted after he decided to improve relations with Venezuela. Even after the UN General Assembly demanded Zelaya’s reinstatement, Obama declined to call it a coup.

The ousted, democratically-elected president agreed to exile in the Dominican Republic. His replacement, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, was a conservative landowner with a business degree from the University of Miami. Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina called his election illegitimate. Secretary of State Clinton backed the new leader.

Manuel Zelaya

Two years later, Zelaya returned. The post-coup government has become a pariah in the region. A State Department cable released by Wikileaks reveals that US leaders knew the coup was illegal. The cable was titled, "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup." 

Nevertheless, Amy Goodman was the only US journalist on Zelaya's flight home. He was greeted by tens of thousands of people cheering and waving the black-and-red flag of the movement born after the coup, the National Front of Popular Resistance. In Honduras it’s known simply as "the resistance."

Since the coup, violence has been widespread. Anyone daring to speak out risks intimidation, arrest and possibly murder. At least a dozen journalists have been killed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Scores of campesinos have also been killed. The UN is concerned that organized crime groups are targeting lawyers.

Back to Quebec….

Playing the "democracy" card during the 2001 Quebec summit underscored the hypocrisy that often characterizes talk about "free" trade. If world leaders were actually concerned about democracy, they might have spoken up about the US-financed war raging in Colombia at the time, or perhaps refused to attend the next World Trade Organization meeting, slated to be held in Qatar, an Arabian Peninsula monarchy where demonstrations are against the law. They didn’t.

Despite the official spin and a media preoccupation with protest tactics, the Quebec Summit was a golden opportunity for the movement against corporate globalization to build global solidarity. In addition to the 70,000 people who took to the streets of Quebec City, thousands more converged across the US, at the Mexican border, and in South America. An emerging independent media network provided effective on-the-spot reporting, countering the corporate line, highlighting state repression, and uniting the opposition. 

Back peddling during the Summit and afterward was a direct response to the protests. But that’s not how it was reported – when it was mentioned at all.

Five months later, when planes crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, a people’s movement -- growing for almost a decade and poised for "revolutionary" impact -- was sidetracked by tragedy and war. 

In the mainstream media, it was all too quickly forgotten.

As the Regime Changes: Caucus Edition

In the final days before Democrats in Burlington chose a candidate for mayor, a debate erupted over skate park funding. But even hotter topics are ahead. Here is a preview of things to come in the People’s Republic: VTDigger.org: Mayor’s race turns to trust and skate park funding Also, the outcome of the dueling Democratic and Progressives caucuses: Weinberger wins...Progressives Delay...

  

Listening parties: from left, Progressive Mayor Bob Kiss, Republican candidate 

Kurt Wright, possible Independent candidate Karen Paul, and Democrats 

Norm Blais, David Berezniak, and Joan Shannon.

Yes, it was down to the wire. Who would win the Democratic caucus – Progressive turned Democratic Senator Tim Ashe or Airport Commissioner and housing developer Miro Weinberger? Would the Progressives field a candidate if Ashe didn’t win? Had Republican Kurt Wright already previewed his campaign strategy? And what was with that recent City Council vote to reconsider skate park funding? So many questions, and even more to come.

Here’s another: should non-citizens in Burlington get the right to vote? That’s coming up soon on Vermont’s leading political soap opera: As the Regime Changes.

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Shortly after my latest article was filed, former Gov. Howard Dean endorsed Weinberger for mayor. A few days later the housing developer defeated State Senator Tim Ashe at the conclusion of the Democratic caucus. But even more interesting, Republican leaders announced that State Auditor Randy Brock will be their unity candidate for Vermont governor next year against incumbent Peter Shumlin. During his announcement speech, Brock offers a red meat attack rich in subtext:

.

"If my travels around this state have taught me anything, it is this: Vermonters don’t want to live in a 'laboratory for change.' They don’t want to be the guinea pigs or lab rats in a grand social experiment."

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Wow! Human guinea pigs trapped in a laboratory for change. Now that's a reality TV concept. If this is the starting point, the campaign should be interesting.

A few days later, during a press conference with Bernie Sanders in Burlington on the launch of a new multi-million research center, the governor responded -- in a way -- by embracing the idea that, on energy and more, being a laboratory for change is precisely the idea.

^^^

Masters of the (Smart) Grid: GMP Chief Powell, Gov. Shumlin, Sen. Sanders, and
Sandia VP Rick Stulen announce a Sandia-led Vermont lab. (12/12/11)

Hunting Finance Vultures: A Talk with Greg Palast

“The vultures get their hands on money that they claim is owed by the poorest nations, usually during a civil war. Then they find loopholes and seize all the wealth.” – Greg Palast 

Palast and hat.

By Greg Guma   In his new book, Vultures' Picnic, Greg Palast pulls together documents and stories from more than three decades of detective work, unraveling the schemes of the Energy-Finance Combine and exposing several real life vulture capitalists. On Dec. 12, he will visit Burlington and share some of what he has found out at Main Street Landing during a 7 p.m. talk sponsored by Toward Freedom.

We talked on December 4, covering BP's crimes in the Gulf and Caspian Sea, Entergy's exploitation of hurricane Katrina, what it's like to interview a corporate predator, making the transition from investigator to journalist, and why Uber-Vulture Paul Singer wants him off British TV. Here are some excerpts. Also check out my feature about Palast and the vultures for VTDigger.org -- In fedora and trench coat, Palast exposes "vultures" who profit from crisis.  Below this interview you'll find recent radio coverage by Free Speech Radio News.

* * *

Guma: By the time I got to Page 348 in Vultures' Picnic, when you’re talking about Joe Stiglitz and the IMF riots, I had to wonder whether the current uprisings are part of the plan. You know, decriminalizing banking, privatization and the assumption that austerity will lead to unrest and a crackdown…

Palast: No doubt about it. Same smell, same scene. But Joe Stiglitz (economist and former member of the Clinton cabinet) doesn’t give me the information. It’s very important to him that he doesn’t violate his agreements.

Guma: Why did you use a reportage verite style for this book?

Palast: Because this is how I do it. Since The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, people are used to it. And people know about me from reporting on the presidential voting scandal. There I gave you the information that I cover. I thought it was important to say how I’m getting it - and sometimes failing to get it. I didn’t want to keep doing the same thing. Another reason is that I wanted to make the point that I’m an ordinary guy in extraordinary circumstances. People should know my story.

Guma: If the British government is an arm of BP’s imperial power, what is BP an arm of?

Palast: Actually, BP is an arm of Morgan Stanley. It used to be that BP was an extension of military intelligence, now the roles are reversed.

Guma: There’s so much to say about BP. Starting with homicide…

Palast: Exactly. The information we got from an eyewitness right after the blow out was that this was not the first time. And it was the same reason, cheap crap cement. And they covered it up by beatings and bribery and blow jobs. Vulture Picnic is saying that they covered this up – and by doing that 11 guys died. I’m saying, as a former racketeering and fraud investigator, that it was a crime.

There’s a lock up between Big Oil, Big Finance and Big Government. All the oil companies knew about the problem prior to the blow out, and the Department of State may have hidden it from Congress.

We tracked them to Azerbaijan and got arrested in the desert, but Badpenny gave me a camera pen so I got the documents out. When I work for BBC and The Guardian, I’m under British law. I have to give this evidence to BP and ask them whether it’s right. And they have never denied it. Did you have another blow out? No denial, just blah blah blah.

There were three crimes. Crime number one: PB destroyed the Caspian Sea and the Gulf. The Gulf of Mexico is a crime scene. Crime number two: The government knew and covered it up. And crime number three: The US press is ignoring it, except maybe a public whipping, maybe.

The New York Times is a local paper that does gossip. And NPR has become the National Petroluem Network. In Britain I’m mainstream, I work for the BBC and The Guardian. So, they can’t tell us that didn’t know this.

Guma: You say that one of the lessons for BP was, “Don’t prevent, don’t pay.” Which brings us to the vultures. Who are they?

Palast: You can get a lot of the details in 1^st chapter, which you can download free.

First, there really is a Goldfinger, and compared to him the movie villain was a girl scout. The vultures get their hands on money that they claim is owed by the poorest nations, usually during a civil war. Then they find loopholes and seize all the wealth.

The number one US vulture is Paul Singer, an advisor to Romney. His office recently called the BBC in London to say they have a file on Palast. They really want to smear me and implied that a lawsuit was coming. Paul Singer is the number one donor to the Republican Party. So, they are not minor players. He makes his money by literally killing babies, according to the former Deputy Secretary of the UN. And what Singer wants is Palast off the air. He sent a complaint to The Guardian.

His buddy – they literally have a club – is Goldfinger, who bribed the President of Zambia with $3 million. In return he let Goldfinger collect a phony debt and take $45 million off the Zambian treasury – the money we gave them to fight AIDs. This is also a crime.

We tracked the trail of the president. His bank was in Geneva and Badpenny followed the trail, pulling off the role of a TV star. She says, “We’re from a reality show, Shopping with the Rich and Famous.”

Since we put this on the air the laws have changed in several nations. Now they bar these vulture speculators. But this was a case of bribery. The door is closed, but not in America.

Guma: When you get into the room with someone like that, or the generalissimo of globalization, is anyone really there?

Palast: I find that the government guys are just careerists. But the actual vultures are brilliant and frightening, and most are fairly charming. And they know their shit. The oil guys are actually quite brilliant. You really have to know your stuff, and not get charmed. Think back: How many news guys licked the loafers of Ken Lay?

Because they know me – and I have a degree in international finance – they have a tough time saying I don’t understand. Actually, they run from me in some of these stake outs.

^^

^^

Guma: Let’s talk about nuclear power. Vermont Yankee may close next March…

Palast: The operative word is “may.”

Guma: …and Entergy is suing. What can you add to the discussion for Vermonters?

Palast: There’s no effective earthquake proofing. Remember we’re talking about a seismic event, for instance the kids from Al Qaeda. If things screw up you have only one thing between you and disaster—those diesel generators. But we know that they might as well as put Hanukah bushes around the plant.

There is no way those generators can fire up – actually maybe a 50 percent chance. In nuclear power, the problem is always something cheap. There are three things involved in every plant: cement, steel and fraud. The companies just change their names.

Entergy had enough brains to get Hillary [Clinton], a smart move. When I investigated them for the City of New Orleans I went through their books and found a corrupt cesspool. The NRC calls the standard “management integrity.” They don’t have it.

They were the power company for New Orleans. Parts of the city were dark for more than a year after the hurricane. There are places that still don’t have electricity. They said that unless rates went up the lights wouldn’t be turned on. The city went down and they took the power for the plant and sold it for profit. As a result Entergy made a fortune off Katrina. They could sell power at a premium elsewhere. They took the gain and pocketed it.

When they run scams like that, don’t trust them. If they’re lying about the money they’re lying about everything.

Guma: After years investigating corporate crimes was making the change to investigative journalist empowering?

Palast: It was necessary. What was the point of doing this, I thought, when I had to dump stuff in a file and seal it. I was going insane, not being able to make this public. Going public is vital to me. In London I am on the front page, and all over Europe and Africa. Here I can barely get on the radio. But at least I can shout from across the water, as opposed to not being able to say anything because it’s under seal.

Guma: So, the vultures eat the carcasses – whole countries sometimes – but the real killing is made by Switzerland, Norway, US and Britain – the so-called donor nations. And the ultimate winners are the energy-finance combine. Is this an institutional or structural problem, or mainly the actions of the vultures and others in the 1%?

Palast: I hate the bad apply model. That’s why I hated the Enron story. I wrote about it as an example. The whole tree is rotten to the roots; that is the key. And the so-called investigative journalists are the biggest part of the cover up because they find a bad guy for you to pick on. This justifies the status quo.

Guma: Despite all that, aren’t you more optimistic with the rise of Lula, Chavez, and Morales in Latin America, and the overall mood at the moment?

Palast: Sure. The problem is religious, and this is a religious book. These are matter of faith and personal courage. That’s the story I’m telling. It’s about whether we have the courage not to be slaves, toadies and greedsters.

  Greg Palast: Vultures in the Congo

Vermont Pols Push to End Corporate Personhood

As support builds to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, organizer David Cobb returned to Vermont last week to discuss pending state legislation and Town Meeting votes aimed at amending the US constitution. From VTDigger.org

Over the last decade more than a hundred cities and towns across the country have passed ordinances putting citizens' rights ahead of corporate interests. They have banned businesses from dumping toxic sludge, building factory farms, mining, and extracting water for bottling.

Some have also refused to recognize corporations as people.

On Jan. 21, 2010, however, the US Supreme Court firmly rejected that idea in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, ruling that corporations are “persons” with First Amendment rights and cannot be prevented from spending unlimited funds on political campaigns.

Vermont State Legislature

David Cobb is determined to change that, and returned to Vermont this week to promote the next steps in a campaign to amend the US constitution. Last January, Cobb, a former Green Party candidate for president who leads the Move to Amend campaign, spoke about the issue in Burlington, Waitsfield and Montpelier during a tour of the state organized by the Women's International league for Peace and Freedom. He also met with 11 state senators who agreed to support a Vermont resolution calling on Congress to initiate the process.

In a joint interview with Cobb on Vermont Public Radio, Ben Cohen explained this week that he originally felt amending the constitution “was an incredibly high bar. But when the Occupy Wall Street movement came around, I thought this makes it possible.”

On Tuesday evening Cobb took part in a Montpelier panel discussion with Jennifer Taub, a Vermont Law School associate professor, as well as Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade.  Since the Occupy protests, public attention has turned to economic inequality, corporate power and restricting the use of money in political campaigns.

In Vermont several organizations have picked up the call, including the Vermont Public Interest Research Group and Clean Yield Asset Management, which co-sponsored the Montpelier event to “kick-start a statewide conversation.” Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading the charge nationally, VPIRG’s Paul Burns calls the issue “one more opportunity for our small state to take the lead,” and activist groups, in Vermont and elsewhere, have held house parties to plan for a “day of action” on Jan. 21, the second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision.

The day before that, a Friday, Move to Amend will help to organize rallies at more than a third of the country’s federal courts, including the Supreme Court, in many cases while they are in session.  Some participants will commit civil disobedience by blocking courthouse steps, Cobb predicts. 

UPCOMING: Investigative journalist Greg Palast, author of Vultures' Picnic, will speak in Burlington on Dec. 12 at 7 p.m., Main Street Landing. In this 2009 report he looks for the roots of the current economic crisis -- international "rules" that eliminated barriers for toxic assets. Here is a new report from Free Speech Radio News on how the vultures' repo ops increased cholera in the Congo.

In an interview, Cobb agreed with Cohen that the energy and tactics of the Occupy movement can help generate a public groundswell. “One of their main demands is to abolish corporate personhood and get the money out of politics,” he said. Cobb, who has worked on the issue for a decade, has visited several Occupy encampments and participated in teach-ins.

Both Move to Amend and the Vermont Progressive Party want to put corporate personhood-related questions on the ballot for Town Meeting day in March. Meanwhile, Progressive Rep. Chris Pearson may introduce legislation to create new disclosure requirements for big donors who pay for political ads.

In 2009, Democrat Jason Lorber introduced H. 299, which proposed modifications to Vermont's public financing system and a provision to regulate reporting and disclosure of independent expenditures. Last year, the Senate Government Operations Committee introduced S.294, requiring that sponsor identification information be included on electioneering communications. 

Cobb says that legislative efforts in areas like disclosure and financing can improve the process. “But we need to understand that this can’t be the end game," he insists. "If you reform the system but don’t deal with corporate personhood people can still raise and spend unlimited amounts.”

The amendment resolution introduced in Vermont last year by Sen. Virginia Lyons, the first of its kind in the country, proposes “an amendment to the United States Constitution that provides that corporations are not persons under the laws of the United States.”  

Corporate profits and institutional survival “are often in direct conflict with the essential needs and rights of human beings,” it states. Corporations have used “so-called rights to successfully seek the judicial reversal of democratically enacted laws,” and governments have become “ineffective in protecting their citizens against corporate harm to the environment, health, workers, independent business, and local and regional economies.”

The resolution also points out that large corporations own most of the country’s mass media and use them to “convince Americans that the primary role of human beings is that of consumer rather than sovereign citizens with democratic rights and responsibilities.” With all that in mind, it concludes that the way forward is amendment of the Constitution “to define persons as human beings.”

Cobb calls the resolution a historic document and praised Lyons for showing leadership during the last session. “This is the first state to introduce at the legislative level a statement of principles that corporations are not persons and do not have constitutional rights,” he explained back in January. “It’s the beginning of a revolutionary action completely and totally within the legal framework.”

Vermont Law School Professor Cheryl Hanna, moderator of the Montpelier discussion, is a bit skeptical about constitutional amendment as a strategy, calling it “the least politically viable" approach. Two-thirds of Congress must approve, and then three quarters of the states, she notes.

The argument against focusing on amendment is that, due to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the rights of corporations to spend money during campaigns, changes like disclosure requirements, disclaimers, and increased transparency are probably the best short-term hope for mitigating the damage. “We have to look for ways to try to make it work within our limited power," argues Pearson, who may focus on requiring disclosure of top political contributors.

Another approach is to expand shareholder democracy and rights, requiring management to keep them informed and win their approval before making campaign donations. A model version, introduced last year in Maryland, would prohibit a corporation from publishing or distributing campaign material in the state unless it is true, the board of directors has decided the expenditure is in the best interests of the corporation, and the content of the campaign material and the money have been approved by a stockholder vote.

Cobb says it is essential to combine such legislation with a constitutional amendment strategy. “Abolitionists and trade unionists were also told that their strategy wasn’t viable,” he notes. “Our job is to expand the definition of political viability. When people are offered a choice an overwhelming number choose to do both.”

On the other hand, he acknowledges that it could take a decade or more to reach the final goal. “In the meantime, we need to create political space, have protests and political campaigns, and also go into state legislatures,” he says.

How a resolution calling for amendment of the constitution is worded will also make a significant difference. “It’s not like legislation, which can be passed and then altered,” he explains. “We have to get this right. If it’s just about money in elections we will have missed the boat. Disclosure is not going to solve the problem.”

Move to Amend offers some basic language, much of which is incorporated in Lyons’ version. Rejecting Citizens United, it calls for a Constitutional amendment to “firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.” Linking that issue to participation and the right “to have our vote and participation count,” it also demands protection of communities, the economy and democracy “against illegitimate ‘preemption’ actions by global, national, and state governments.”

Somewhat different wording is advocated by Free Speech for People, a Massachusetts-based group founded by John Bonifaz, who has worked with Cobb in the past. This group’s approach, which has the support of Sen. Sanders, calls on “the United States Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizen United v. Federal Election Commission and to restore constitutional rights and fair elections to the people.”

Occupy Burlington on Church St.

At the conclusion of a 90-page dissenting opinion on Citizens United, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote: "At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.”

While eager to work with almost anyone on the issue, Cobb advocates an approach that combines careful legal strategy with political engagement and direct action, along with a straight-forward challenge on both corporate personhood and campaign finance. 

“We should learn from the past,” he advises. “When the demands aren’t sufficiently concrete and systemic, they end up compromised.”

“Look, I’m a trade unionist,” he continues, “so I know we can’t compete with the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street on raising money. Our strength is organizing people. A movement to amend will embolden and empower labor itself, and not simply organized labor.”

Cobb acknowledges, however, that neither unions nor non-profit groups have inherent, inalienable constitutional rights. Like corporations, they are also creations of the state. But their members have those rights.” This focus on individual rather than institutional rights is part of why a movement to amend the constitution can win support “across the ideological spectrum,” he believes.

The problem can be traced back to the mid-1970s. Congress amended the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1974 in an attempt to regulate campaign contributions and spending. Two years later, in the case of Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court said that spending money to influence elections is constitutionally protected speech and struck down parts of the law. It also ruled that candidates can give unlimited amounts of money to their own campaigns.

In 2008, the dispute that led to the Citizens United decision was over the right of a non-profit corporation to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton, and whether the group, Citizens United, could promote the film with ads featuring Clinton's image, an apparent violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as McCain–Feingold.

The US District Court for DC denied a motion by Citizens United for a preliminary injunction to stop the Federal Election Commission from enforcing provisions of McCain–Feingold that prevented the film, Hillary: The Movie, from being shown on TV within 30 days of Democratic primaries.

The Supreme Court struck down a provision of McCain–Feingold that prohibited all corporations, both for- and not-for-profit, as well as unions from broadcasting “electioneering communications,” defined as a broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that mentions a candidate within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary.

On the other hand, the Court did uphold requirements for disclaimer and disclosure by sponsors of advertisements. The case didn’t involve the federal ban on direct contributions from corporations or unions to candidate campaigns or political parties.

Justice Stevens wrote at the time that the Court's ruling "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution." His dissent also said that the majority had "changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law."

Until Citizens United, a century of US election laws prohibited corporate managers from spending general treasury funds in federal elections. Instead, they had to make expenditures via separate segregated funds, commonly known as corporate political action committees. Shareholders, officers and managers who wanted a corporation to advance a political agenda could contribute funds for that purpose.

But the Supreme Court's ruling says that corporations have the same First Amendment rights to make independent expenditures as natural people, and restrictions prohibiting both corporations and unions from spending their general treasury funds on independent expenditures violate the First Amendment.

According to Robert Reich, a public policy expert and former Secretary of Labor, the 2012 presidential race will probably be the priciest ever as a result, going as high as $6 billion. “Yet all this money is drowning out the voices of average Americans,” he noted in a Nov. 27 column for the San Francisco Chronicle. “Most of us don't have the dough to break through. Giving First Amendment rights to money and corporations has hobbled the First Amendment rights of the rest of us.”

Despite those odds, Cobb remains optimistic – at least that the current wave of Occupy activism, as well as legislative and Town Meeting activity in Vermont, can light a spark. “My commitment is to make democratic representation a reality again,” he says. “To do that we need to abolish corporate personhood and destroy the fiction that money is speech.”