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BLOG | Posted 06/07/2006 @ 01:08am
Citizens 1, Corporations 0

In states across the country Tuesday, primary elections named candidates for Congress, governorships and other important offices. But the most interesting, and perhaps significant, election did not involve an individual. Rather, it was about an idea.

In Northern California's Humboldt County, voters decided by a 55-45 margin that corporations do not have the same rights -- based on the supposed "personhood" of the combines -- as citizens when it comes to participating in local political campaigns.

Until Tuesday in Humboldt County, corporations were able to claim citizenship rights, as they do elsewhere in the United States...

But, with the passage of Measure T, an initiative referendum that was placed on the ballot by Humboldt County residents, voters have signaled that they want out-of-town corporations barred from meddling in local elections.

Measure T was backed by the county's Green and Democratic parties, as well as labor unions and many elected officials in a region where politics are so progressive that the Greens -- whose 2004 presidential candidate, David Cobb, is a resident of the county and a active promotor of the challenges to corporate power mounted by Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County and the national Liberty Tree Foundation -- are a major force in local politics...

Wal-Mart spent $250,000 on a 1999 attempt to change the city of Eureka's zoning laws... Five years later, MAXXAM Inc., a forest products company, got upset with the efforts of local District Attorney Paul Gallegos to enforce regulations on its operations in the county and spent $300,000 on a faked-up campaign to recall him from office. The same year saw outside corporations that were interested in exploiting the county's abundant natural resources meddling in its local election campaigns.

That was the last straw...

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Personally I think the corporation as a concept has gotten away on us, like many ideas do. It's time to scratch the idea, and develop alternatives for directing capital to producing goods and wealth for the community.

One of my favourite books of fiction, He, She, It, by Marge Piercy, paints a bleak and plausible picture of our future should we let this situation continue.

[ 08 June 2006: Message edited by: Naci_Sey ]