Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Occupy Resolution circulating widely

LA passed this, unanimously, and supposedly with 1,000 people or so in attendance of that night's GA. The idea is to get basically the same set of proposals to make the rounds across the different Occupations, until some fairly consistent, nationwide message takes shape. Here is LA's resolution (which the County Council approved unanimously):

The General Assembly of Occupy Los Angeles,
Convinced that one critical threat to free and fair elections, and
authentic democratic self-governance comes from the fact that
corporations have been defined as legal persons;

Declaring that persons are rightfully recognized as human beings whose essential needs include clean air, clean water, and safe and secure food;

Deeply disturbed that the granting of Constitutional protections to
corporations has compromised, or resulted in the destruction of our
communities, economy, democracy and natural world in many ways;

Convinced that the solution must be comprehensive, and remembering
that those who believed defining people as property was immoral did
not call for ending one or two parts of slavery, but for abolition of
the institution of slavery;

Recalling that corporations are human-made legal fictions, and that
human citizens are the source of all legitimate power in any
democracy;

Deeply concerned that corporations need only profit for survival, and
that such profit and survival are often in direct conflict with the
essential needs and rights of human beings;

Having observed that the great wealth of large corporations lets them
misuse the legal system to overpower human beings and communities,
thus denying We The People’s rights;

Recalling that corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution,
that The People never granted constitutional rights to corporations,
but that individual judges and courts have misguidedly done so without
Our consent;

Particularly disturbed that the rollback on legal limits on corporate
spending in elections creates an unequal playing field enabling
corporations to influence elections, candidate selection, and policy
decisions;
Having seen that large corporations own most of America’s mass media
and use that media as a megaphone for their own agenda, drowning out
other voices;

With conviction that defining property as people is fundamentally
immoral and a threat to real people, all other life forms, and the
planet;

Be it resolved that Occupy Los Angeles joins the tens of thousands of
citizens, grassroots organizations and local governments across the
country in calling for an Amendment to the Constitution to firmly
establish that money is not speech, that human beings, not
corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights, and that
the rights of human beings will never again be granted to fictitious
entities or property.