My topic today is Deepening Democracy.
You might expect that I will talk about how to get out the vote, how to get rid of the Electoral College, how we need to reinstate the Voting Rights Act of 1964 which the Supreme Court punched a big hole in recently. Or maybe about, here in Oregon especially, how to control the flow of unlimited money into the political process, specifically by supporting the legislative referral to the Nov 2020 ballot amending the OR constitution to allow limits on political campaign contributions in Oregon. We all need to support this referral in our communities.
But instead I want to talk about Citizen United, because Jan 21st is the 10 anniversary of that awful decision. It struck yet another blow against democracy by allowing even more special interest corporate money into the politics system, swamping the voices of ordinary people like you and I.
I want to talk about corporate personhood and the court system’s granting of human rights to corporations. Court-created corporate personhood has given the rights and privileges of human beings to corporations while removing them from the duties and obligation of being our servants.