viewpoint
BY WE THE PEOPLE-EUGENE
A Republic in Peril
On our 235th anniversary
T
he January 2010 Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision released a
fl ood of corporate money into our political process. Corporate spending
on the 2010 congressional election skyrocketed. Prospects for corporate
spending in the presidential election next year are enough to frighten the most
optimistic among us.
With their Citizens United opinion, the Roberts Court decided that political
spending by corporations cannot be limited by the people. The word “bribery”
has lost its meaning in this country. Webster’s Dictionary defi nes “bribe” (noun)
as “A price, reward, gift or favor bestowed or promised with a view to pervert the
judgment or corrupt the conduct of a person in a position of trust, as an offi cial
or a voter.” Under the Citizens United decision, corporations have a constitutional
right to spend unlimited amounts of money to sway political campaigns.
Did you know that 3 percent of ExxonMobil profi ts last year is more than all the
money spent on congressional and national elections in 2008? The stage is set
for corporations to assume complete control over our political process.
Meanwhile, global corporations post record profi ts as our social safety net
unravels and we wage war on three continents. And the same fi nanciers who
created the mortgage bubble and crashed the world economy in early 2008 are
recruited by the White House and entrusted with the responsibility for fi xing the
economic damage they helped create. Incredibly, their solutions involve trillions
in government bailouts to fi nancial corporations, resulting in hundreds of billions
of dollars in bonuses to their former colleagues.
How did the state of our politics come to this? Is there a way to awaken from
this nightmare? We say yes.
A group of local citizens has come together this year to join the nationwide
social movement to restore peoples based democracy. We call ourselves “We
the People-Eugene.” We have come to realize that our situation is the result of a
centuries-long battle between fi nancial elites and we the people, the citizens of
these United States. We note that our nation’s founders warned us of the dangers
outlined above:
In 1776 Adam Smith, “father of the free market,” saw unregulated corporations
as “a conspiracy (of moneyed interests) against the public.”
Thomas Jefferson said that purpose of representative government is to “curb
the excesses of the monied interests.” In 1791, in discussions about the fi rst Bank
of the United States, Jefferson said “The end of democracy and the defeat of
the American revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the
lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” And that “corporations that
will grow up around (the banks) will deprive the people of all property until their
children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
And this from Abraham Lincoln, in 1864: “I see in the near future a crisis
approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my
country. As a result of the (Civil) war, corporations have been enthroned, and an
air of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will
endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until
all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
The American Revolutionary War with England was directed against a
corporation: the notorious East India Company, which sought domination over
American commerce. Political pamphlets of the day warned of the privations and
oppression Americans would face under the cruel hand of the company.
For nearly a century after the revolution, states were able to rein in corporations,
but then the immense fi nancial power of the railroads was used to take control of
state legislatures and secure sympathetic appointments to the courts. Wholesale
bribery thus eventually allowed corporations to assert rights as “persons” under
the First, Fourth, Fifth and 14th Amendments, so as to escape state controls. Our
generation is witness to the culmination of this process in the absurd Citizens
United decision, which legalizes bribery in the name of corporate “free speech.”
Three out of four Americans across all political boundaries disagree with the
Citizens United decision.
We fi nd ourselves in the situation Smith, Jefferson and Lincoln warned us
about. The power to regulate corporations, which our Founding Fathers won for
us, has been given back to the “monied interests” through their corrupting of the
intent of the American Revolution.
But wait; our own state constitution reminds us that the power and responsibility
to solve this problem remains with we the people. The opening lines of the Oregon
Constitution, written in 1857 before the Civil War — and before corporations
bought control of the federal courts — declare: “Natural rights inherent in people.
We declare that all men, when they form a social compact are equal in right; that
all power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their
authority, and instituted for their peace, safety, and happiness; and they have at
all times a right to alter, reform, or abolish the government in such manner as they
may think proper.”
We The People-Eugene works to make information available about what our
political climate looks like and why. We invite you to join us at our fi fth town hall
meeting at 7 pm July 27 at Harris Hall. Come hear lawyer and LCC political science
professor Stan Taylor explain how Wall Street acquired such power. Please join
our discussion of ways to reverse the tide of corporate domination and come
together with us to answer that most basic of human questions: How are we to
govern ourselves?
This essay was co-authored by Fergus Mclean, Graham Lewis, Alicia Markus and Stan Taylor. Contact
wethepeopleeugene@gmail.com
4 JUNE 30, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
letters
TO THE EDITOR
DON’T FEEL SAFER
The Lane County Public Safety
Coordinating Council’s makeup must
refl ect a majority vested interest in
incarceration,
not
rehabilitation,
considering their recent 11-5 vote for
funding cuts. Sponsors will lose 52 percent
of its funding for released inmates, over
a half million dollars. After nearly half a
million in cuts, three out of four serious
released sex offenders will no longer have
full supervision, treatment or enough
caseworkers. State funds for drug and
alcohol abuse treatment for indigents at
Emergence will be cut in half.
Whatever interests the council heeded,
they surely weren’t Lane County voters.
The recommendation fl ies in the face of
repeated county voter rejection of local tax
proposals that were skewed toward greater
lock-ups without suffi cient rehabilitation and
education components. The PSCC’s decision
doesn’t make me feel safer and isn’t likely to
save taxpayer dollars. Instead, we will spend
more on the barred side of our widened,
revolving jailhouse and prison doors.
According to Sen. Floyd Prozanski,
Measure 57’s supposed treatment
programs are unlikely to materialize if it is
implemented. This will further imbalance
our system toward incarceration and away
from rehabilitation.
We unwisely belt tighten by taking
off the belt and using it for punishment,
when punishment through jail time
itself is demonstrably the cause of much
repeated crime — not its cure. Our county
commissioners would do well to reject
this proposal in favor of maintaining
rehabilitation program spending. County
commissioners will answer to me and
other majority voters if they implement
this lopsided recommendation.
Ethen Perkins
Eugene
FORESTS FOR HORSES
Each EW has multiple letters on how
the rich aren’t carrying their fair share of
the tax burden and control our society.
Cognitive dissonance was displayed in the
June 2 EW.
In the Slant section, Seneca owner
Aaron Jones was congratulated for his
horses placing well in national races.
News Briefs mentions how Jones had
fought environmentalists in order to log
Trapper old growth. Question: How do
you think Jones paid for those horses?
Answer: Decimated forests.
Aaron Jones is a minor player compared
to the ultra-rich. Billionaires are treated
as gods and grace magazine covers and
TV shows. Billionaires are sociopaths
whose lifestyles use more of the world’s
resources and create more waste.
The occasional bone is thrown as
“philanthropy.” A philanthropist steals
from the workers and the environment to
give to themselves. They give a pittance
back and are called heroes.
Would Phil Knight give money to UO if
he didn’t get his son’s name on the arena and
had Nike symbols plastered across campus?
I’m not saying be rude to the rich but
don’t praise them. Realize that their interests
and ours are diametrically opposed.
We don’t want charity, we want
environmental and economic justice.
Scott Fife
Eugene
FIX THE ECONOMY?
If you just want jobs, why not build
some pyramids? Or stop using farm
equipment and go back to hand planting?
Why are there so many people complaining
about not being able to carry out their
life sentences in a corporate cubicle as a
wage-slave so some parasitic capitalist
douchebag can buy another yacht?
As George Carlin said, it’s called the
American Dream because you have to be
asleep to believe it. This country needs
to wake up from the fantasy that we
can continue to grow more top-heavy,
bureaucratic and ineffi cient and continue
to produce disposable garbage, because
monopoly capitalism will suppress all
honest competition.
This economy is based on the
wasteful and untenable principles of
planned obsolescence, annual model
changes and volume sales instead of
quality and dependability. We have more
bureaucrats and managers than we do
skilled craftspeople and farmers. We need
local, state and national initiatives to help
start and run small businesses and co-op
workshops where skilled craftspeople
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