A profoundly important (to say nothing of disturbing) report on what may be the most dangerous corporation on planet earth, Monsanto. They are for all intents and purposes in the process of attempting to control the world’s food supply, and own the patents to the life that sustains agriculture itself.

Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.

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Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds have transformed the company and are radically altering global agriculture. So far, the company has produced G.M. seeds for soybeans, corn, canola, and cotton. Many more products have been developed or are in the pipeline, including seeds for sugar beets and alfalfa. The company is also seeking to extend its reach into milk production by marketing an artificial growth hormone for cows that increases their output, and it is taking aggressive steps to put those who don’t want to use growth hormone at a commercial disadvantage.

Even as the company is pushing its G.M. agenda, Monsanto is buying up conventional-seed companies. In 2005, Monsanto paid $1.4 billion for Seminis, which controlled 40 percent of the U.S. market for lettuce, tomatoes, and other vegetable and fruit seeds. Two weeks later it announced the acquisition of the country’s third-largest cottonseed company, Emergent Genetics, for $300 million. It’s estimated that Monsanto seeds now account for 90 percent of the U.S. production of soybeans, which are used in food products beyond counting. Monsanto’s acquisitions have fueled explosive growth, transforming the St. Louis–based corporation into the largest seed company in the world.

Read this detailed expose’ from Vanity Fair

Now we are starting to get to the heart of the matter, starting to identify where that hole in the Death Star is….

At this point, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly is basically a public menace.

Eli Lilly & Company’s rap sheet as a public menace is so long that for Lilly watchers to overcome the “banality-of-Lilly-sleaziness” phenomenon, the drug company must break some type of record measuring egregiousness. Lilly obliged earlier this year, receiving the largest criminal fine ever imposed on a corporation.

Here’s the money shot line all should take note of bear in mind at all times…

If Americans are ever going to revoke the publicly granted charters of reckless, giant corporations — well within our rights – we might want to get the ball rolling with Lilly, whose recent actions appalled even the mainstream media. And with Lilly’s chums, the Bush family, out of power, now might be the right time.

On January 15, 2009, Lilly pled guilty to charges that it had illegally marketed its blockbuster drug Zyprexa for unapproved uses to children and the elderly, two populations especially vulnerable to its dangerous side effect. Lilly plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and agreed to pay $1.42 billion, which included $615 million to end the criminal investigation and approximately $800 million to settle the civil case.

One of the eight whistle-blowers in this case, former Lilly sales representative Robert Rudolph, says the settlement will not completely change Lilly’s business practices, and he wants jail time for executives. “You have to remember, with Zyprexa,” said Rudolph, “people lost their lives.”

Some of the commentary by readers of this article are good, as well.

If the corporation is a ‘person’, and said ‘person’ is convicted of murdering someone (as is the case here), then perhaps its time to apply the death penalty to that perpetrator.

Read the full article from AlterNet Here

UnCommon Sense TV - “Corporate Democracy & USA Inc.” What is a corporation and what is its role today? How was the American Revolution an anti-corporate revolt? How have corporations become such powerful, seemingly unaccountable entities, gaining such extraordinary control over our lives? The program looks at how the original controls over corporations established by our nation’s Founders have been gradually eroded over the years, and what types of effects this has had on the economic, political and cultural life in our country today.
Joining the discussion is special guest Rick Sahli, a veteran attorney working for over twenty years on behalf of the protection of environmental laws in the state of Ohio and against corporations that attempt to put profit above the public welfare. (http://home.columbus.rr.com/sahlilaw/)

Richard Grossman who helped found the POCLAD: Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy and does groundbreaking work with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, provides this important reminder in regards to how best to frame a political response to the degrading state of America’s economic (and thus political) solvency. Nail, meet hammer.

Sure, there are crooks out there. But the overwhelming majority of actions by corporate directors and managers that have created today’s messes have been legal.

Not only legal, but also widely regarded as necessary and essential to sustain the American Way of Life. To put food on our tables. To heat our homes. To provide jobs. To defend liberty and freedom …

Simply put: Giant business and financial corporations govern. The few who run them make the governing decisions that dictate people’s work, living conditions, health and the nature of our communities.

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Armed with “freedom of speech,” “due process,” “equal protection of the law,” the “commerce clause,” “the contracts clause,” and other constitutional powers, corporate directors and managers have been wielding the law to deny people’s most fundamental human rights.

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After the great savings and loan thefts, after the great WorldCom and Enron Corporation thefts - after every financial cataclysm of the past century - people have been assured that the problem was “greed and excess” ….

But after the Madoffs of every generation are all locked up, most of the corporate directors and managers who “legally” plunged the nation into these messes continue governing over the nation. They keep instructing people that the source of the nation’s problems is “greed and excesses,” and “crooks.” They keep spending the people’s money to set things right. And they keep writing We the People’s laws.

Read The Complete Article

Now we’re talking. These folks are targeting the real bullseye on the issues at hand… so-called corporate ‘rights’. This is ground zero in the effort to bring real democratic accountability to our governing systems.

Today the citizens of Shapleigh, Maine voted at a special town meeting to pass a groundbreaking Rights-Based Ordinance, 114 for and 66 against. This revolutionary ordinance give its citizens the right to local self-governance and gives rights to ecosystems but denies the rights of personhood to corporations. This ordinance allows the citizens to protect their groundwater resources, putting it in a common trust to be used for the benefit of its residents.

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The right to water is a social justice issue and we believe that it should not be sold to those who can afford it, leaving the world’s poorest citizens thirsty. Citizens will do a much better job of protecting this resource than a for-profit corporation.

The multi-national corporation’s allegiance is never to the communities where they do business, as that could conflict with their fiduciary responsibility to make a profit for stockholders.

People throughout the country are saying “enough is enough, large corporations have too much power.” Constitutional Rights were granted to corporations from the bench in the 1800’s and it is time to rectify a wrong! People are saying let’s dismantle the neo-colonial corporate power by starting with their right to personhood.

Read the full article as well as watch video clips from the town hall meetings Here.

(An E-Mail to a Member of the Research Team at Goldman Sachs…)

Harry:

Thank you for the opportunity to be on your e-mail list. I appreciate your generosity and hard work.

I am writing to ask you to unsubscribe me from your list. I value your research reports. However, it would be hypocritical of me to accept them.

I believe in death penalties for private corporations and partnerships. My vote for one of the first to be executed is Goldman Sachs.

You and your colleagues have helped to build and manage a machinery that has committed treason and genocide on a breathtaking scale. The history of Goldman Sachs over the last two decades is living proof that it is possible to kill with a financial system and a pen.

The fact that you don’t understand what you and your colleagues are doing is breathtaking. It raises more than a few questions about whether you understand what is really behind the flow of funds you track and publish.

The question before us is who will pay the price of the mess that you and your colleagues have had such a significant hand in creating:

Who will lose their business and who will keep it?
Who will lose their job and who will keep it?
Who will lose their home and who will keep it?
Who will lose their reputation and who will not?
Who will lose their family and who will not?
Who will lose their health and who will not?
Who will lose their future and who will not?
Who will lose their life and who will not?
Who will lose their freedom and who will not?

My plan for bailing out the country would include asserting common law offsets against the assets of the NY Fed member banks and all of their partners and employees who benefited up to an amount sufficient to repay $4 trillion missing from the US government, to fund losses caused by the manipulation of the precious metals markets and to fund claims of fraudulent inducement and fraud on mortgages and mortgage securities. To fund the offsets, I would propose to seize the offshore and onshore assets of those who created the mortgage bubble and derivatives mess in the first place.

Frankly, I see no reason why millions of poor people around the world should pay a global tax through the dollar and US treasury and agency securities for which the American people are liable, so you and your colleagues can continue to live in comfort and luxury without concern that you will be held accountable to the same standards of enforcement applied to the people who live in the communities wrecked by the mortgage, money laundering and financial fraud that made you and your clients so powerful.

It seems to me if anyone should lose their business, jobs and home, it is you and your colleagues.

Sincerely Yours,
Catherine Austin Fitts

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Catherine Austin Fitts offers a unique perspective on the global financial system and on the political economy. Her background includes Managing Director and member of the Board of Wall Street investment bank Dillon Read & Co. Inc., Assistant Secretary of Housing - Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush Administration and President of Hamilton Securities Group, a Washington DC investment bank. Catherine has designed and closed over $25 billion of transactions and investments to-date, has led portfolio strategy for $300 billion of financial assets and liabilities and has participated in the private and public workout and turn around of billions in mortgage, real estate and banking fraud.

Read the original email posting Here

Karl Bode presents one of the more salient and lucid arguments in the ongoing debate over national media policy that we’ve seen in a long time….

An eclectic and disjointed mix of businesses, consumer advocacy organizations, politicians and technologists this week banded together under the “Internet For Everyone ” banner to promote, well, Internet for everyone. The group’s long list of strange bedfellows includes the ACLU, Google, Consumer’s Union, Internet2, OpenDNS, Free Press, the Writers Guild of America, the Nancy Drew fan fiction club and many more — though I think they fail to directly tackle this industry’s most pressing problem….

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The problem is that while these groups field yet another feel-good event where Internet Ivy League celebrities like Tim Wu and Larry Lessig wax poetic on the limitless potential of the Intertubes, AT&T lobbyists are purchasing your State’s entire legislative body in order to pass the “Anti-competitive consumer sodomy act of 2008″ or some variant thereof. It’s kind of like cheering for more wind on the deck of a rotting sailboat.

I’d be more impressed if these groups dropped the banal, vague principles (seriously, who exactly opposes “innovation?”) and took a strong stance on the real reasons broadband competition in this country is stagnant: government corruption, an un-skeptical media, the incumbent stranglehold on policymakers, the massive web of disinformation created by lobbyists, and the complete bi-partisan failure in government leadership.

Don’t get me wrong; I do think these groups can help institute change, but I think this particular group’s mission statement is in dire need of clarity. With George Carlin’s passing — and his streamlining of the Ten Commandments fresh in my mind — I’d like to replace the group’s fairly mundane four principles with just one. I think my singular principle would be immensely more beneficial to this industry: Tackle corruption

Read The Complete Post

This is refreshing in that it is one of the few that is actually identifying some of the core systemic problems we are facing in the pursuit of our work towards a more democratic and universally accessible media system. However, the use of the term ‘corruption’ in regards to defining the problem here is off the mark, in that the problems being identified with this post are not the result of corruption. The very term ‘corruption’ implies that the behavior and actions being identified here are deviant from the law. Complaints about “AT&T purchasing your state’s entire legislative body”, the FCC being stacked with partisan loyalists serving corporate interests, etc… are to all effects useless, in that these actions all have one commonality - they are all perfectly legal.

You cannot fight ‘corruption’ when the very definition of the law itself is corrupt, at least according to the nature of the complaints elaborated in this posting. Until there is enough widespread awareness that engages the citizenry to challenge the fundamental basis of how rights are defined and who wields them, this little kabuki theater of democracy we engage ourselves with on a daily basis in the halls of government throughout the nation will continue unabated. The reality, like it or not, is that we do not live in a democratic republic, but rather a corporate state. This is not stated rhetorically or meant to be inflammatory, but as simple basic fact.

Every instance outlined in this posting is yet another symptom revealing once again (and the examples are unpleasantly relentless) that self-governing sovereignty does not exist with the democratic majorities, but rather with ruling minorities hiding behind the fictional façade of corporate personhood. With every example of ‘corruption’ raised here (and elsewhere in our ongoing struggles), one needs to ask one simple question. “Who Decides?” Who is the sovereign in our society? Supposedly it is claimed that all power of governance resides with ‘We The People’. But is that really true? Is it true when small groups of people can shape the law to their own benefit against the stated will and interests of the majorities of those whom our civic mythology claims are actually the governing sovereigns? The evidence that this is the case is incontrovertible, displayed over and over with issue after issue (war, health care, environmental concerns, workers rights, etc… on and on and on, you’ll see over and over how the law and policy do not correspond to the actual interests and desires of the majorities of people).

This situation will never be confronted and successfully resolved until this issue of corporate rights being conferred upon and wielded by small minorities against the supposedly sovereign majorities through the use of these distorted and perverted laws is challenged.

Any actions collectively taken, any battles fought short of this one can arguably be defined as being strictly defensive in nature. Granted, teams can score some points on defense, even win whole games with nothing but a strong defense. But to take the sports analogy a step further, if you want to win championships for the long term, you’re going to need at least some kind of coordinated offense, and know clearly what your target is.

And the fact is the shot clock is running out, what with a whole host of threats and challenges; state franchises, FCC rulemaking, heck, with the ever-more-obvious economic and even global climate meltdown. How long can we keep playing prevent defense in these circumstances? The time is running out and the shots will be few, and yes the opponent is seemingly overwhelming in scope and power. To use a Star Wars analogy, ‘Corporate Personhood’ can be likened to the ‘hole in the Death Star’, the single Achilles-like mark surrounded by all the protective devices and acolyte minions of Festung Empire. The reality is, if we’ve only got limited time with a limited chance to make that shot, like Luke Skywalker ’staying on target’ and going for broke, we best identify where we need to make that shot and how to make it count.

Because Lord knows we don’t have the time, energy and resources to continue to fight these piecemeal battles against the Goliaths on a playing field they designed and already rigged for themselves. If that is to be the case, we are simply fighting to regulate the speed of our demise.

- Andy Valeri, USTV Media

Daniel Greenwood is a highly unusual law professor who writes academic articles with subtitles like “The Illegitimacy of Corporate Law” and “Why Corporate Speech is Not Free.” Strangely, his work has been strangely overlooked by the democracy/anti-corporate movement. That’s a shame because it’s great stuff and worth a close look.

Recently Professor Greenwood switched from University of Utah to Hofstra Law School, so he has a new web page with links to all his writings:

http://people.hofstra.edu/Daniel_J_Greenwood/

Sample article titles:

“Should Corporations Have First Amendment Rights?” (a classic)

“Democracy and Delaware: The Mysterious Race to the Top/Bottom”
From the abstract: Re-politicizing corporate law would allow us to see a series of difficult value choices that are currently concealed but ought to be the subject of political debate”

“Markets and Democracy: The Illegitimacy of Corporate Law”

“Introduction to the Metaphors of Corporate Law”

“First Amendment Imperialism”

“The Semi-Sovereign Corporation” (very good)

“Essential Speech: Why Corporate Speech is Not Free” (awesome article!!!)

- Posted by Ted Nace

This is both darkly humorous and rather telling…

State Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford, has been a strong advocate of giving consumers a choice besides cable for television service. But his letter inviting constituents to an AT&T-sponsored event Friday celebrating its new U-verse TV service may have gone too far, some critics say. A letter sent by Fonfara on April 1 to residents on several streets in Hartford’s Behind the Rocks neighborhood encouraged them to attend the event marking the local U-verse launch.

The mailing, paid for with state money and printed on official Senate letterhead, described U-verse as an “exciting new technology” and listed a website for potential customers to check for availability. Fonfara, co-chairman of the legislative committee that deals with cable and telephone regulation, said the letter was meant to highlight a cable TV alternative. “I am promoting the fact there’s competition coming to my district, where so many people said it would never happen ,” Fonfara said at the event at Rocky Ridge Park.

Fonfara’s decision to highlight U-verse in official state correspondence crossed the line, said state Rep. Christopher Caruso, D-Bridgeport, co-chairman of the government administration and elections committee, which writes and oversees ethics law. Caruso said the letter doesn’t violate state ethics laws or legislative mailing rules, but mailings discussing the advantages of a new product should be sent out by the company, not legislators. “That is a promo piece,” Caruso said. “John is a good friend of mine, but I won’t have written the letter.” The letter was also criticized by Edwin Vargas Jr., a former Democratic town committee chairman who is considering challenging Fonfara for the party nomination this year for the 1st Senate District, which includes parts of Hartford and Wethersfield.

Fonfara “may have gone too far”? He “crossed the line”?

There is no line left to cross here, folks. The so-called ‘line’ between the power of the corporation and that of the state has long been obliterated. Fonfara’s real transgression wasn’t that he turned his public office into an advertising division of AT&T, it was that his clumsy actions (clumsy from a power management perspective) simply made that condition more readily visible to the normally unobservant eye of the general public.

Read The Full Article

There’s more on Mr. Fonfara’s ‘gaffe’ Here from The Hartford Courant

This brings to light the aphorism about how American politics is pretty much about organized money vs. organized people, as the incident highlighted here is a literal example of what is meant by that. It’s a pretty telling indictment of the popularity of Comcast’s position on the all-important issue of Net Neutrality that they have to resort to recruiting citizen mercenaries to support their efforts within anything resembling the sphere of democratic accountability in the decision-making processes of governance.

Comcast Paid Shills To Attend FCC Hearing

The Federal Communications Commission hearing about net neutrality this week was so crowded that police had to turn away an estimated 100 people from the Harvard Law School classroom where the event was held. The large audience even seemed to surprise some of the organizers, who did not have an overflow room available on site.

But now, it’s come out that the packed room wasn’t just filled with concerned citizens. Comcast paid shills to arrive early and save seats so that employees and other supporters could attend and cheer on executive vice president David Cohen.

The move came to light after the net neutrality advocacy group Free Press posted this MP3 file of an interview with an unidentified line-stander on its site. “Honestly, I’m just getting paid to hold somebody’s seat,” a man said on the recording. “I don’t even know what’s going on.” Pictures also surfaced online showing audience members sleeping during the hearing.

Read The Full Report

Harold Feld of Wetmachine.com really lays out the disturbing meaning underlying this whole situation with his column For the Clueless Among Us: Why Comcast Paying Folks to Attend FCC Hearing Is Wrong. The fact that Comcast is trying to claim this is simply an example of democratic organizing shows just how far out in orbit these corporations are in regards to their understanding of what truly meaningful and appropriate exercise of democratic governance and accountability is. But then, ruling elites hiding behind the legal fictions of corporations do not, nor ever have, given much concern to the whole notion of ‘democracy.’

I can’t believe I actually need to explain this.

Suppose Comcast made the following offer: If you vote “yes” on a ballot initiative we like (and agree to take a pocket recording device into the voting booth with you so we can have proof), we will pay you $50.

Most of us would not only say that this is wrong, we would have no problem understanding why that’s a crime. We would not be persuaded by Comcast defending itself by saying “well, Free Press and other organizations have campaigned in support of the bill and are calling people to ask them to go out and vote — they even provide free rides to people likely to vote for the initiative. That’s just like paying people directly to vote the way we want.” In general, we recognize a difference between organizing ad trying to persuade people to vote the way you want and actually paying people for their vote (and wanting a receipt).

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Which brings us back to Comcast. This isn’t some gray area of giving local employees the day off with pay and a free ride while others had to take time off ad make their own way. This is just hiring warm bodies to block others and — if they stay awake long enough — to applaud on cue. The notion that this is in any way comparable to the kind of civic conversation that democracies depend on and the sort of organizing that Free Press engages in — citizens persuading other citizens and urging them to make their voices heard — is worse than ignorant and beyond Orwellian. It is downright insulting. It takes our most fundamental right and responsibility as free citizens and transforms it into a mockery. It is literally to defend the practice of placing democracy up for sale, and to reduce our democracy to the level of a banana republic.

The best democracy money can buy.

Read The Full Post

Update: Looks like the FCC and even members of Congress are taking notice of these stunts by our friends at Comcast. Sen. John Kerry of all people actually defined the point pretty well…

“Trying to lock out the public is a great example of why we need net neutrality… If the other side will use their money to restrict public access to a public meeting, how can we feel confident they won’t use their power to restrict voices in the virtual world?

Read more about it Here

Another Update: Looks like Robin Harris has weighed in on this issue as well on his blog ‘Storage Bits’….

Comcast hired dozens of “seat-warmers” that kept others from attending a Monday FCC hearing held at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society meeting room for an FCC hearing. God forbid that the public be seen at a hearing intended to solicit public comment.

Then they lied about it.

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Trust Comcast to regulate the Internet? They can’t manage the PR for a public hearing let alone the Internet.

Read The Complete Post with Comments Here