Action Details : “Occupy the Courts”
Posted on 19 January 2012 by @kevin_seal
Tomorrow at 8 a.m., we will descend upon the Oakland federal courthouse on Clay Street between 13th and 14th to express our outrage at corporate personhood. The action, called “Occupy the Courts,” is in solidarity with similar events happening at more than 120 federal courthouses across the US.
Events for the rally in Oakland include music by Occupella and Valerie Orth and a skit about Corporate Personhood skit. Laura Wells, the 2010 gubernational candidate from the Green Party of California, will speak in Oakland, as will Aimee Allison, co-executive director of RootsAction and LinkTV host.
At 11 a.m., Oaklanders will head to San Francisco to join up with North Bay and San Francisco protesters, gathering at the Civic Center fountain at 11:45 to march toward the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals at 7th and Mission Streets.
The nonviolent rally and afternoon teach-in, organized by local MoveToAmend.org affiliates, will include an anarchist street band as well as other performances. Speakers at the teach-in include Carlos Villarreal, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild’s Bay Area chapter, and Ted Nace, author of Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy and Climate Hope.
“Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific Railroad was heard by the Ninth Circuit on its way to the Supreme Court,” said Abraham Entin, organizer of North Bay Move To Amend. “The Federal Judiciary has historically been the place where corporations have been able to take over the rights of human beings most effectively.”
Organizers chose January 20 to commemorate the second anniversary of Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, the controversial Supreme Court ruling that upheld the assertion that corporations are people, and that money equates to free speech. MoveToAmend supporters believe that this ruling allows for rampant corruption in our government, as unlimited and undisclosed corporate funding has already swayed not only political campaigns, but countless other aspects of US governance.
“Occupy the Courts” is coordinated with the Occupy Wall Street West demonstrations that will be happening across San Francisco and Oakland on Friday. Actions at over 120 federal courthouses, including the Supreme Court, and in Oakland at the Ronald Dellums Federal Building, are the focus of Occupy protesters against corporate rule on Friday, January 20. Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions corporations which, historically, were required to act in the public interest. But thanks to decades of rulings by unelected Justices, the law was molded to favor elite interests. Corporations today deny citizens the right to full self-governance and wield ever-increasing control over jobs, natural assets, elected officials, and the law.
A corporation is not a person and should possess only the privileges citizens and our elected representatives willfully grant it. Organizers of OCCUPY THE COURTS propose a Constitutional Amendment that will overturn the Court-created legal doctrines of corporate personhood and “Money Equals Speech.”
