Favorite Legal Quotations From the u.s. Supreme Court

8/4/2019 Favorite Legal Quotations From the u.s. Supreme Court

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FAVORITE LEGAL QUOTATIONS FROM THE U.S. SUPREME COURT

"Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free

to develop their faculties; and that in its government the deliberate forces should prevail over the

arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the

secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as

you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of

political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them,

discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine;

that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty;

and that this should be a fundamental principle of American government...they knew that order

cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to

discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds

hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to

discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil

counsels is good ones." - Justice Louis Brandeis, Whitney v. California, 274 US at 375

"An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no

protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never

been passed." Norton v. Shelby County, 118 US 425 (1885)

"Where rights secured by the Federal Constitution are involved, there can be no rule-making or

legislation which would abrogate them." Miranda v. Arizona, 384 US 436 (1966)

"The idea prevails with some -- indeed, it found expression in arguments at the bar -- that we

have in this country substantially and practically two national governments; one, to be

maintained under the Constitution, with all of its restrictions; the other to be maintained by


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Congress outside and independently of that instrument, by exercising such powers as other

nations of the earth are accustomed to exercise.

"I take leave to say that if the principles thus announced should ever receive the sanction of amajority of this court, a radical and mischievous change in our system of government will be the

result. We will, in that event, pass from the era of constitutional liberty guarded and protected by

a written constitution into an era of legislative absolutism.

"It will be an evil day for American liberty if the theory of a government outside of the supreme

law of the land finds lodgment in our constitutional jurisprudence. No higher duty rests upon this

court than to exert its full authority to prevent all violation of the principles of the Constitution."

See Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244 (1901), Harlan dissenting.

"Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole

people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds

contempt for law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To

declare that in the administation of the criminal law the end justifies the means - to declare that

the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -

would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set

its face." Justice Louis Brandeis in Olmstead v. U.S., 277 US at 485. (1928)

"Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,-'life, liberty, and the pursuit

of happiness;' and to 'secure, ' not grant or create, these rights, governments are instituted. That

property which a man has honestly acquired he retains full control of, subject to these

limitations: First, that he shall not use it to his neighbor's injury, and that does not mean that he

must use it for his neighbor's benefit; second, that if the devotes it to a public use, he gives to thepublic a right to control that use; and third, that whenever the public needs require, the public

may take it upon payment of due compensation." BUDD v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW

YORK, 143 U.S. 517 (1892)


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"Among these unalienable rights, as proclaimed in that great document, is the right of men to

pursue their happiness, by which is meant the right to pursue any lawful business or vocation, in

any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights of others, which may increase their prosperity

or develop their faculties, so as to give to them their highest enjoyment. The common business

and callings of life, the ordinary trades and pursuits, which are innocuous in themselves, and

have been followed in all communities from time immemorial, must therefore be free in this

country to all alike upon the same conditions. The right to pursue them, without let or

hinderance, except that which is applied to all persons of the same age, sex, and condition, is a

distinguishing privilege of citizens of the United States, and an essential element of that freedom

which they claim as their birthright. It has been well said that 'THE PROPERTY WHICH

EVERY MAN HAS IN HIS OWN LABOR, AS IT IS THE ORIGINAL FOUNDATION OF

ALL OTHER PROPERTY, SO IT IS THE MOST SACRED AND INVIOLABLE. The

patrimony of the poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his own hands, and to hinder his

employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his

neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon thejust liberty both of the workman and of those who might be disposed to employ him. . . The right

to follow any of the common occupations of life is an inalienable right, it was formulated as such

under the phrase 'pursuit of happiness' in the declaration of independence, which commenced

with the fundamental proposition that 'all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their

Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness.' This right is a large ingredient in the civil liberty of the citizen. To deny it to all but a

few favored individuals, by investing the latter with a monopoly, is to invade one of the

fundamental privileges of the citizen, contrary not only to common right, but, as I think, to the

express words of the constitution. It is what no legislature has a right to do; and no contract to

that end can be binding on subsequent legislatures. . ." BUTCHERS' UNION CO. v.CRESCENT CITY CO., 111 U.S. 746 (1884)

"I had thought it self-evident that all men were endowed by their Creator with liberty as one of

the cardinal unalienable rights. It is that basic freedom which the Due Process Clause protects,

rather than the particular rights or privileges conferred by specific laws or regulations. . . It

demeans the holding in Morrissey - more importantly it demeans the concept of liberty itself - to

ascribe to that holding nothing more than a protection of an interest that the State has created

through its own prison regulations. For if the inmate's protected liberty interests are no greater

than the State chooses to allow, he is really little more than the slave described in the 19th

century cases. I think it clear that even the inmate retains an unalienable interest in liberty - at the

very minimum the right to be treated with dignity - which the Constitution may never ignore."

MEACHUM v. FANO, 427 U.S. 215 (1976)


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"Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that governmental officials shall be subjected to

the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence ofthe government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously." - Ibid.

"It is monstrous that courts should aid or abet the lawbreaking police officer. It is abiding truth

that '[n]othing can destroy a government more quickly than its own failure to observe its own

laws or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.'" Justice Brennan quoting Mapp

v. Ohio, 367 US 643, 659 (1961) in Harris v. New York, 401 US 222, 232. (1971)

"We find it intolerable that one constitutional right should have to be surrendered in order to

assert another." - Simmons v. U.S. 390 US 389 (1968)

"Many citizens because of their respect for what only appears to be a law are cunningly coercedinto waiving their rights due to ignorance." - U.S. v. Minker

INDIVIDUAL SOVEREIGNTY


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"When we consider the nature and the theory of our institutions of government, the principles on

which they are supposed to rest, and review the history of their development, we are constrained

to conclude that they do not mean to leave room for the play and action of purely personal and

arbitrary power. Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to law, for it is the author and source

of law; but in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government,

sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and

acts. And the law is the definition and limitation of power."Yik Wo v. Hopkins, 118 US 356

(1885)

"There is a clear distinction in this particular case between an individual and a corporation, and

that the latter has no right to refuse to submit its books and papers for an examination at the suit

of the State. The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen. He is entitled tocarry on his private business in his own way. His power to contract is unlimited. He owes no

such duty to the State, since he receives nothing therefrom, beyond the protection of his life and

property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the land long antecedent to the organization

of the State, and can only be taken from him by due process of law, and in accordance with the

constitution. Among his rights are a refusal to incriminate himself, and the immunity of himself

and his property from arrest or seizure except under a warrant of the law. He owes nothing to the

public so long as he does not trespass upon their rights." Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43 at 47

(1905).

Here is the often expressed understanding from the United States Supreme Court, that "in

common usage, the term "person" does not include the Sovereign, statutes employing the person

are ordinarily construed to exclude the Sovereign." Wilson v. Omaha Tribe, 442 U.S. 653, 667

(1979) (quoting United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U.S. 600, 604 (1941)). See also United

States v. Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258, 275 (1947).

"A Sovereign is exempt from suit, not because of any formal conception or obsolete theory, but

on the logical and practical ground that there can be no legal Right as against the authority that

makes the law on which the Right depends." Kawananakoa v. Polyblank, 205 U.S. 349, 353, 27

S. Ct. 526, 527, 51 L. Ed. 834 (1907).


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No such ideas obtain here(speaking of America);"at the revolution, the Sovereignty devolved on

the people; and they are truly the Sovereigns of the country, but they are Sovereigns withoutsubjects (unless the African slaves among us may be so called) and have none to govern but

themselves; the citizens of America are equal as fellow citizens, and as joint tenants in the

Sovereignty. Chisholm v. Georgia (February Term, 1793) 2 U.S. 419, 2 Dall. 419, 1 L.Ed 440,

pp. 471-472.

INDIVIDUAL'S RIGHT TO RESIST AN UNLAWFUL ARREST

"An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his liberty

has the same right, and only the same right, to use force in defending himself as he would havein repelling any other assault and battery." State v. Robinson 145 Me. 77,72 Atl. 2d 260, 262

(1950).

"The offense of resisting arrest, both at common law and under statute, presupposes a lawful

arrest. It is axiomatic (self-evident) that every person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest. In

such case the person attempting the arrest stands in the position of a wrongdoer and may be

resisted by the use of force, as in self-defense." State v. Mobley 240 N.C. 476, 83 S.E. 2d

100,102 (1954).


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THE FOURTH AMENDMENT

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against

unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon

probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be

searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

- United States Constitution

"Constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed."

Boyd v. U.S., 116 US 616 (1886)

"...and it is the duty of the courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, andagainst any stealthy encroachments thereon." Byars v. U.S., 273 US 28 (1927)

"The makers of our Constitution undertook....to protect Americans in their beliefs, their

thoughts, their emotions, and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the

right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized

men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of

the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the FourthAmendment." Olmstead v. U.S., 277 US 438 (1928)


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" The permissibility of a particular law enforcement practice is judged by balancing its intrusion

on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental

interests." Delaware v. Prouse, 99 S.Ct. at 1396

"The Fourth Amendment is to be construed in the light of what was deemed an unreasonable

search and seizure when it was adopted, and in a manner which will conserve public interests as

well as the interests and rights of individual citizens." Carroll v. U.S. 267 US 132, 149

"The essential purpose of the proscriptions of the Fourth Amendment is to impose a standard of

"reasonableness"* upon the exercise of discretion by government officials, including law

enforcement agents, in order 'to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against

arbitrary invasions...'"** Delaware v. Prouse, 99 S.Ct. at 1396.

* See Marshall v. Barlows Inc., 436 US 307, 315, 98 S.Ct. 1816, 1822 (1978); U.S. v. Brignoni-

Ponce, 422 US 873, 878, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2578, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975); Cady v. Dombrosky, 413

US 433, 439, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 2527, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973); Terry v. Ohio, 392 US 1, 20-21, 88

S.Ct. 1868, 1879, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Wolf v. Colorado, 338 US 25, 27-28 (1948)

FourthAmendment.com

"The 4th Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core

stands the right of a man to retreat into his home and there be free from unreasonable

governmental intrusion."

- Justice Potter Stewart


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"In enforcing the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures,

the Court has insisted upon probable cause as a minimum requirement for a resonable search

permitted by the Constitution." Chambers v. Maroney 399 US 42, 51

"Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of

every arbitrary government." Brenninger V. U.S. 338 US 160

"The Fourth Amendment proscribes all unreasonable searches and seizures, and it is a cardinalprinciple that "searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by a judge

or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment-subject only to a few

specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." Katz v. United States, 389 US 347, 357

"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that

it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from

evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and

detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive

enterprise of ferreting out crime." Terry v. Ohio, 392 US 1, 34 (1968)


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"It must be recognized that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his

freedom to walk away, he has 'seized' that person." Terry v. Ohio, 392 US 1, 16 (1968)

"Stopping an automobile and detaining its occupants constitute a "seizure" within meaning of

the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, even though purpose of stop is limited and resulting

detention is quite brief."Delaware v. Prouse, 440 US 648,

"Where property or evidence has been obtained through unconstitutional search and seizure,

failure to return the same and to suppress the evidence learned thereby constitutes reversible

error. - Boyd v. United States, 116 US 616; Weeks v. United States, 232 US 383; Silverthorne

Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 US 385; Gouled v. United States, 255 US 298; Amos v. United

States, 255 US 313.

"When officers detained defendant for the purpose of requiring him to identify himself, they

performed a "seizure" of his person subject to the requirements of the Fourth Amendment."

Brown v. Texas, 443 US at 47

"Application of Texas statute, which makes it a crime to refuse to identify one's self to a police

officer who has lawfully stopped one and requested such information, to detain defendant and

require him to identify himself violated the Fourth Amendment where officers lacked any

reasonable suspicion to believe that defendant was engaged or had engaged in criminal conduct."

Brown v. Texas, supra.

"While the police have the right to request citizens to answer voluntary questions concerning

unsolved crimes they have no right to compel them to answer." Davis v. Mississippi, 394 US

721, 727 n. 6


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"In sum then, individuals accosted by police on the basis merely of reasonable suspicion have a

right not to be searched, a right to remain silent, and, as a corollary, a right not to be searched ifthey choose to remain silent. Justices Brennan, Marshall and Stevens dissenting in Michigan v.

DeFillipo 443 US at 45

"The usual rule is that a police officer may arrest without warrant one believed by the officer

upon reasonable cause to have been guilty of a felony , and that he may only arrest without a

warrant one guilty of a misdemeanor if committed in his presence. Kurtz v. Moffitt, 115 US 487;

Elk v. U.S., 117 US 529. The rule is sometimes expressed as follows:

"In cases of misdemeanor, a peace officer like a private person has at common law no power of

arresting without a warrant except when a breach of the peace has been committed in his

presence or there is reasonable ground for supposing that a breach of the peace is about to be

committed or renewed in his presence." Halsbury's Laws of England, Vol. 9 part III, 612. The

reason for arrest for misdemeanors without warrant at common law was promptly to suppress

breaches of the peace, 1 Stephen, History of Criminal Law, 193..." Carrol v. U.S., 267 US 132,

157

"Though the police are honest and their aims worthy, history shows they are not appropriate

guardians of the privacy which the Fourth Amendment protects." Jones v. United States 362 U.S.

257, 273 (1959). "

"It is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches, that the guilty sometimes go free than that

citizen's be subject to easy arrest." Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98, 104 (1959).


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"The 4th Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core

stands the right of a man to retreat into his home and there be free from unreasonable

governmental intrusion."

- Justice Potter Stewart

THE FIFTH AMENDMENT

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a

presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or

in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be

subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in

any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property,without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just

compensation."

- United States Constitution

THE SIXTH AMENDMENT


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"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an

impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which

district shall have been priviously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause

of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory processfor obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense."

-United States Constitution

"[R]eason and reflection require us to recognize that in our adversary system of criminal justice,

any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless

counsel is provided for him. This seems to us to be an obvious truth. Governments, both stateand federal, quite properly spend vast sums of money to establish machinery to try defendants

accused of crime. Lawyers to prosecute are everywhere deemed essential to protect the public's

interest in an orderly society. Similarly, there are few defendants charged with crime, few

indeed, who fail to hire the best lawyers they can get to prepare and present their defenses. That

government hires lawyers to prosecute and defendants who have the money hire lawyers to

defend are the strongest indications of the widespread belief that lawyers in criminal courts are

necessities, not luxuries. The right of one charged with crime to counsel may not be deemed [440

U.S. 367, 377] fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries, but it is in ours. From

the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on

procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in

which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the

poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him." Gideon v.

Wainright 372 U.S., at 344.

"The Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of our Constitution guarantee that a person brought to

trial in any state or federal court must be afforded the right to the assistance of counsel before he

can be validly convicted and punished by imprisonment." Faretta v. California 422 US 806

(1975)


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"The right to counsel exists not only at the trial but also at every stage of a criminal proceeding

where substantial rights of a criminal accused might be effected." Mempa v. Ray, 389 US 128,

134 (1967)

THE JURY

"The purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power -- to make available

the commonsense judgment of the community as a hedge against the over- zealous or mistaken

prosecutor and in preference to the professional or perhaps overconditioned or biased response of

a judge." -- Justice Byron White, Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 US 522

"The guaranty of trial by jury contained in the Constitution was intended for a state of war, as

well as a state of peace, and is equally binding upon rulers and people at all times and under all

circumstances."

Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866)

More Favorite Legal Qoutes

"Truth will ultimately prevail

where there be pains taken to bring it to light."

George Washington


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"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the

safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era 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." -- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (letter to Col. William

F. Elkins) Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)

"If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in

the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then

those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific

method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and

community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, thismay be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness."

Carl Sagan

"There is therefore, secondly, another way whereby governments are dissolved, and that is,

when the legislative, or the prince, either of them, act contrary to their trust. First, The legislative

acts against the trust reposed in them, when they endeavour to invade the property of the subject,

and to make themselves, or any part of the community, masters, or arbitrary disposers of the

lives, liberties, or fortunes of the people." - "The Second Treatise of Civil Government" (1690)

by John Locke, at Chapter XIX "Of the Dissolution of Government"Sec. 221.

"We meet," it said, "in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material

ruin....Corruption dominates the ballot box, the [state] legislatures and the Congress and touches

even the bench.....The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinionsilenced....The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a

few." - The founding convention of the People's Party better known as the "Populists" (1892).


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"Those who so glibly dismiss as 'mere legal technicalities' the procedural guarantees of the

Constitution limiting law-enforcement activities forget that nothing is more basic to civil liberty

than freedom from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment by policemen who are masters, not

servants, of the law. The most characteristic symbol of the police state is the ominous rap on the

door at night. Freedom from the fear of that rap is the basic condition for the exercise of every

other form of freedom. 'The history of liberty', Mr Justice Frankfurter once observed, 'is the

history of the observances of procedural safeguards.'

For as long as men have sought to be free, arbitrary arrest has been a mark and measure of

despotism. In every land and time, men have protested and fought against it. It has been a

principal cause of every major uprising against established government. It was one of the

grievances of the English barons against King John in 1215 and prompted their insistence in

Magna Carta that 'no free man shall be taken or imprisoned...except by the legal judgement of his

peers or by the law of the land.' Bitter resentment against capricious arrest and incarceration wasone of the prime causes of the French Revolution. And so the Declaration of the Rights of Man

and of the Citizen stipulated that 'No man should be accused, arrested, or held in confinement

except in cases determined by the law, and according to the forms which it has prescribed.'

Arbitrary arrest and arbitrary searches conducted under the infamous writs of assistance and

general warrants were among the bitterest grievances against George III recited in the American

Declaration of Independence. When they established their independence Americans were

determined that no government of their own creation should ever engage in these forms ofdespotism. Accordingly, they imposed heavy restraint upon police activity in the Fourth

Amendment to the Constitution."

"The Rights of Free Men" by Alan Barth

The Matrix is a system, Neo, and that system is our enemy. When you are inside, you lookaround, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters, the very minds we are

trying to save. Until we do, these people are part of that system and that makes them our

enemies. You have to understand that most of these people are not ready to be unplugged and

many are so hopelessly dependent on the system, theyll fight to protect it. The Matrix is

everywhere. It is all around us. Even in this very room. You can see it when you look out your

window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go


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to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind

you from the truth.

- Morpheus, in the movie, The Matrix

"Yes, we did produce a near perfect Republic. But will they keep it, or will they, in the

enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the

surest way to destruction."

- Thomas Jefferson

"The people are the masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution,

but to overthrow the men who would pervert it!"

Abraham Lincoln

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that government long established should not be changed for light

and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed

to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which

they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the

same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their

duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for thir future security."

The Declaration of Independence (1776)


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"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too

strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good

intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They

promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."

Daniel Webster

"We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest -- which

will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive

to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all

become wolves."

Thomas Jefferson

"Power is the great evil with which we are contending. We have divided power between three

branches of government and erected checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. However,

where is the check on the power of the judiciary? If we fail to check the power of the judiciary, I

predict that we will eventually live under judicial tyranny."

Patrick Henry

"It is a precedent fraught with danger for the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch

its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it and no security for the

people... ... the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred and rigidly observed in

all its provisions." -- Colonel mber of the U.S. Congress 1827-31 & 1832-35

David Crockett, AKA Davvy Crockett


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"The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected." - William O. Douglas

"Occupants of public offices love power and are prone to abuse it."

George Washington , Farewell Address

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a

twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we allmust be most aware of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of

the darkness."

William O Douglas

"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of

rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are

kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext

whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - Henry

St. George Tucker, in Blackstone's 1768 "Commentaries on the Laws of England."

"Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent?"

Samuel Adams (Nov 20, 1772)


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"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist."

John Adams ("Discourses on Davila," 1790)

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God,

and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny

commence. If 'Thou shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of

Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or

made free." -

John Adams, "A Defense of the American Constitutions," 1787

Jefferson wrote "The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every

citizen in his person and property, and in their management." To which he added - the defense of

private property is the standard by which "every provision" of law, past and present, shall be

judged.

(Bergh, Albert Ellery, ed. "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 2d ed. rev." Washington Thomas

Jefferson Memorial Association, 1907, p. 1532.

"In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence [i.e., property]

amounts to a power over his will."

"The Federalist", No. 79, by Alexander Hamilton


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"Each of us has a natural right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property."

Frederic Bastiat

"The sacred rights of property are to be guarded at every point. I call them sacred, because, if

they are unprotected, all other rights become worthless or visionary. What is personal liberty, if it

does not draw after it the right to enjoy the fruits of our own industry? What is political liberty, if

it imparts only perpetual poverty to us and all our posterity? What is the privilege of a vote, if the

majority of the hour may sweep away the earnings of our whole lives, to gratify the rapacity of

the indolent, the cunning, or the profligate, who are borne into power upon the tide of a

temporary popularity?"

Judge Joseph Story, 1852

No person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shallprivate property be taken for public use without just compensation."

Article 5, The Bill of Rights

"Law is often the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."

Thomas Jefferson to I. Tiffany, 1819


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"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all

from which the laws ought to restrain him. ...the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into

society we give up any natural rights."

Thomas Jefferson - from a letter to Francis W. Gilmor, July 7, 1786

"It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law so much as for the right."

Henry David Thoreau (1849)

"A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God

has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins."

Benjamin Franklin

"We must pity the poor wretched, timid soul who is too faint-hearted to resist his oppressors. He

sings the song of the dammed: "I can't fight back; I have too much to lose; I own too muchproperty; I have worked too hard to get what I have; They will put me out of business if I resist; I

might go to jail; I have my family to think about." Such poor miserable creatures have misplaced

values and are hiding their cowardice behind pretended family responsibility - blindly refusing to

see that the most glorious legacy that one can bequeath to posterity is liberty; and that the only

true security is liberty." - Cooley

"..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires in people's minds.."

Samuel Adams


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"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

Henry David Thoreau

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare

already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our

country.

Thomas Jefferson (1812 )

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 war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of

corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour 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.

Abraham Lincoln (1865)

But were not a democracy. Its a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of

democracy to call us that. In reality, were a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy.

Ramsey Clark (former U.S. Attorney General interview in The Sun magazine, August, 2001 )

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any

other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country."


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- Theodore Roosevelt

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers

has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson"

Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance

and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to

befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the

statesmanship of the day."

- Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906

We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the

hands of the few. We cannot have both.

Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice from 1916-1939

Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to

reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the

people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience...


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John Locke (1690) 2nd Treatise on Government Chapter 19, paragraph 222

The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are

not behind the scenes.

Benjamin Disraeli ( First Jewish Prime Minister of England)1844

Poor people have access to the courts in the same sense that the Christians had access to thelions.

Judge Earl Johnson, Jr.

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are

afraid of the light." - Plato

"We are a republic. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of democracy."

- Alexander Hamilton.

"Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their

centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their

bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their

pious moralizations! And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so

many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: MAY THEY


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REJECT ALL SYSTEMS, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and

His works."

- "THE LAW" by Fredrick Bastiat

Should we wander from [the essential principles of our government] in moments of error or

alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty,

and prosperity.

- Thomas Jefferson (1801)

All truth passes through three stages:

First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear

is the beginning of wisdom.

- Bertrand Russell

[QUOTES ON WAR]


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War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to

profit from it. George Orwell

"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount... The world

has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about

living."

- General Omar N. Bradley

"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that

matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who

determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a

democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no

voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have

to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotismand exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

- Hermann Goering, President of the Reichstag, Nazi Party, and Luftwaffe Commander in Chief

"We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is

not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn

into a trial of the causes of the war for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify

resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy."


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- James Madison, April 20, 1795

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to

liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of

tyranny at home

- James Madison

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign

enemy."

- James Madison, while a United States Congressman

A History of Corporate Rule and Popular Protest

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the

safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era 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." -- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (letter to Col. William

F. Elkins) Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)

A new populist movement has emerged to challenge corporate power and call for a more

equitable economic order that protects traditional cultures and ecosystems and promotes

sustainability.


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Extracted from Nexus Magazine(Oct-Nov 2002)

PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. [email protected]

Telephone: +61 (0)7 5442 9280; Fax: +61 (0)7 5442 9381

From our web page at: www.nexusmagazine.com

by Richard Heinberg 2002

Editor/Publisher

MuseLetter

1604 Jennings Avenue

Santa Rosa, CA 95401, USA

Email: [email protected]

Website: http://www.museletter.com

The corporation was invented early in the colonial era as a grant of privilege extended by the

Crown to a group of investors, usually to finance a trade expedition. The corporation limited theliability of investors to the amount of their investment--a right not held by ordinary citizens.

Corporate charters set out the specific rights and obligations of the individual corporation,

including the amount to be paid to the Crown in return for the privilege granted.

Thus were born the East India Company, which led the British colonisation of India, and

Hudson's Bay Company, which accomplished the same purpose in Canada. Almost from the

beginning, Britain deployed state military power to further corporate interests--a practice that has

continued to the present. Also from the outset, corporations began pressuring government to

expand corporate rights and to limit corporate responsibilities.

The corporation was a legal invention--a socio-economic mechanism for concentrating and

deploying human and economic power. The purpose of the corporation was and is to generate

profits for its investors. As an entity, it has no other purpose; it acknowledges no higher value.


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The authors quote Julianna, a Lowell, Massachusetts, factory worker, who wrote: "Incarcerated

within the walls of a factory, while as yet mere children, drilled there from five till seven o'clock,

year after year.what, we would ask, are we to expect, the same system of labor prevailing, will be

the mental and intellectual character of future generations.a race fit only for corporation toolsand time-serving slaves?... Shall we not hear the response from every hill and vale: 'Equal rights,

or death to the corporations'?"

Industrialists and bankers hired private armies to keep workers in line, bought newspapers and

(quoting Grossman and Adams again): ".painted politicians as villains and businessmen as

heroes. Bribing state legislators, they then announced legislators were corrupt, that they used too

much of the public's resources and time to scrutinise every charter application and corporate

operation. Corporate advocates campaigned to replace existing chartering laws with generalincorporation laws that set up simple administrative procedures, claiming this would be more

efficient. What they really wanted was the end of legislative authority over charters."

During the Civil War, government spending brought corporations unprecedented wealth.

"Corporate managers developed the techniques and the ability to organise production on an ever

grander scale," according to Grossman and Adams. "Many corporations used their wealth to take

advantage of war and Reconstruction years to get the tariff, banking, railroad, labor, and public

lands legislation they wanted."

In 1886, the US Supreme Court declared that corporations were henceforth to be considered

"persons" under the law, with all of the constitutional rights that designation implies.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, passed to give former slaves equal rights, has

been invoked approximately ten times more frequently on behalf of corporations than on behalf

of African Americans. Likewise the First Amendment, guaranteeing free speech, has been

invoked to guarantee corporations the "right" to influence the political process through campaigncontributions, which the courts have equated with "speech".

If corporations are "persons", they are persons with qualities and powers that no flesh-and-blood

human could ever possess--immortality, the ability to be in many places at once, and


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(increasingly) the ability to avoid liability. They are also "persons" with no sense of moral

responsibility, since their only legal mandate is to produce profits for their investors.

Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, corporations reshaped every aspect of life inAmerica and much of the rest of the world. The factory system turned self-sufficient small

farmers into wage-earners and transformed the family from an interdependent economic

production unit to a consumption-oriented collection of individuals with separate jobs.

Advertising turned productive citizens into "consumers". Business leaders campaigned to create

public schools to train children in factory-system obedience to schedules and in the performance

of isolated, meaningless tasks. Meanwhile, corporations came to own and dominate sources of

information and entertainment, and to control politicians and judges.

During two periods, corporations faced a challenge: the 1890s (a depression period when

Populists demanded regulation of railroad rates, heavy taxation of land held only for speculation,

and an increase in the money supply), and the 1930s (when a profound crisis of capitalism led

hundreds of thousands of workers and armies of the unemployed to demand government

regulation of the economy and to win a 40-hour week, a minimum-wage law, the right to

organise, and the outlawing of child labour). But in both cases, corporate capitalism emerged

intact.

In the words of historian Howard Zinn : "The rich still controlled the nation's wealth, as well asits laws, courts, police, newspapers, churches, colleges. Enough help had been given to enough

people to make Roosevelt a hero to millions, but the same system that had brought depression

and crisis.remained."2

World War II, like previous wars, brought huge profits to corporations via government contracts.

But following this war, military spending was institutionalised, ostensibly to fight the "Cold

War". Despite occasional regulatory setbacks, corporations seized ever more power, and

increasingly transcended national boundaries, loyalties and sovereignties altogether.

GLOBAL PILLAGE


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In the 1970s, capitalism faced yet another challenge as postwar growth subsided and profits fell.

The US was losing its dominant position in world markets; the production of oil from its

domestic wells was peaking and beginning to fall, thus making America increasingly dependent

upon oil imports from Arab countries; the Vietnam War had weakened the American economy;

and Third World countries were demanding a "North-South dialogue" leading towards greater

self-reliance for poorer countries. President Nixon responded by doing away with fixed currency

exchange rates and devaluing the dollar, largely erasing US war debts to other countries. Later,

newly elected President Reagan, at the 1981 Cancn, Mexico, meeting of 22 heads of state,

refused to discuss new financial arrangements with the Third World, thus effectively endorsing

their further exploitation by corporations.

Meanwhile, the corporations themselves also responded with a new strategy. Increased capital

mobility (made possible by floating exchange rates and new transportation, communication and

production technologies) allowed US corporations to move production offshore to "exportprocessing zones" in poorer countries. Corporations also undertook a restructuring process,

moving toward "networked production"--in which big firms, while retaining and consolidating

power, hired smaller firms to take over aspects of supply, manufacture, accounting and transport.

(Economist Bennett Harrison defined networked production as "concentration of control

combined with decentralization of production".) This restructuring process is also known as

"downsizing", because it results in the shedding of higher-paid employees by large corporations

and the hiring of low-wage contingent workers by smaller subcontractors.

Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello write in Global Village or Global Pillage that: "As the

economic crisis deepened, there gradually evolved.a 'supra-national policy arena' which included

new organizations like the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations and NAFTA and new roles for

established international organisations like EU, IMF, World Bank, and GATT. The policies

adopted by these international institutions allowed corporations to lower their costs in several

ways. They reduced consumer, environmental, health, labor, and other standards. They reduced

business taxes. They facilitated the move to lower wage areas and threat of such movement. And

they encouraged the expansion of markets and the 'economies of scale' provided by larger-scale

production."3

All of this has led to a globalised economy in which (again quoting Brecher and Costello): "All

over the world, people are being pitted against each other to see who will offer global

corporations the lowest labor, social, and environmental costs. Their jobs are being moved to

places with inferior wages, lower business taxes, and more freedom to pollute. Their employers

are using the threat of 'foreign competition' to hold down wages, salaries, taxes, and


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environmental protections and to replace high-quality jobs with temporary, part-time, insecure,

and low-quality jobs. Their government officials are justifying cuts in education, health, and

other services as necessary to reduce business taxes in order to keep or attract jobs."

Corporations, no longer bound by national laws, prowl the world looking for the best deals on

labour and raw materials. Of the world's top 120 economies, nearly half are corporations, not

countries. Thus the power of citizens in any nation to control corporations through whatever

democratic processes are available to them is receding quickly.

In November 1999, tens of thousands of students, union members and indigenous peoples

gathered in Seattle to protest a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This mass

demonstration seemed to signal the birth of a new global populist uprising against corporate

globalisation. In the three years since then, more mass demonstrations--some larger, many

smaller--have occurred in Genoa, Melbourne, Milan, Montreal, Philadelphia, Washington and

other cities.

In January 2001, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney took office, following a deeply flawed US

election. With strong ties to the oil industry and to the huge energy-trading corporation Enron,

the new administration quickly proposed a national energy policy that focused on opening

federally protected lands for oil exploration and on further subsidising the oil industry.

Enron, George W. Bush's largest campaign contributor, was the seventh largest corporation in

the US and the 16th largest in the world. Despite its reported massive profits, it had paid no taxes

in four out of the previous five years. The company had thousands of offshore partnerships,

through which it had hidden over a billion dollars in debt. When this hidden debt was disclosed

in October 2001, the company imploded. Its share price collapsed and its credit rating was

slashed. Its executives resigned in disgrace, taking with them multimillion-dollar bonuses, while

employees and stockholders shouldered the immense financial loss. Enron's bankruptcy was the

largest in corporate history up to that time, but its creative accounting practices appear to be far

from unique, with dozens of other corporations poised for a similar collapse.

Following the outrageous and tragic attacks of September 11, Bush launched a "War on Terror",

raising the listed number of potential target countries from three to nearly 50, most having

exportable energy resources. With Iraq (holder of the world's second-largest proven petroleum


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reserves) high on the list of enemy regimes to be violently overthrown, the Bush administration's

Terror War appeared to be geared toward making the world safe for the expanded reach of US

oil corporations. Meanwhile, new laws and executive orders curtailed constitutional rights and

erected screens of secrecy around government actions and decision-making processes.

It remains to be seen how the American populace will react to these new developments. Here

again, a little history may help us understand the options available.

HURDLES IN THE PATH

The Populism of the 1890s failed for two main reasons: divisiveness within, and co-optation

from without. While many Populist leaders saw the need for unity among people of different

racial and ethnic backgrounds in attacking corporate power, racism was strong among many

whites. Most of the Alliance leaders were white farm owners who failed in many instances to

support the organising efforts of poor rural blacks, and poor whites as well, thus dividing the

movement.

"On top of the serious failures to unite blacks and whites, city workers and country farmers,"writes Howard Zinn, "there was the lure of electoral politics. Once allied with the Democratic

party in supporting William Jennings Bryan for President in 1896.the pressure for electoral

victory led Populism to make deals with the major parties in city after city. If the Democrats

won, it would be absorbed. If the Democrats lost, it would disintegrate. Electoral politics brought

into the top leadership the political brokers instead of the agrarian radicals... In the election of

1896, with the Populist movement enticed into the Democratic party, Bryan, the Democratic

candidate, was defeated by William McKinley, for whom the corporations and the press

mobilised, in the first massive use of money in an election campaign."4

Today, a new populist movement could easily fall prey to the same internal divisions and tactical

errors that destroyed its counterpart a century ago. In the recent American presidential election,

populists faced the choice of supporting their own candidate (Ralph Nader) and thereby

contributing to the election of the far-right, pro-corporate Republican candidate (Bush), or

supporting the centrist Gore and seeing their movement co-opted by pro-corporate Democrats.


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Meanwhile, though African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, European

Americans and Native Americans have all been victimised by corporations, class divisions and

historical resentments often prevent them from organising to further their common interests. In

recent elections, ultra-right candidate Pat Buchanan appealed simultaneously to "populist" anti-corporate and anti-government sentiments among the working class, as well as to xenophobic

white racism. Buchanan's critique of corporate power was shallow, but it was often the only such

critique permitted in the corporate-controlled media. One cannot help but wonder: were the

corporations looking for a lightning rod to rechannel the anger building against them?

While Buchanan had no chance of winning the presidency, his candidacy did raise the spectre of

another kind of solution to the emerging crisis of popular resentment against the system--a

solution that again has roots in the history of the past century.

A FALSE REVOLUTION

In the early 1900s, workers in Italy and Germany built strong unions and won substantial

concessions in wages and work conditions; still, after World War I they suffered under a

disastrous postwar economy, which fanned unrest. During the early 1920s, heavy industry andbig finance were in a state of near-total collapse. Bankers and agribusiness associations offered

financial support to Mussolini--who had been a socialist before the war--to seize state power,

which he effectively did in 1922 following his march on Rome. Within two years, the Fascist

Party (from the Latin fasces, meaning a bundle of rods and an axe, symbolising Roman state

power) had shut down all opposition newspapers, crushed the socialist, liberal, Catholic,

democratic and republican parties (which had together commanded about 80 per cent of the

vote), abolished unions, outlawed strikes and privatised farm cooperatives.

In Germany, Hitler led the Nazi Party to power, then cut wages and subsidised industries.

In both countries, corporate profits ballooned. Understandably, given their friendliness to big

business, Fascism and Nazism were popular among some prominent American industrialists


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(such as Henry Ford) and opinion shapers (like William Randolph Hearst).

Fascism and Nazism relied on centrally controlled propaganda campaigns that cleverly co-optedthe language of the Left (the Nazis called themselves the National Socialist German Workers

Party--while persecuting socialists and curtailing workers' rights). Both movements also made

calculated use of emotionally charged symbolism: scapegoating minorities, appealing to mythic

images of a glorious national past, building a leader cult, glorifying war and conquest, and

preaching that the only proper role of women is as wives and mothers.

As political theorist Michael Parenti points out, historians often overlook Fascism's economic

agenda--the partnership between Big Capital and Big Government--in their analysis of its

authoritarian social program. Indeed, according to Bertram Gross in his startlingly prescient

Friendly Fascism (1980), it is possible to achieve fascist goals within an ostensibly democratic

society.5 Corporations themselves, after all, are internally authoritarian (courts have ruled that

citizens give up their constitutional rights to free speech, freedom of assembly, etc., when they

are at work on corporate-owned property); and as corporations increasingly dominate politics,

media and economy, they can mould an entire society to serve the interests of a powerful elite

without ever resorting to stormtroopers and concentration camps. No deliberate conspiracy is

necessary, either: each corporation merely acts to further its own economic interests. If the

populace shows signs of restlessness, politicians can be hired to appeal to racial resentments and

memories of national glory, dividing popular opposition and inspiring loyalty.

In the current situation, "friendly fascism" works somewhat as follows. Corporations drive down

wages and pay a dwindling share of taxes (through mechanisms outlined above), gradually

impoverishing the middle class and creating unrest. As corporate taxes are cut, politicians

(whose election was funded by corporate donors) argue that it is necessary to reduce government

services in order to balance the budget. Meanwhile, the same politicians argue for an increase in

the repressive functions of government (more prisons, harsher laws, more executions, more

military spending). Politicians channel the middle class's rising resentment away from

corporations and toward the government (which, after all, is now less helpful and more

repressive than it used to be) and against social groups easy to scapegoat (criminals, minorities,

teenagers, women, gays, immigrants).


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Meanwhile, debate in the media is kept superficial (elections are treated as sporting contests),

and right-wing commentators are subsidised while left-of-centre ones are marginalised. People

who feel cheated by the system turn to the Right for solace, and vote for politicians who further

subsidise corporations, cut government services, expand the repressive power of the state and

offer irrelevant scapegoats for social problems with economic roots. The process feeds on itself.

Within this scenario, George W. Bush (and similar ultra-right figures in other countries) are not

anomalies but, rather, predictable products of a strategy adopted by economic elites--harbingers

of a less-than-friendly future--as the more "moderate" tactics for the maintenance and

consolidation of power founder under the weight of corporate greed and resource exhaustion.

CAUSE FOR HOPE?

These circumstances are, in their details, unprecedented; but in broad outline we are seeing the

re-enactment of a story that goes back at least to the beginning of civilisation. Those with power

are always looking for ways to protect and extend it, and to make their power seem legitimate,

necessary or invisible so that popular protest seems unnecessary or futile. If protest comes, the

powerful always try to deflect anger away from themselves. The leaders of the new populist

movement appear to have a good grasp of both the current circumstances and the historical

ground from which these circumstances emerge. They seem to have realised that, in order to

succeed, the new populism will have to:

avoid being co-opted by existing political parties;

heal race, class and gender divisions and actively resist any campaign to scapegoat

disempowered social groups;

avoid being identified with an ideological category--"communist", "socialist" or "anarchist"--

against which most of the public is already well inoculated by corporate propaganda;

direct public discussion toward the most vulnerable link in the corporate chain of power: the

legal basis of the corporation;

internationalise the movement so that corporations cannot undermine it merely by shifting their

base of operations from one country to another.


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As Lawrence Goodwyn noted in his definitive work, The Populist Moment , the original

Populists were "attempting to construct, within the framework of American capitalism, some

variety of cooperative commonwealth". This was "the last substantial effort at structural

alteration of hierarchical economic forms in modern America".6

In announcing the formation of the Alliance for Democracy, in an article in the August 14, 1996

issue of The Nation, activist Ronnie Dugger compiled a list of policy suggestions which

comprise some of the core demands of the new populist movement. These include: a prohibition

of contributions or any other political activity by corporations; single-payer national health

insurance with automatic universal coverage; a doubling of the minimum wage, indexed to

inflation; a generic low-interest-rate national policy, entailing the abolition of the Federal

Reserve System; statutory reversal of the court-made law that corporations are "persons";

establishment of a national public oil company; limitations on ownership of newspapers,

magazines, radio and TV stations to one of any kind per person or owning entity; and the halvingof military spending. The new populists are, in Ronnie Dugger's words, "ready to resume the

cool eyeing of the corporations with a collective will to take back the powers they have seized

from us".7

The new populism draws some of its inspiration from the work of the Program on Corporations,

Law and Democracy (POCLAD), a populist "think-tank" that explores the legal basis of

corporate power. POCLAD believes that it is possible to control--and, if necessary, dismantle--

corporations by amending or revoking their charters.8

Since the largest corporations are now transnational in scope, the new populism must confront

their abuses globally. The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) was founded for this

purpose in 1994, as an alliance of 60 activists, scholars, economists and writers (including Jerry

Mander, Vandana Shiva, Richard Grossman, Ralph Nader, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Jeremy

Rifkin and Kirkpatrick Sale), to stimulate new thinking and joint action along these lines.

In a position statement drafted in 1995, the International Forum on Globalization said that it:

".views international trade and investment agreements, including the GATT, the WTO,

Maastricht and NAFTA, combined with the structural adjustment policies of the International

Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to be direct stimulants to the processes that weaken

democracy, create a world order in the control of transnational corporations and devastate the

natural world. The IFG will study, publish and actively advocate in opposition to the current rush


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toward economic globalization, and will seek to reverse its direction. Simultaneously, we will

advocate on behalf of a far more diversified, locally controlled, community-based economics.

We believe that the creation of a more equitable economic order--based on principles of

diversity, democracy, community and ecological sustainability--will require new international

agreements that place the needs of people, local economies and the natural world ahead of the

interests of corporations."9

Leaders of the new populism appear to realise that anti-corporatism is not a complete solution to

the world's problems; that the necessary initial focus on corporate power must eventually be

supplemented by a more general critique of centralising and unsustainable technologies, money-

based economics and current nation-state governmental structures, by efforts to protect

traditional cultures and ecosystems, and by a renewal of culture and spirituality.

It would be foolish to underestimate the immense challenges to the new populism from the

current US administration and from the jingoistic, bellicose post-September 11 public sentiment

fostered by the corporate media. Nevertheless, POCLAD, the Alliance for Democracy and the

IFG (along with dozens of human rights, environmental and anti-war organisations around the

world) provide important rallying points for citizens' self-defence against tyranny in its most

modern, invisible, effective and even seductive forms.

Endnotes:

1. Grossman, Richard and Frank Adams, Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter

of Incorporation,

2. Zinn, Howard, A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present , Harper Perennial,

2001.

3. Brecher, Jeremy and Tim Costello, Global Village or Global Pillage: Economic

Reconstruction from the Bottom Up , South End Press, 1998.

4. Zinn, op. cit.

5. Gross, Bertram, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America , South End Press,

1998.

6. Goodwyn, Lawrence, The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in

America , Oxford University Press, 1978.


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7. The Alliance for Democracy website, http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/.

8. POCLAD website, http://www.poclad.org.

9. IFG pamphlet, 1995; revised position statement at IFG website, http://www.ifg.org.

About the Author:

Richard Heinberg is a journalist, educator, editor, lecturer and musician. He has lectured widely

and appeared on national radio and TV in five countries. He is a core faculty member of New

College of California, where he teaches courses on Culture, Ecology and Sustainable

Community.

He is the author of: "Memories and Visions of Paradise "; "Celebrate the Solstice "; "A NewCovenant with Nature "; and "Cloning the Buddha: the Moral Impact of Biotechnology". His

next book, "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies", is to be published by

New Society in March 2003. His essays have been featured in The Futurist, Intuition,

Brain/Mind Bulletin, Magical Blend, New Dawn and elsewhere.

Richard is also author/editor/publisher of MuseLetter, a highly regarded monthly, subscription-

only, alternative newsletter which is now in its tenth year of publication. MuseLetter's purpose is

"to offer a continuing critique of corporate-capitalist industrial civilization and a re-visioning ofhumanity's prospects for the next millennium". His article, "A History of Corporate Rule and

Popular Protest", was originally published in MuseLetter in 1996 as "The New Populism", and

was revised in August 2002. Visit the MuseLetter website at http://www.museletter.com.

Our Hidden History of Corporations in the United States

CORPORATE GREED, CORRUPTION, & THE COMING COLLAPSE OF AMERICA AS

WE KNOW IT


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Bakan, an internationally recognized legal scholar and professor of law at the University of

British Columbia, takes a powerful stab at the most influential institution of our time, the

corporation. As a legal entity, a corporation has as its edict one and only one goal, to create

profits for its shareholders, without legal or moral obligation to the welfare of workers, the

environment, or the well-being of society as a whole. Corporations have successfully hijacked

governments, promoting free-market solutions to virtually all of the concerns of human

endeavor. Competition and self-interest dominate, and other aspects of human nature, such as

creativity, empathy, and the ability to live in harmony with the earth, are suppressed and even

ridiculed. Bakan believes that, like Communism, this ideological order cannot last and that

corporate rule must be challenged to bring balance and revive the values of democracy, social

justice, equality, and compassion. This eye-opening look at a system "programmed to exploit

others for profit" has been made into a provocative film documentary that could be the next

Bowling for Columbine. David Siegfried Copyright American Library Association. All rights

reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Unequal Protection should be in the hands of every thinking American. If we do not awaken

soon, democracy will be replaced by a new 'Third Reich' of corporate tyranny. To be aware of

the danger is the responsibility of each of us. No one has told us the truth better than Thom

Hartmann. Read it!"--Gerry Spence, author of Give Me Liberty

Documents

Favorite Legal Quotations From the u.s. Supreme Court