Sally fowarded a Georgia student's "Corporate Bill of Rights".
Before the Bill of Rights came the Declaration of Independence. Here's
my take on an up to date reading. (Non-USA readers unfamiliar with
American historical documents and who are sufficiently entertained may
want to look up the original, obsolete version of 1776 on Project
Gutenberg or elsewhere.)
- Mike
---
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Action of the Organization for Econonomic Cooperation and
Development (or the WTO, or whatever: you don't need to know),
July 4, 1997
The unanimous Declaration of the umpteen Fattest Cats in the World
WHEN in the Course of financial Events, it becomes necessary for
one Economy to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected
it with Useless Human Beings, and to assume among the Powers of
the Earth, the separate and superior Station to which the Laws of
Unfettered Capitalism and of Capitalism's God entitle them, a
decent Respect to the Opinions of Corporate Executives requires
that they should declare the causes which impel them to the
Separation.
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Corporations
are created on a level playing field, that they are endowed by
their pathetic Human Creators with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Free Flow of Capital, unfettered Liberty to
Commoditize Everything and the Pursuit of Maximum Profits -- That
to secure these Rights, Governments instituted among Men are a
pesky nuisance, deriving their Silly Putative Powers from the
Consent of a bunch of Inefficient Proles, that whenever any Form
of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right
of Corporations to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a New
World Order, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and
organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their unrestraind control of everything.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and
accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Corporations are more
disposed to suffer, while restraints are sufferable, than to take
control by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But
when a long Train of regulations and taxations pursuing
invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to subject them to a
tiny bit of Public responsibility, it is their Right, it is their
Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for
their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of
these Corporations; and such is now the Necessity which
constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The
History of the present Head of your Stupid Little Nation State
and Your Bibulous, Nattering Legislature, is a History of
repeated Consessions and Corruptions, all having in direct Object
the hope of sucking up a few crumbs of Profit that rightly belong
to Us . To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a World of
Suckers powerless to do anything about them.
HE has promised his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and
necessary for Corporate Growth:
HE has promised to forbid his Governors to pass Laws that might
irritate Chief Financial Officers, and promised to suspended in
their Operation those that already exist. And until then, he has
agreed utterly to neglected to attend to them:
HE has promised to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large
Corporations and Consortia, and to guarantee the Right of
Representation for them but not for anybody else, a Right
inestimable to them, and formidable to Simple Consumers only.
HE has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the Scrutiny of the Public, for
the sole Purpose of distracting the Public with emotional
controversies while these Measures are implemented.
HE has undermined Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing
with Insufferabl Uppitiness his Invasions on the Rights of
the Corporate Persons.
HE has refused for a long Time, to allow any others to be elected
who might afflict his Corporate Masters; whereby the Needs of
Human Beings, incapable of opposing massive corporate lobbying,
have been left to the People, their families and overworked
volunteers for their provision; the State remaining in the mean
time exposed to all the Opportunities of Invasion from without,
and the Corporate Exploitation within.
HE has, to his everlasting credit, endeavoured to prevent the
Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws
barring the Naturalization of Foreign Corporations; cheerfully
passing others to encourage their Investments hither, and raising
Interest Rates to maintain Salubrious Unemployment levels.
HE has guaranteed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his
Assent to Laws that might annoy Corporations.
HE has made the Government dependent on his Will alone, for the
Tenure of its Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their
Salaries, sufficiently inflated that they will shut up and fall
into line.
HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms
of Officers to harrass People, and eat out their Substance,
leaving Corporate Profits and Powers undisturbed.
HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies of
unemployed workers, thereby keeping wages low.
HE has affected to render the Fincial Establishment independent
of and superior to the Civil Power.
HE has combined with others to subject us to no Jurisdiction but
that beyond Democratic control, and unacknowledged by silly
Democratic Laws; giving his Assent to our Acts of corruption:
FOR helping us employ large Bodies of low-wage workers wherever
we can find them:
FOR protecting us, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any
Environmental Depredations which we should commit on the
Inhabitants of any State or Region:
FOR cutting off all restraint on our Trade with all Parts of the
World:
FOR imposing Taxes and Responsibilities on individuals without
their Consent, but not on Us:
FOR depriving Human Resources, in most Cases, of the Benefits of
any protection from Corporate Exploitation:
FOR letting Us transport jobs beyond Seas where poverty-stricken
former farmers can be hired for a pittance:
FOR abolishing the free System of English (or any) Laws wherever
they may hinder Corporate Investment or Profit, establishing
thereby an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so
as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for
introducing the same absolute Rules into every corner of the
Earth:
FOR giving us our Charters, abolishing the most odious Laws,
and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
FOR suspending Public Interests, and declaring them
"Special Interests" in all Cases whatsoever.
HE has abdicated Government here, by declaring us the sole
beneficiaries of his Protection and waging War on our behalf.
HE has allowed us to plunder the Seas, ravage the Coasts, poison
whole Towns, and destroy the Lives of People.
HE is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of bureaucrats to
compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Free Trade, already
begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy by the NAFTA and
GATT, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally
without regard to any self-important little Nation State.
HE has helped our fellow Corporate Citizens to become the
Executioners of thousands of peasants, Natives and useless
workers (since we don't have any Friends and Brethren), or
persuaded their progeny to fall themselves by their Own
Hands.
HE has excited domestic Insurrections amongst perfervid
demagogues, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of
your country, the merciless Lawyers, whose known Rule of Warfare,
is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and
Conditions.
IN every stage of this Exuberance, we have Petitioned for More of
the Same in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have
been answered as hastily as possible. A Prince, whose Character
is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is is Just
What We Need to be the Ruler of formerly free Peoples.
NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren.
We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Labour
Party to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have
reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and
Settlement everywhere. We have appealed to their native Justice
and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our
common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would
inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They
have so far been deaf to the Voice of Leftist Socialist Commie
Pinkos. But We must acquiesce in the Necessity, which announces
our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind,
Hostage to Financial Blackmail, lest they listen to Pinkos,
Leftists or Humanitarians.
WE, therefore, the Representatives of the Conspiring Corporate
Persons of the World, in SECRET NEGOTIATIONS, Assembled,
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World (The Guiding Hand of
Free Markets) for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the
Name, and by Authority of the Greedy Psychopathic Corporate
Persons of the World, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these
United Corporations are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND
INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to
the Anybody Whatsoever, and that all political Connection between
them and the any Pathetic National Government, is and ought to be
totally dissolved (except in those cases where We are completely
In Charge of Things and can get Splendid Handouts); and that as
FREE AND INDEPENDENT CORPORATE PERSONS, We have full Power to
levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce,
and to do all other Acts and Things which Hopelessly Inadequate
Natural Persons were formerly of right do. And for the support
of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of a
malicious and pigheaded reading of Adam Smith, we mutually pledge
to each other our Investments, our Fortunes, and our Sacred
Market Ratings.
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